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.)

One-Sided Flirting Goes Both Ways

I ventured out into the social world this past weekend as well. Not this weekend, because I've been laying at home sick with the flu, but the weekend before this one. And how did it go?

Well, the evening started with a trip to the neighboring city to attend a party where I knew no one except an old high school friend who was visiting Europe from overseas, and whom I haven't seen since graduation. It was great seeing him again and I met his girlfriend and caught up on all the important events of the last five or so years. Funny too, coming out for the second time to him since I identified as bisexual in high school and now identify as lesbian. So we compared and contrasted stories from high school and talked about all the drama I stirred up when I started dating my first girlfriend back in junior year. And as the wine poured we all got into more philosophical questions of the pros and cons of sex without emotional ties and the differences between women and men (biological or social constructions?). I think we all know where on the scale I fell in those debates...

One very interesting facet of the birthday party we attended was how fascinating it is to party with people who you'd normally never hang out with. I don't want to come off as a snob or anything, it's just that I tend to hang around the same type of people a lot. I guess most people have a comfort zone of sorts, as far as what "their group of people" is. For me, that group consists mainly of queer vegans (or at least vegetarians) with socialist leanings. So when I find myself at a party full of more capitalist friendly, meat-eating heteros (and yes, I know that I am very very much generalizing here) it's like a whole new world to me.

I had a great time mingling and there were definitely lots of pretty women there. I of course chatted fliratiously with several of them and that's when it hit me: I could be as obviously flirtatious as ever and they wouldn't perceive it as flirtation. And why? Well, because they're straight and don't think of women in that way, probably. If it had come up in conversation that I was gay, then maybe they'd have been watching more for those signals, but since it didn't in most convoes... well, it slipped right past them.

And I don't find that strange at all actually, because just a few days previously I was out an errand with a co-worker. We had our first meeting with a potential collaborative partner and he happened to be a relatively young guy. Well, it was a good meeting and walking out of there to the car my co-worker pointed out that he was flirting with me pretty hard core. To which I responded "Huh???" I was completely clueless to all the obvious flirting that had apparently taken place in that office and I think the reason why is that I simply don't think about men that way. Thus, I don't think about men thinking about me like that. If that makes any sense.

Regardless, flirting with straight girls was the only flirting I got that evening. I left the party early to head out to the women's bar in my city... but a train was cancelled and I ended up sitting at the station for an hour. And right around that time the three glasses of wine I'd had on an empty stomach all hit me at once and I didn't feel so good. So I did manage to get to the women's bar, but I ended up leaving after just making an appearance and saying hi to my friends. I'll make a new attempt soon, I promise.

One Night of Drinking, Two Days of Hung-Over

It is so unfair what the years are doing to me. It used to be I could go out and party all night and drink like a rock star, get a good nights sleep, and wake up slightly tired but all right. Now I have a night with friends, moderate drinking, and turn in pretty early only to wake up at 6:45 am, with a mouth drier than the Sahara and a pounding headache. I did manage to fall back asleep, after taking an aspirin and drinking two big glasses of water and I did manage to get up at 9:15 for an appointment I didn't want to miss... but then the rest of the day was just wasted. Whatever I tried to do it just ended up with me falling asleep. I fell asleep in the bathtub (twice), I fell asleep on the coutch watching a movie (at 7 pm) and then again while watching tv (at 9 pm). I got absolutely nothing done, so all of Saturday was pretty much a goner. Today, Sunday, hasn't been much better because I'm still not feeling 100% recovered, something that's typical for me as far as hangovers go.

Regardless, Friday evening was nice. I should probably just realize that I can't handle quite as many glasses of wines nowadays that I seldom drink, compared to back when I was still a student. But there was lots of wine. And then some beer. And lots and lots of toasts to Heath Ledger.

I was invited over for homemade vegan sushi by The Ex and her roomies (delicious!). Sitting around the dinner table in a group of queer women (well, six queer women and one straight dude who pretty much qualifies as an honorary lesbian) we started talking about places we could go out to. Sadly there were no queer bars or club nights to attend, so I had the brilliant idea of going to a hetero place, raising the rainbow flag and declaring it gay. We didn't go quite so far, but we did go out and we brought along my large rainbow flag and draped it over our table (it's terribly soiled now by various drinks). Then we sat around talking and laughing and once in a while giving the dance floor a whirl. I was of course secretly hoping some beautiful woman would happen to notice our gay table and come right over and sweep me off my feet... But that did not happen this Friday, unfortunately. Although there was plenty of LP lounging about. Next night out will be at a gayer venue, so we'll see how that goes. I'm hoping for a much lesser hangover, that's for sure.

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

Oh, I'm ready: Bring 2008 ON!

It's 2008, which feels unreal. I feel like the big millenium thing just happened last year and that makes me feel old. Even though I'm not at all (early 20's still!).

