Aaaah, The Heteros Are Taking Over!!!

I went out this weekend. For once, I got my shit together and I went out. Despite being tired and wanting to go to bed at about 9:30 pm I stayed the course. Sadly about half of the people at the birthday party I was attending did not follow through with our full night of dancing and drinking, but a small group of us managed to find the strengt to continue on. And I must say, I was pretty damn proud of myself when I sauntered home at 4 am, hearing the birds' chirping away in the early morning. However, I was also exhausted and slightly depressed. Why the sad face? Well, mainly because I was really really really hoping for something fun in the way of flirting/make-out session/one-night stand-wise to happen... and it didn't, at all.

But let's ignore my faulty flirting skills and how apparently unattractive I must be since no one hits on me and get to the part where I get to displace all the blame: I blame the heterosexuals. Not necessarily all of them. But definitely the ones that were at the club I attended Saturday night. Everywhere we turned, there they were. Hetero couples practically swallowing each other's tongues and grinding up against the walls. Cute girls that would peak my interest for a second before I noticed that they were nervously holding on tight to their boyfriend's hand (I swear, some of these couples will not let go of each other's hands ALL night. I mean, if you're straight and at a gay club: At least don't be so nervous that you can't give up showing off your heterosexual identity through your linking to your partner!). Blah.

Here's what I'm thinking:

1. In my city there are tons and tons of hetero clubs. There is exactly ONE weekly gay club. So goddamn it, leave my gay club alone straight people! Let it be gay and stop watering down the queerness of it.

2. With all those fag hags and other random hetero girls running around, a femmier type chick like myself has serious trouble getting recognized as gay. And duh, that's sort of the whole point of going to gay clubs: To be able to be seen for what you are and not viewed through that same old heterosexist lense that everyone in the straight world sees you through.

3. Honestly, when it's not just a few straight allies (as in genuine friends of gay people) coming along to the clubs (it's not like I'm pro a super segregated gay world/straight world) it get's to be a sort of circus-y, "come-look-at-the-freaks" kind of scene. I get the whole sense of "whoo, we're so tolerant and free-spirited, partying with the gays!", it bores me to tears.

Oh well, what the hell do I know. Maybe I'm just bitter beacuse the only attention I got was from a wrinkly woman who was leaving the club with her husband (yes, even old straight people were there) and stopped to tell me I was a beautiful girl as I was outside the club, having a smoke and telling The Ex off for passing up an awesome flirting opportunity.

Speaking of passing up opportunities! Good Guy is rumoured to have left the single club. It's just The Ex and me now, bitter as ever and both convinced that the other will leave us any day now.

(I truly do appologize about the bitterness of this entry. Sometimes straight people just piss me off. And couples. And happy people. Goddess, I hope I'm pms:ing so I have an excuse for this mood.)

The Education of Straight People: Part I

The other day The Ex stopped by my office to pick something up. For some of my co-workers this was the first time they met her and one male co-worker in particular (let's call him Mr. Tall) greeted her with a curious gaze and a "So you're the famous Ex". Another co-worker referred to her as my wife and I laughed and said "Yup, that's my wife".

After The Ex left Mr. Tall got this confused look on his face and asked about this whole wife thing. I misunderstood what he was aiming at and told him that "No, we're not actually married or anything, it's just an ongoing joke we've got about being like a married couple". He shook his head and said "No, no, I know you're not really married. But... is that terminology that gay people use? Wife?" My other co-worker intercepted with a "Duh, Mr. Tall, obviously! Gay people who are married use the same terminology as straight people." Mr. Tall responded: "Okay... But if she's your wife, than what are you to her?".

At which point my other co-worker and I looked at each other and just burst out laughing, since it finally hit us what he was angling at. It took us quite a while to gather ourselves enough to reply that obviously I am The Ex's wife as well, not her husband or anything else. And then we made fun of him for the rest of the day for being LGBT-illiterate.

