Weddings and The Straight Gaze

So it's been a busy wedding season for me... or my friends I should say.

Two weeks ago, a colleage from the office married his longtime girlfriend. Today, two good friends are getting married, and I'll be going to the wedding.

One thing that I find so funnily awkward is the inevitable conversation at the reception table about who's single, who's not, whose turn is next to settle down. They go around the table, and eventually get to you (who they know to be LGBT and single) and then there's the awkward stumbling/silence. Response comes in any of these forms.

"Well you're out there having fun. One day you'll settle down" (as if all LGBT people are living this hedonistic, swinging-from-the-ceiling-fan life.)

Or the...

"Well, your career is going so well, you don't want to let someone mess that up."

Something like that. I'm sure you can insert your own responses you've heard at weddings or from colleagues when it comes to your LGBTness and the straight gaze.

It's kinda like the awkward moment in winter time, when you catch a cold, and though you're perfectly healthy and with no long-term illness or health issues affecting you, the straights think something else is going on, and that you do have a long-term or terminal illness... just because you're LGBT. I don't know about you, but you can just hear the suspicions in their thoughts and questions.

Or maybe I'm just a little too critical/paranoid of the straight gaze on LGBT people?
fs