But just as with the mark of any new year, people feel the need to improve themselves, to make a fresh start, and to reinvent different areas of their lives right about now. And I am no exception. I tend to think that new year's resolutions are silly and that making them around december 31st doesn't really make them any more likely to stick than if you were to make a resolution on a wednesday afternoon in april. But nevermind that, I still make new year's resolutions.

For 2007 I made just one (that I can remember anyway...) and that was to not have sex. Now, you might be wondering "to NOT have sex? Is this woman out of her mind?". Well, possibly, but don't base that assumption on my new year's resolution before hearing my explanation for why a resolution not to have sex is the best new year's resolution ever. See, it's a win-win situation. There are two scenarios:

1. I don't have sex all year. Well, that sucks... but at least I kept my new year's resolution!
2. I have sex. Damn it, I broke my new year's resolution... but who the fuck cares, I got laid! Woohoo!

And that is why I am repeating this resolution for 2008. (Just for the record: I totally broke my 2007 resolution. I repeat: Woohoo!)

I also have some boring but stimulating and environmentally friendly ones, such as reading more books and consuming less. But I won't go into detail about that.

Instead I'll delve into the one that has to do with my dating life. I have decided to challenge myself to do something that I have thought about many times but never dared to actually do. Before the end of 2008 I will ask a stranger out. And I don't mean online or through a friend or something, I mean in person. It seems like one of those things that people always do in movies. They see that cute girl in the coffee shop, walk up to her and casually ask if she's single and if she'd like to go out some time. I wanna do that! I'd actually like to be just as forward and laidback about it as the guy in Office Space is when he walks up to Jennifer Anistons character in the restaurant she works in and asks her out to lunch. But then again, that guy was under serious hypnosis at the time and was doing some other pretty crazy stuff at the time, so maybe that's not a good idea to go that far... Regardless of how I do it, I've already got my eye on a very cute girl who works in a store I frequent. We shall see.

Vegans Are Sexy

Okay, I realize it might sound a bit conceited, since I myself am vegan. And I will admit there are probably quite a few exceptions. But all in all, there's just no way getting around it: Vegans are hot.

This weekend I visited a big vegan fair, which all in all had over 1500 visitors. A good portion of which were women who set off my gaydar. A small bit of it might have been wishful lesbian thinking, but most of it was definitely not. It is my experience that many queer women are vegan. Or many vegan women are queer. Not sure which is the hen and which is the egg in this case. Regardless: Vegans eat neither. And it does them good, because wow. I've rarely seen so many goodlooking women in one place.

I found myself exchaning glances with plenty of cute girls, and even engaging a few in conversation (well, it's easy when they're selling t-shirts and you're buying them...). But of course I could never conciously flirt with any of them. I only do it inadverdently and when The Ex points out that "hey, that girl was totally flirting with you" I get shy. As much as I would love to march on back to that vending table and ask the cute vegan out, I instead find myself muttering over my plate of tofu ham half an hour later "I wish I was Shane". Because let's face it: In a room full of gorgeous queer girls Shane would have definitely walked away with a pocket full of phone numbers. It think I feel a new year's resolution coming on...

Report from Celibate Land

I went away for a while. Not so much physically - I've still been lounging around my apartment, as usual - but as far as the blogging goes. I suppose making a pledge to be celibate for life makes for really boring blogging material, and so I wasn't very inspired to write. And my gawd, my life sure has been boring these past few months. I've basically worked lots and spent a whole lot of quality time with my dog. Well, that's not completely true. I've managed to fit in a few weekend excursions to visit dear friends I don't get to see very often. I've spent fun times with the friends I do get to see quite often. I spent part of these past months struggling with a bad cold that later turned into an eye infection and sinusitis, and in the process I watched a whole lot of movies and good tv-shows (yeah, not very exciting, I know).

Welcome to Celibate Land!

Regardless of how the past few months have been, I'm now inspired to write again because things are a-stirring.

First things first: I have a sex date. Yes, it's true. A woman I've only met once before will traveling down to my end of the country for a weekend of meaningless sex. And that is for sure: This will be sex and nothing else. It might be meaningful in the sense that I'll be getting laid for the first time in forever, but that's all the meaning it will hold. And I couldn't be more thrilled!

Secondly: A friend of mine just called me and wants to set me up on a blind date with a girl she claims is beautiful and on the look-out for a good woman. She pleaded me to agree to go out with this girl, something that really wasn't necessary considering how bored I've been with myself and my love life lately. But she probably did so based on our previous experiences with her matchmaking efforts (hint: they haven't worked out too good).

What can I say? I'm getting excited about my life for the first time in quite a while! And that may sound slightly tragic, like I'm this single just walking around feeling worthless... but that couldn't be further from the truth! I just happen to think that I'm quite a catch and that I shouldn't be thrown out of the "people-with-a-healthy-sex-life"-group quite yet...

Lesbian singles: A tragedy?

