Hey, remember back in December when Dear Abby wrote a horribly biphobic response to a letter about a woman who got dumped right before her wedding because she was bi, and whose parents were… being supremely shitty about it?
And it would seem that I am not the only person who that letter pissed off, because this week, Dear Abby published an apologia of sorts. I guess Big Bisexual came after her and gave her a lecture, because now she is up to speed on all the Bisexual Myths™️ and how to Bust™️ them.
And, like… it’s fine? I guess? It’s better than bad. It’s good that someone, ahem, called Abigail Van Buren in and got her to see that she was being super hateful and gross, but the end result is… lukewarm at best, I guess. If anything, it just leaves me feeling embarrassed that it’s 2024 and a leading advice columnist just learned that bi is not a one way ticket to Gay Town, and that bi people aren’t destined to cheat.
Biphobia runs deep, I guess.
But I think what’s more interesting to me, honestly, is that one of the most crucial aspects of why Dear Abby’s advice was so bad — her contempt for someone who just got dumped before her wedding, her inability to conceive of the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone might be deeply hurting and in need of love and support rather than mocking lines about a “broken picker” in that moment — goes utterly uncommented on. That, apparently, is fine?
And yet honestly… I don’t actually think the cruelty of her original answer, and the biphobia of her original answer, are actually unrelated. Both seem rooted in an inability to imagine a world that is bigger than the one she personally knows, an inability to stretch her perceptions of how people might be beyond her own narrow and limited experiences. Which, honestly, seems… bad for an advice columnist?
But what do I know, I’m just an angry bi lady with a broken picker.
PS I am about to eat the Bisexual Oreos™️ and will report back soon.
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