If I took a quiz seeking reassurance I was straight, I would get it. I remember knowing what the answer would be before finishing every quiz it was always exactly what I wanted it to be. In retrospect, maybe I should have known who I was the first time I went looking for a quiz called “Am I gay?” But I didn’t. The older I got, the less confident I felt in how well I knew myself, and the more I looked outward for anything that might provide clues. (extremely popular) and he was nice about it, but it was humiliating for us both.Ĭollege graduation is the natural end of most people’s association with the multiple-choice quiz, but I couldn’t stop taking them.
My habit started in middle school, in the backs of magazines like CosmoGirl and Seventeen and Teen Vogue, where short quizzes promised girls guidance on issues ranging from “Does he like you?” to “How much does he like you?” Each Valentine’s Day in high school, our first-period teachers would pass out Scantron forms for a service called CompuDate, which promised to match each hormonal teenager with her most compatible classmate of the opposite sex, without regard for the social consequences. When they weren’t available or got sick of me, I turned to another lifelong source of support and comfort: the multiple-choice quiz. I knew I was doing something wrong but didn’t know what.