Mr. Tall definitely owns up to being completely lost when it comes to gay stuff and is one of the people I have around me that I've had many many conversations with about these things. He's always respectful in this curiousity and tells me he's just never really had gay friends or acquaintances before that he could ask about these things. And I'm happy to participate in his LGBT-education, though I am careful to explain that I can only really speak from my own experiences and that I do not in any way speak for all gay people.

But I don't always feel like educating heteros on the lives of lesbians... Regardless, I figured I'd return from time to time with stories on silly, funny, ignorant, and down-right insulting Q & A:s I've had with straight people.

Singles Can Celebrate Valentine's Day Too!

That's what we did. We spent Valentine's Day alone together. And we didn't feel lonely at all.

The Ex, Good Guy and I (aka the few remaining singles in our group of friends) decided to celebrate that traditional, romantic, commercialized holiday in our own way. We cooked a fancy three course dinner and enjoyed it with delicious wine in candle light. It was romantic as anything! It was lovely not to be the pitied singles, but to instead be envied by our coupled friends for just one night. Yeah, that's right, the couples were envying the singles on Valentine's Day, how great is that?

Our appetizer, as seen above, was heart shaped and purdy. And it tasted lovely as well! All vegan, of course.

So what do three vegan singles discuss over Valentine's dinner? Well, various things, but a lot of time was spent geeking out over Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Good Guy just finished watching all seven seasons and now he's going through withdrawal... Oh, that horrible feeling of realizing you've seen every episode of Buffy that's ever been or will be made. Thank goodness for the season 8 comic. So of course, we watched some favorite episodes over desert. The Ex pined over Angel and Spike (she's bi), Good Guy drooled over Spike (he's totally straight, but I think he might make an exception for James Marster), and I drooled over all the fabulously hot women to make up for all the attention the men were getting. And I cried as we watched the final episode, "Chosen", as I always do.

I'll stop geeking out now. I'll just let it be known that this was by far the best Valentine's Day ever. It was sweet and wonderful and I recommend more people to have romantic dates with their friends, it's good for the soul.

On Being Social, But Still Lazy

I attempted to leave the comfort of my home this weekend, which was probably something that was very good for me. I've spent too many weekend nights sitting at home, watching tv and crocheting. It must stop!

The Ex lured me out Friday night by calling me up and pleading for me to come out with her and her class mates. She claimed they were starting to think that I didn't exist and she very sweetly referred to me as her "trofé ex", as in "check it out, I dated her". How could I say no to being paraded in front of her friends? So I changed my top (that's all the effort I was willing to make)and headed out to meet her at the release party they were at.

And a good party it was! Good music, lots of queerness (both in performances and in party goers). Lots and lots of eye candy. I made total eye contact with a very cute girl at the bar (long red dreads, so pretty), but that's were the lazy comes in. I was trying to push The Ex into making a move on one of the girls she was basically drooling over, but we quickly realized we're in the same space: Tired. We rarely go out, we're exhausted by school/work, and once we are out... Well, just being out and about amongst people demands all the energy we can muster up and thus there is no energy left for striking up a conversation with cute strangers. Or maybe it's all a tragic excuse because we're scaredy cats. I'm working on it though.

Until then:

Eye candy

Ex Couples Dinner

It is a quite common thing for couples to invite other couples over for dinner once in a while. Well, this weekend I had myself a little ex couples dinner. It was me and The Ex, and then my two best friends who just broke up about a year ago but had before that been together for as long as I've known them. Let's call them Chip and Dale (because that's what they sound like when they talk over each other). The Ex, Chip, Dale and myself all had a lovely evening of vegan spinach and tofu pie and board games. Everyone spent the night, and we spent the last bit of the evening before going to sleep all cuddled up on my fold out sofa bed, relaxing and talking about random things. All in all, a great evening with lots of laughs. Why don't more people have ex couples dinners? Or maybe they do and I just don't know about it? One things for sure: This will be a recurring thing for these two ex couples.

