Dancing to our own beat

     Last week I was invited out to go dancing with Non-lesbian and her college friend who was in town.  Non-lesbian was trying to get me to wear a dress, a cocktail dress.  Yeah, there is no way I was going to do that.  I haven’t dealt with someone trying to get me in a dress in a long time, and I had gotten used to people respecting my choices and not pressuring me.  Non-lesbian reminded me of how I differed from other girls.  Anyways, the best bar in town for dancing is actually a gay bar, so we headed there.

     Her and her friend were dressed in well…dresses and I, on the urging of my roommate, wore a nice button up and dark jeans.  No one at the club besides the straight women was particularly dressed up.  Perhaps they did it because they felt they needed a sign for all those *gasp* lesbians *ungasp* to keep away.  Didn’t matter, no lesbians at this gay bar (well except for me).  No, this is one of those gay bars populated by gay men and straight women, and sometimes their boyfriends.

     Non-lesbian decides to invite the guy she’s has two dates with, who hasn’t kissed her yet (she can't believe it!).  When he arrives he is the most precious, but awkward software engineer ever.  He won’t dance, or loosen up, not even a little.   

     I get bored real easily, so at this point I was about to gnaw me eyes out, anything to get myself to bed and away.  Then I see a girl sitting by the side, and I think she’s watching me.  I figure it’s because I’m actually dancing and not grinding up on someone.  So I make the decision then to dance for her.  I stay dancing in a group with Non-lesbian and her friend, but in my head I decided it’s all for her.

     About five minutes later I see the girl has left, and I’m a bit disappointed, but when I turn around there she is ten feet to my left.  She is dancing alone.  I can’t help but smile.  I’ve got a dancing partner.  We’re nowhere near close to each other.  I continue dancing with my group, but in my head I’m dancing with the strange girl.

     She’s a peculiar little thing.  They way she’s dancing reminds me of Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter.  She’s dancing like she doesn’t have a care in the world.  She doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her.  She is truly free.  I am envious.  The strange girl and I dance on and off for about an hour.

     I could have danced longer, but I had to get up early in the morning.  I looked for the strange girl, but she was nowhere to be found.  My group left the club.  As we were walking outside in the cold, someone comes running over to us and stops in front of me.  It was the strange girl.

     “I had a great time dancing with you tonight.” 

     I was in shock, so I stuttered, “you…you too!” and then with a smile the strange girl was off.  I couldn’t believe it.  I had constructed this fantasy of dancing with her, all in my head, but she was right there with me, ten feet away.  Dancing separately, yet together.

     I should have asked her for her number, her name, anything.  She was pretty, possibly high, but I haven’t had that much fun dancing in months.  Non-lesbian and friends brushed off the encounter, but that night will stay with me for a long time to come.

     In other news: I’m calling it.  Non-lesbian is straight, though I feel like I did bring out some bi feelings in her.  I wish her well with her dorky software engineer.  

QBP: "I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what it too deep to find for words."  -Ruth St. Denis

 

Party time with Non-Lesbian

     I wanted to have a party.  So I decided since I celebrate Chanukah (a confusing family tradition), that I would invite my church friends, lesbian friends, and Non-Lesbian, A.  I wanted to introduce my friends to a neat aspect of Jewish culture and also I wanted to drink.  

     As the night wore on, my friends all drank more and pretty soon A was doing some interesting things…like hitting on me.  Every five minutes she would tell the room “how sexy I was” and every fifteen she’d say how sexy the rest of my friends were (all women).  She hit on me so hard that she made two of my church friends awkward.  Not because she was a woman hitting on a woman, but because she was a “straight” woman hitting so hard on another “straight” woman.  

     Despite all the alcohol in my system, I was very tame.  I’m not actually all that different when I drink, a bit more talkative and courageous.  Having said that, at some point that night, for some reason, I decided I was hot and took off my t-shirt, stripping to my A-shirt.  (I also danced for everyone, so I must have been intoxicated.  I love to dance, but not generally in front of other people.)  Looking back I think I did it because I was enjoying all the attention A was giving me.  It’s been awhile since someone has viewed me as a sexual being (if you don’t count the very drunk men at the bus stop).  

     Everyone at the party was getting frustrated with A and her not-so-subtle advances.  They kept on pointing out she could actually date women if she so choose.  I too accosted her (politely).  I asked if she liked women so much well then she should just become a lesbian.  All she responded with was “I wish”.  “I wish”?  This is the 21^st century; it doesn’t have to be a wish!  It can be an action!  (But that would make it a verb…hmmm…lesbianing?  Lesbainizing?  Lesbonicycling?)

     Unfortunately it was around this time that I felt I was tired and wanted to go to bed.  I left to go crash in my room.  Thankfully everyone was nicely intoxicated that they didn’t mind one of the hosts (my roommate being the other) leaving her own party.  (I found out later that actually I left because I was wearing a sailor’s hat slightly askew and getting slightly pissed that everyone was calling me “cute”.  “Cute” huh?  What an insult!)  

     I’ve only seen A once since the party.  She invited me out to “dinner and a movie”, but I had other plans so I invited her out to drinks with me and our mutual gay friends.  There’s not much to note of that night except that she got me a Christmas gift, a book in which she wrote a nice (platonic) note.  No one else got a gift.  

