Hello Kitty is THE gay sign!

Today I ran into a very odd situation that is, now, after 1.5 hours, making me think.

I moved into another office today, and at the end of my work day one of my colleagues now sitting next to me saw the Hello Kitty sticker on my keyboard. She hestitated and then said shook her head in disbelief. She's a humorous person usually, I have no idea what was so terribly strange about a Hello Kitty sticker. In that moment another colleagues called me, and she answered the phone, telling him that she couldn't believe I had a Hello Kitty sticker on my keyboard, and asked whether he knew about this. They talked for a few seconds, and it was all fun. I like to put people off with Hello Kitty; it's cute.

After those seconds she hands the phone over to me, and I said jokingly to him that I wasn't sure whether I could still work with him. He went, "Uh? Why's that?", and I replied, "Well simply because you don't like my Hello Kitty sticker!"

And here comes the odd thing. He said, "Oh no no, I didn't say anything bad. I just told her that I attributed this liking of yours to your special orientation, and I would never have a problem with that." Or something like that.

Now, here's what made me think. Let's assume that he wasn't only joking, and I am not sure how much joke was in there. I wouldn't have any problem with his disapproval of my being gay. If he wasn't fine with that he wouldn't have to deal with it.

Here's what I find very odd:

This man, apparently at least to a certain degree serious, seems to assume that being gay is likely to make you like Hello Kitty. That is such an odd thing that I don't even know how to start discussing it. Little girls like Hello Kitty. How would a gay man, because of his liking men, like the same things little girls like, especially if he's not exactly queeny, which I assume the case to be with me? And of course he cannot know this but a good straight friend of mine loves Hello Kitty for pretty much the same reason as I do, namely for putting a strong contrast to contexts such as the office.

"Hey, he likes Hello Kitty." -- "Sure he does. He's gay."

/me shrugs, shaking his head in disbelief.