The Ex is now officially hooked on "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila", after being recommended by me to check it out. Why would I tell her to watch such a horribly tragic show? Well, because it is the show that the word "trashtastic" was invented for. And The Ex and I both love us some trashtasticness. I mean: Yes, "A Shot at Love" is offensive at times. It promotes plenty of stereotypes about men, women, bisexuals, straight guys, lesbians... and so on. But it's also really frickin hilarious and cringe worthily exciting. The cat fights, the stupid comments, the insanely ridiculous challenges... It's all just so bad that it's good.

In "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" psychotic violence and crying fits are gender blind.

Long date, no kiss

So, my second date with Ex-Gaybor lasted for about 27 hours.

We started out at her place in the early afternoon of midsummer's eve, watching movies and talking and playing with my dog. We made plans with The Ex and a friend of her's (H) to have dinner together before going to the party at the Acquaintance's. I told Ex-Gaybor that The Ex was my ex, figuring I might as well get that out of the way, mentioning how stereotypical it was that one of my best friends was my ex. Ex-Gaybor got kind of quiet when I mentioned that and I asked her if she had any close friendships with her exes. She replied "no" and got even quieter, so I just dropped the subject.

We made our way home to The Ex where we all joined together to cook a delicious vegan midsummer dinner. We had a nice time and everyone was getting along, although we may have been trash-talking couples a bit too much, for me being out on a date and all... But old habits die hard I suppose. After dinner Ex-Gaybor and I walked back to my place and dropped of the pooch before meeting up again with The Ex and H by the Acquaintance's place where we entered and mingled away. I was drinking, a was most everyone else, but in moderate amounts. Ex-Gaybor was not drinking at all, due to having a persistent cold. The Acquaintance and I were flirtatious with each other as per usual I suppose, though I'm still not sure if it's flirtation or just regular friendliness, it's hard to tell with some folk.

I got a moment alone with The Ex and asked her all about what she thought of Ex-Gaybor. She was really positive, thought she was cute and nice and lovely and also mentioned that she was surprised it wasn't harder to see me with someone else.

The Ex: "I thought it would be difficult to see you with someone new, but really, it isn't. And if I were to imagine you with a new girlfriend this would be it!"

Me: "Really? I still don't know if we're hitting it off as more than friends, I'm not sure she's interested in me in that way."

The Ex: "Are you kidding? There's a whole looking back and forth electricity thing going on between the two of you. There's definitely sparkage."

So I was convinced something would happen this night. I had hope. We had already decided she would spend the night at my place and when we walked home I was convinced there was at the very least a make-out session in store for me.

Instead: Lots and lots of talking. I think I'm cursed or something. Well, I know I share the blame here, I should've just made a move. But I swear I could not for the life of me find a moment where it seemed possible for me to kiss her. And the more time that passed, the harder it became. So we just lay in bed, side by side, talking about coming out, and having gay or straight friends (more or less all my friends are queer, more or less all her friends are straight), and trying to meet someone. And it became more obvious why she clammed up on the question about exes: I don't think she has any. Seriously! On our first date we established that she hadn't had a boyfriend since 5th grade and then on our second date we established that she came out at the age of 16 and then nothing happened. She kept thinking it would happen for her eventually, but no. She started at university, still nothing.

I felt bad for her but also I was thinking about how innocent she seemed. Does this mean she's a virgin? We've already established that all women I've slept with, I've been their first woman, but first-first? At the age of 21? Shit that's a lot to live up to!

Either way, like I said, I'm not sure she's angling for that at all. In one way I think she desperately wants to meet someone, have a girlfriend, get laid. And in anothe way I think she's just really excited to have met a lesbian friend who has the whole crew of dykes and bi girls and goes to gay bars and all that cool stuff she's only seen on tv before. And I feel like we've crossed some kind of line, both in how long we've hung out without anything romantic happening and with what our conversations are about. Let's just say: I'm confused.

The morning after we woke up, had breakfast and did a whole lot of nothing for the rest of the day, until she took the bus home at 5-6 p.m. We watched movies, bad tv-shows, took the dog for a walk, talked and talked some more... and that was that.