     Non-Lesbian, A. might be lesbi-curious, but I’m not going to be her experiment.  All the attention makes me uncomfortable anyway.  I’ll be her friend and support her, but I don’t want my first forays into that big gay world be with a straight girl, even if she is “straight”.

QBP: "Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony." -Robert Benchley

Who wouldn't hit on someone with this sexy mug?

AH!!! What do you want from me? Non-lesbian date #3

So you all remember non-lesbian, A, right?  Well if you don’t she is a girl I’ve been on a couple of “dates” with now, who talks about lesbians things, but is NOT a lesbian (her words).  Full story is here and here.  

      Some Thursdays we decide to hang out after she has class.  We agreed to hang out this past Thursday.  So I was chilling out in an blue A-shirt and baggy pajama pants watching a silly horror German flick, when I hear the doorbell.  Now I tend to be formal in appearance which means I never wear sweatpants to class and I don’t let new friends see me in pajamas.   I'm explaining this so you know how comfortable I was to begin with when I opened the door and there was A, without having called first.  What could I do except invite her in?  I apologize for my attire and she comments “The black looks good on you”.  Now I think she’s talking about my A-shirt, so I point out my shirt is more blue than black.  She points out she was talking about my hair and not my A-shirt.  I had recently dyed my hair and I had forgotten she hadn’t seen the outcome yet.  Usually I’m not so dim-witted, I swear.  So I laugh off the misunderstanding and then we sit and start chatting.

    Anyways flash forward to the pub we frequent.  She starts talking about the past weekend she had with our mutual gay guy friends.  She tells me she got drunk and then kissed a girl and then kissed a boy…and WAIT WHAT?  I was so stunned that I only half heard a comment about how the girl in question managed to “turn” her.  She said this all very quickly and unceremoniously before she proceeded to mention the guy she kissed.  I was too flabbergasted to bring the topic up again.  Okay I haven’t even kissed a girl and here is non-lesbian, a conservative Baptist preacher kid, telling me she kissed a girl.  I know, I know, lots of straight girls kiss other girls for a variety of reasons, but I guess I never expected A to be someone like that.

     As this is how the night gets started, my mind decides to go and drop general hints about sexuality, by talking about LGBT business in the church and such.  But each time I mention anything gay related except about our mutual gay friends, she gets quiet and a tiny bit cold.  

    At one point during the night A is talking about flirting and how she’s so bad at it, and why can’t the person she’s attempting to flirt with just ask her out already?  Now if I was a male thing I would not be able to ignore this anvil sized hint, but I’m not, so complications.  If A is interested I’m not going to be the aggressor particularly when whenever I mention gay things she withdraws. 

     She’s a feminist, into strong women (at least intellectually), but can’t help but mention how cute the waiter is every time he passes by.  Once when the waiter passed she grabbed him and said to me, “Honey what do you want?”  Now I know “honey” is used by women in the South even to strangers, but is it a Midwest thing too?  I don’t generally let my friends call me “honey”, “kid”, “etc.”

     She drops me off at my apartment and I’m all confused.  Still am.  Though I had thought with all my LGBT talking I would have scared her away.  But this past Sunday she came to see me play in the orchestra (in my tie) and then suggested we go grab lunch.  Again just me, the invitation wasn’t extended to anyone else.  Afterwards she offered to drive me to work, and I had to change clothes so I invited her into my apartment.  Or well I was going to but my roommate answered the door with no pants on.  She hurriedly closed the door and rushed inside.  I apologized for my roommate and A said “Sometimes no-pants time can be fun”.   

     This woman drives me nuts sometimes.  At this point it’s become a game.  How much of my gay-ness can I reveal before she realizes I am actually gay.  And ultimately is she or isn’t she?

QBP: "Some women can't say the word lesbian... even when their mouth is full of one." -Kate Clinton

Non-lesbian is not a lesbian (and she wants everyone to know )

     Previously I went out on a date with a girl, A, who claims not to be a lesbian.  Since then we’ve hung out a couple times, and went for a few walks.  This week she asked me if I wanted to hang out, and I agreed.  We went to this pub we’ve been to a couple times.  What followed is the most awkward friend date I’ve ever been on. 

     First of all she couldn’t help but say very often, about how she hates men.  (Now I personally like men; I just don’t want to sleep with them.)  She went on to say how various members of her family think she’s a lesbian, including her grandmother.  To add to this, she told me about this women's studies course she took in college.  Even I haven’t taken a women’s studies course!  (Update: When a mutual gay friend of ours asked why Tegan and Sarah were so popular in lesbian circles, non-lesbian, A, was very quick to say "they're lesbians!"...I just can't figure her out.)

     The most awkward moment was when she said if she was a lesbian she would want someone who wasn’t interested in feminine things.  Then she added she guessed that’s why she likes men.  I point out there are women who aren’t interested in feminine things (like myself as she very well knows) and then, a pregnant pause.  I felt bad for some reason and quickly changed the subject.

     To add to the confusion of the night she kept on emphasizing this date she went on with her very male ex and how the kiss they had at the end of the night was just so amazing.  But that going on a date with an ex was a “bad plan”.  Also she implied she’s never had sex, because she’s waiting for marriage.  Well I’ve never had sex either, but I’m waiting for women.

     She befuddles me.  Being gay is confusing sometimes.

QBP: “I’m not gay!” -Naomi  Skins

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No, you're not gay...