How can I be less heteronormative?

[Anonymous]

I find myself (when talking to girlfriend) that I assume they're dating men instead of verifying first. It happened again today when talking to my roommate who is bi. I had asked about a guy she mentioned previously but she corrected me saying they were a girl not a guy * and that she's bi. Which she's told me before and I knew that but still assumed by accident. I'm trying to be better at that but still mess up sometimes. Does anyone have tips or similar experiences?

[Effably]

There are three ways around this. Two I think are good and one is just to have it said.

The said one: Employ some memory technique to remember sexual orientation of people.

The good ones in my opinion are as follows.

The one I use: I default to partner rather than boyfriend, girlfriend etc. An added benefit is that you never have to be wrong about relationship status. Dating? Couple? Living together? Apart? Kids? Married? Still partners.

The other option: Just up the interest. You just said boyfriend and got corrected that it is a girlfriend? -> "Girlfriend? Niiice! I knew you had some game! Tell me..." so on. The rule really is that anyone having an issue with your assumption would be due to having to explain things, worry about validation so on. You instantly reaffirming and supporting them settles that. If they still take offense? They're probably horrible people to 'outsiders' and you got to see a red flag early.

And lastly as the other post said: Assuming a statistical likelihood isn't really wrong. While we should all strive to not assume too much, reality is also that without assumptions and inductive reasoning we'd all get near nothing done.

[NamerOfStars]

Try being part of a species that isn't 94% percent heterosexual. You guessed a gender incorrectly; it's not that big a deal.

[MrTaboo]

Because that's normal.