So, a 27 hour date, with no romantic action what so ever. That's got to be a record or something... Or was it even a date? And what makes a date a date? Is there a list of criterias I should know about? Can you ever know if a date is a date until afterwards? I should go back to reading "Same Sex in the City", try and find some answers there...

Time is a requirement for dating

It's been almost a week since I last wrote. And while I would love nothing more than to tell the tales of all the progress I've made in the dating arena, I've got nothing. I've been busy, Ex-Gaybor's been busy, we just haven't managed to meet up. But tomorrow the second date is planned.

Okay, so it's not all that datey this time. I'm going over to her place to watch a movie and then we might be going to a midsummer's eve party in the evening. Said party is at The Aquaintance's place. And The Ex is coming with.

So just to make things clear: I'll be taking my date to a party held by a woman I hold some romantic interest in AND I'm taking along my ex. There is something seriously wrong with me, isn't there? Why would I set myself up for these kind of situations if there wasn't some neurological dysfunction up in my head? To spice things up just a little more, turns out Straight Girl is good friends with The Acquaintance, or so I've heard rumored. So perhaps another flirtation will add herself to the mix.

It may not become a problem what so ever though. Ex-Gaybor is sickly and might not be up for going out tomorrow evening. And The Ex isn't too keen on coming along to the party if she's going to be the third wheel. So they might sort themselves out of the mix... And The Aquaintance: Well, since I don't even know if she holds any kind of interest in me I doubt it'll be an issue. We've gone so many years without crossing the line from friendship into something else and I doubt we will anytime soon. And hell, last time I was at a party at her place I got wasted and made out with some complete stranger in her living room (that girl turned out to be totally straight though, gay as she looked - it's those damn gender study majors, they throw my gaydar off!).

Speaking of alcohol, that might be a very good solution to an akward situation. Drink until you don't care! Plus, if I get drunk enough I might get brave enough to make a move on Ex-Gaybor... The Ex is telling me I need to make a move soon, or she'll slap me next time I complain about never getting laid. But I'm a wimp and I know it and I suck at making first moves. I'll try though. Promise.

Hangovers and Buffy

Yesterday was my housewarming party. I'd invited quite a few ladies of interest to said housewarming party, but none of them could make it in the end, so it was just me and friends. Which was fine, we had a lovely time. But not much sexiness. And people were definitely in more of a "getting-drunk-and-sitting-around-talking-and-lounging" mode than in a "let's-go-out-dancing" mode, so there wasn't any going out to find potential romances either. At the end of the night there was one male friend crashed out on my couch, another male friend (let's call him Good Guy) and I dancing samba in my living room withThe Ex watching us in amusement. I also have vague memories of flashings of boobs taking place and weird internet chats. In the end the drunken crashed out guy picked up his things and left and the rest of us went to bed. Well, The Ex and I went to bed (in a completely platonic way, I assure you) while Good Guy slept on the couch.

Good Guy, The Ex and myself have a club of sorts. It's a club for bitter singles (not necessarily bitter about being single, but bitter about something none the less) and my apartment is our headquarters. We gather, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and trash talk the couples in our surroundings or just coupledom in general. There's plenty of snark, lots of bitterness and also lots of laughter. So today when we woke up completely hungover (some more than others... ahem) we had breakfast in front of the tv and started to watch random episodes of Buffy. And we did this from about 10:30 am to 8:00 pm with only a brief pause to go out and buy pizza. This may seem unhealthy, but Buffy is so fabulous to watch we didn't feel we wasted a minute of this gloriously beautiful Sunday. We were too hungover to do much of anything anyway, so sitting on our asses alla day was quite ideal.

So what is so brilliant about Buffy then? Well, I could go on and on about this, but I'll save that for some other day. But just to mention some of the things that makes the Buffyverse so fabulous: Snarky dialog, an episode for every mood/situation, and can we just mention the goodness that is Willow and Tara? Oh, it's a beautiful work of art. And it's just the right amount of fluffiness for my brain to process on a hungover Sunday.

