Hello, my name is Tequila Rose and I’m a little. I love my stuffies and am always asking Daddy for more. I think juice tastes 100% better in my sippy cup. I love to color and feel that I can never have enough coloring pages, crayons, or colored pencils. I can spend countless hours sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons and singing along to their theme songs. I love my Disney and animated movies. I love Happy Meals, but only when they have an awesome toy. I babble and carry on about things that make absolutely no sense to any normal adult. I get jealous because Daddy gets the new blankie and I don’t.

I’m also an adult that has adult interests. I love reading big books. I love reading books that are only appropriate for a mature audience. I love Quentin Tarantino movies. I love having intelligent discussions with people about anything and everything. I have an unhealthy obsession with Outlander, Supernatural, The Magicians, and numerous other TV shows that I love. I occasionally enjoy having an adult beverage or two. Deadpool is now my favorite Marvel character EVER. I still get jealous because Daddy gets the new blanket and I don’t.

Every little you meet is just like me in the fact that they have interests as a little and they also have interests as adults. The problem is though, once someone comes out as a little, there’s a good chance that person is going to be pigeonholed as a little. And, I’m gonna tell ya, from personal experience, it sucks big time to be pigeonholed as anything. I’m pretty sure that a lot of others who have been pigeonholed (and don’t tell me you haven’t. This is one of those common occurrences that happens to everyone) has found it to be quite sucky as well.

So, you may be wondering, “Now Tequila, why does it suck to be seen only as a little?”. For me anyways, cause I can only speak for myself and not everyone, I’m not just a little. Yes, it’s a big part of who I am, but like I mentioned above, I have other interests. I have interests that have nothing to do with being little. I’m a slave and there are times where I’m in strictly a slave mindset. Being little isn’t me as an individual. Being little is part of me, not all of me.

When I’ve been pigeonholed as a little, a few things happen. The first thing is people no longer see me as an adult and with that being said, treat me like they would a three-year-old. They talk down to me like I may not understand certain comments or that I have no idea of responsibility. This so isn’t true because biologically, I am an adult. Despite at times having the mentality of a three-year-old, I know how to be responsible. I’m also an intelligent human being who has no problems grasping concepts and having an adult conversation. But for some reason, my love of My Little Pony and stuffed unicorns does something to people’s minds to make them think differently.

The next thing that tends to happen is I’m not taken seriously by others. I can say something but can tell by the facial expression of the person I’m talking to that they honestly believe I have no idea what I’m talking about and must be talking nonsense. It sucks a lot when someone takes away your voice. And not only taking away your voice but doing things for you that you are more than capable of doing yourself. They could be doing those things to be nice, but it can feel extremely frustrating and like they’re taking away your ability. I had this happen recently and I found myself wanting to stomp my foot and tell them that I can do the things they did for me myself, and this was a completely vanilla situation, but I felt very much like I was being treated like a child who couldn’t handle doing these things.

There are a lot of people in the lifestyle who don’t know how to understand, let alone handle littles and I don’t even want to begin what it’s like dealing with the vanilla folks when they get a sniff that you’re a bit different than them. It’s frustrating to be pigeonholed as only one thing or another. Like for some reason, people can’t be both, childlike and a responsible adult. Why does one have to be mutually exclusive from the other? LIke it’s perfectly possible for someone to be head over heels in love with the "Merc with a Mouth" and totally want to be BFFs with Star Butterfly. Just like it’s perfectly possible for me to take care of my responsibilities while wearing deer antlers or a crown from Burger King. And making a trip to the toy store to browse the stuffies in between of taking care of those responsibilities.

I know I’ve written an article similar to this, but I feel that this is something that is important to a lot of people who relate to being little. And it’s something that’s been on my heart lately and something I needed to get out. It’s really easy to brush someone off because of how they label themselves, but it’s important to remember that there is a lot more to a person than just that label.