feature image via shutterstock

If Facebook is any indicator – oh, and I bet Mark Zuckerberg just loooves to think so – the assertion that LGBTQ people are adopting a lifestyle is as popular as ever. As if people would choose to be ostracized! Often times people who cling to this opinion that your sexuality is something you choose, offer it as a standalone thought independent of relevant conversation, like they absolutely must have you know at once about their conditional support of you.

I feel for these people because, well, it’s embarrassing to be so boldly wrong, so publicly. I want to help these people! Maybe it’s just that no one’s made the distinction for them yet. For example, someone had to recently explain to me — after seven years on Twitter — that the home button is a birdhouse and you start out with an egg avi. LIFE CAN BE A MYSTERY UNTIL IT IS NOT. So to aid in this journey to the light, here’s a list of things that are more a lifestyle than my sexuality.

1. The KonMari organizational method

2. Being in a perpetual state of growing out your bangs

3. Vegetarianism

4. Maneuvering around the ethics behind your vegetarianism on a daily basis to convince yourself it’s fine you’re not also vegan

5. Being a person that wears hats

6. A flying under the radar approach to life where you’re not so bad that people want to correct you but also not so good that people expect too much out of you

7. Refusing to watch The Wire

8. Toggling your trust in your sun or rising sign based on the better of the two horoscope readings that day/week

9. Being an adult napper

10. Composting

11. Knowing it’s not ideal for group shots but still not smiling in pictures

12. Using Dr. Bronner’s castile soap for its intended purpose (everything)

13. Knowing that people are separated into Beatles fans and Rolling Stones fans and being neither

14. Cutting your own hair

15. Never using a daily planner

16. Using the water refill stations in grocery stores and the dozens of empty gallon sized jugs dispersed throughout your kitchen that come along with it

17. Avoiding anything Taylor Swift related

18. Feeling exactly 16 hours behind on everything always

19. Value Village

20. Couponing

21. Self-care as a gateway to full on sabotage

22. Moving every few years

23. Clearing out your emails as you read them (which you do constantly)

24. Being up for any and all forms of rejection

25. Drinking coffee after 3pm

26. The mantra “choose peace, girl”