Sleepless nights and all that good stuff...

I'm stressed out. About work. About life. I forget what came first in the vicious stress cycle, but one invariably affects the other. Yesterday I couldn't fall asleep for some reason and all I can say is I am sooo ready for vacation time to roll around. Soon soon...

In other, lesbian news: The Ex and I talked and walked today. The talk revolved around our issues, with sex and love and relationships, as is often the case with our talks. She tried to convince me that I will find someone very special and have an amazing relationship and that it's only a matter of time before that happens (of course! Natalie must be on her way!). I pouted and hissed in disbelief, and then it was my turn to convince the Ex that she'll definitely find someone way before I do. And then we play-fought about who's more fucked up. Oh the fun.

I am slowly recovering from my pathetic attempted one-night stand two weeks ago. Yup, I'm crawling up from that dusty pit I've been in, brushing myself off and venturing out into the world. All this stress and sexual frustration must be channelled into some purpose and I figure it might as well be dating, so here I go, I'm making an effort. In two weeks I'm having a party and I'll be damned if I won't gather at least a few women with potential... Maybe my guy friend will bring along Straight Girl, if I ask him? And then there's The Acquaintance, that girl I've been in contact with, in one way or another, for several years. I've always been interested in her, but I've never managed to develop it beyond acquaintanceship due to circumstances and bad timing.

Finally: Yay, people are reading my blog! Thank you to those two of you that have left comments so far!

Happy IDAHO... or not so happy?

Today is IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia), a time to stop and think about all the homophobia that exists in our society and how it effects every single one of us, gay or straight, in our daily lives. I went to a manifestation this evening and there were quite a few of us out there, supporting the cause. Some shit went down as well... Let's just say that it was made very clear that homophobia is an ever-present factor in our society and it manifested itself in some ugly events tonight. Everyone's okay though. I just hope that the day will come when a day against homophobia is no longer necessary. And until then I hope we all make an effort to make every day a day against homophobia. It does warm your heart, being surrounded by friends of varying gender and sexual orientation, all standing together in the fight to love and live freely.

On a lighter note, every time I hear "IDAHO" all I can think of is this shirt:

Also, it was fascinating seeing all the dykes from the women's club I frequent sober and in day light. A new experience, to say the least. Inner Journey Girl was there, and we hugged and exchanged pleasentries as is customary. The Ex was out of town and couldn't be there, but I did get a semi-strange textmessage from her, exclaiming how much she cares for me. I'm thinking she was drunk. Regardless, it's nice to hear how loved I am.

The lesbians are everywhere!

Lately, everywhere I look there's lesbians. Granted, at times I rely solely on my gaydar to identify these queer women, but still. It seems spring has brought us lovely warm weather and lesbians in droves. It might be that I've recently moved into a particularly lesbian-populated neighborhood. I didn't know this was lesbo-ville at the time, but I'm not complaining that I meet several dykes every time I take my dog for a walk. It's quite nice actually.

I will admit that my gaydar is slightly over-sensitive. I believe it reacts not only to self-identified bi/lesbian/queer women but also to women who have secret fantasies about women or at some time had a crush on Angelina Jolie. Also, gender study majors totally throw my gaydar off. Good thing The Ex sees the same things I see, so at least I'm not hallucinating completley. Walking back to my place after a long walk around town she too started noticing how LPs (Lesbian Potentials) kept popping up everywhere. And the closer we got to my place the more there were.

I googled "potential lesbian" and this is what I found:

Who knew LP = a young Julie Andrews?

But then if you look at the picture... it kind of makes sense.

Need more proof that I live within some kind of lesbian magnetic forcefield? Remember how I went out this past weekend? For once I mingled lots and met a bunch of new people. Then on Monday I met one of the women from the club at the local grocery store, shopping with her girlfriend, and then another of the women from the club was working behind the counter at the local post office.

Uhuh.