I went to see a play by an amateur lesbian theater group yesterday. The play was entitled "Take what you can get" (freely translated from Swedish to English) and it was about a single lesbian who has nightmares about dying alone and ventures out into the world of dating in order to find a girlfriend and thus being entitled to an inheritance by a recently dead relative. It was a funny play, for the most time, with plenty of situations that I could relate to. The psychotic women, the bicurious women, the already-in-a-relationship-(with a man)-women. I've known them all. So that was kind of discouraging in itself I suppose, being in a trying-to-date-phase, as I am. But the real tragedy here is how the play ended: With the poor single lesbian marrying a stuffed animal in order to be awarded the million dollar inheritance, since apparently the dead great-aunt hadn't specified that the future spouse had to be alive or anything. (Don't ask, I didn't get it.)

I mean really? Couldn't she have met someone? A nice, sane enough woman whom she could live happily ever after with? Or at least happily for a few months with? Couldn't the playwrites have given me at least that? Some hope that there are sane lesbians left in this world?

Sigh.

On the upside: One of the actors in the play was oh so cute. And I happen to know from the interviews the theater troup did regarding this play that this particular woman is the only single, active dater in the group at the moment. Now if I could only figure out a way to get in touch with her and ask her out...

In other news: I still haven't met up with The Aquaintance for coffee. What's up with that? Yeah, I know, I better get on that.

I discovered that my former neighbor that always set off my gaydar is in fact a flaming lesbo (she sent me a message on a gay community site) and she wants to meet up! I shall call her Ex-Gaybor.

Other than that, I'm just enjoying the warm weather, still hoping my dog gets better (vet follow-up this week) and experiencing some serious eye-wandering what with all the tank top wearing, tattooed, smoking hot women that are out and about in the sunshine.

From thought to action

It's a long way from thinking that you're going to venture into the world of dating and actually going on dates. I've been doing my part though which has involved a lot of internetting. I'm chatting to a lovely fellow dog owner on a LGBT community-site and The Acquaintence and I are working hard on finding a moment when we can meet up for coffee. So far it's all about sitting in front of the computer though, none of that actual IRL stuff. Also I've been out of town for a few days, with work and now I'm exhausted, so maybe sitting in front of the computer is about as much as I can handle at the moment.

At the conference I was attending there was a girl I recognized from a previous conference and we got to chatting. Mid-talk she asked me how old I was, quickly explaining that that's not something she normally asks. It's just that at the big conference we attended in April she was surrounded by a bunch of male colleagues in the 20-30 age bracket. These young guys had apparently referred to me as "the finest girl at the conference" (yup, that's a quote) and fought about who should "get me", as in "she's mine", "no, she's mine!". Flattering, of course, but I couldn't help but laugh and mention the irony of the whole situation. My colleague was of course laughing her ass off as I told this girl that the ironic thing is that I'm a big lesbo, so they could fight all they wanted but they had nothing to collect with me. First her jaw dropped and then she lit up in a smile and did a little victory gesture, making it known that she couldn't wait to tell her colleagues that the chick they were checking out was a dyke and that she had a bigger chance of scoring with me than they did.

There was no scoring what so ever at the conference though. Sadly.

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!

The morning after...

I woke up next to someone I barely knew. Which isn't associated with any shame on my part, not at all. In fact, I would've shook my own hand, done the wave and shouted "YAY ME!"... if it weren't for coming to the realization that my accomplishment of picking up a girl and bringing her home with me didn't lead to ending my sexual dryspell. But let's start at the beginning. First things first: I suck at picking up girls. It's a well known fact that I simply cannot for the life of me get a girl to go home with me. My friends claim I don't even try. I claim that I have tried at times and taken blows to my self esteem in the process. Either way, yesterday a girl picked me up and I was feeling all special and stuff. Things were going so smoothly: She was showering me with compliments and I was ignoring all signs that she was crazy. And yes, there were signs to be ignored. She was literally telling me how she and her girlfriend had just separated and how she was going to therapy and was a really fucked up person... and I responded by asking her to come home with me. She accepted and I did a little dance of joy in my head. Walking home it became clear that she was more than a little drunk. I wasn't stone cold sober myself and when we got back to my place we tumbled into bed and I told her I always sleep naked and took all my clothes of. Once in bed we started making out and all was wonderful until she all of a sudden stopped and said: "I'm not going to have sex with you tonight". "Um, okay...", I tentatively responded. She then started talking about how she just got out of a relationship and how messed up she is right now and maybe we could just sleep together without, ya know, sleeping together. I told her that was absolutely okay, like the gentlewoman I am. But I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I thought I was gonna have my first sapphic one-night stand... but no.

So this morning was akward, waking up naked next to a more or less fully clothed stranger and scrambling to put on clothes so as to not parade around naked in broad daylight more than necessary. Sleep Over Girl apologized profoundly for being so drunk and out of it the night before, we had coffee in my kitchen and realized we had very little in common (at least I did) and then I called her a cab, gave her my number and we parted with a hug. I doubt she'll call me and to tell the truth I'm kind of hoping she won't. Some things are just over before they begin and I've got a feeling this is one of those things, better left alone.

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.