Expectations for a girls' night out

Tonight is girls' night at a local club and of course I have to be there. After all, I'm in dating mode at the moment and you never know who you're going to meet. Expectations, that's what it's all about. The trouble with expectations is that they come with potential disappointment attached. And man have I been disappointed after some of my girls' night experiences... I've had a lot of good times too at the club, that's for sure. And it seems some of my best memories are the ones from when I went out with friends, just for good fun and dancing and drinks and nothing else. It may be that the expectations for those nights have been edited in retrospect though, from "I hope I meet someone interesting" to " I hope I have a fun night with my friends". Regardless, there is some criteria that pretty much has to be fulfilled for a night to qualify as fun without romance/sex/dating potential/whatever:

• A large group of friends. It's not that we're incapable of having fun when it's just a small group of two or three, but the core group know each other so very well, we tend to end sticking to each other, whether it's on the dance floor or at the bar. When we're a large group there's more mingle possibilites, getting to know new people and such... And more drama!
• Speaking of which: Drama. There must be some form of it. Whether it's an unexpected (or expected for that matter) make-out session, a fight between girlfriends, exes, or just friends, a drunken confession of love... anything that makes for good gossip the day after.
• Someone must get very drunk. I don't know why that's a criteria, but it seems to be a common denominator for those great fun nights. Someone get's very drunk and makes a fool of themselves/create drama (see above). It's not always so much fun being that person, but hey, we've all been there.

The problem tonight is that there probably will be a large group going out, but they're not people I really want to be around... so that brings down the level of fun quite a bit. I tried to get The Ex to come along, but she had other plans and thus couldn't serve as my wing-woman tonight.

Still, I'm going to go out and I'm going to give high expectations another shot. Maybe I'll meet miss Right? Maybe I'll meet miss Right Now? Or maybe I'll just have a wonderful time making new friends and reconnecting with old ones? I'll deal with the potential disappointment tomorrow. Or the potential happiness. I'm hoping for the latter.

Conversations with an ex

I must say, I never quite got the whole thing about lesbian exes. I didn't understand why alla women who were at some point in a relationship with one another had to stay friends forever and ever after the love was over and done with. It's like it's some default setting: No matter how bad the break-up, former lovers drift into a new kind of relationship, a friendship built on past intimace..sis? Well, whatever, I never quite got it: But now I do. See now I have my own ex-lover turned friendship relationship and it's fantastic, I must say. We stay on the phone for hours talking about everything there is to talk about. We have the same taste in movies and music. We have interesting discussions on politics and current events. We talk about our past, the difficult teen years, our childhood. And about the future, what lies ahead. You know, normal friend stuff. But we also analyze our time toghether as a couple to bits and pieces, which easily turns some of our conversations into therapy sessions (really good ones at times!). We talk about sex. Which I do with my other friends as well, but let me tell you: It's on a whole different level when you're talking about sex with someone you've actually had sex with. And well, we talk about all those things that we talk about from that special perspective of having been in love with one another. We tease each other and people who don't know us tend to think that we're a couple when they first meet us. And I guess that's where it can get tricky... Because where is the line drawn between friendship and love? Personally, I don't believe in a strict line between the two. I think there's a continuum between the two and a whole lot of overlap between them. I think there are sexual friendships, romantic friendships, just plain friendships, friendly love, sexual love and so on and so on. And I don't know where The Ex and I stand in the chaos of words. All I know is this: We once were lovers, now we're not. But we're friends. Real good, supportive friends. And that's all I need to know.

Me and The Ex, had we been born some hundred years ago and looked completely different

Oh yeah, just to make clear: I still don't get the whole default "we have to be friends" settings. Come on ladies! Just because we went on a few dates does not mean we have to be bound to each other for life in some way. If we want to go our separate ways after two dates I say: "Lets!" If we think we're not a fit romantically speaking but we have great chemistry friendship-wise, I say: "Great!" But please please please explain to me why we should keep seeing each other for months after we realized we had nothing in common? (Or am I the only one who realizes these things?) Yup, I think we've just established reason nr 1 of why I don't date much. More to come!