"Is it a date or just coffee?" AKA what is the secret handshake?
Hey I read that book!(http://www.amazon.com/Date-Just-Coffee-Dating-Romance/dp/1555837271/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401580568&sr=1-3&keywords=coffee+or+is+it+a+date) And laughed through it cover to cover, and now when I think I might need the advice, I find I don't remember it. I have long since donated the book. I do remember the silly comments about recruiting and the free toaster that came with "conversion" to Lesbianism. They remind me of a time I think of fondly as the stealth Lesbian portion of my life.
Being a stealth Lesbian I did silly things like stalk butch barbers and get truly horrendous haircuts in an attempt at "research". (I was way too shy to talk to said Butch, however). I also followed other fascinating lesbians to see what they did while at the mall. There had to be a code, a key, a secret handshake that once learned would gain me entrance to that mysterious world. I only dimly understood what I wanted, only that I did. Mostly what those 1980s lesbians did was stupidly boring things like shopping and walking, but sometimes they looked back at the pathetic teenager stalking them with a sad smile and got the heck out of the mall. I was not creepy. I was too cute and curvy to be creepy. I swear. That is probably why they never called the security on me. Or possibly they had done the same kind of creepy pathetic things? But even if they sympathized, they never stopped to give me the decoder ring or the next meeting site for Lesbians Local 569. It was a confusing world back then with little information available for the clueless.
This was before "Gay" was a relatively neutral word, "Bisexual" was synonymous with "AIDS", and where being homosexual was actually dangerous for your health. It was when the only book I could get about real live lesbians was the horrible horrible "Everything you always wanted to know about sex" book that told me NOTHING I wanted to know about gay sex except that it was for men and took place in toilet stalls. Where was the Lesbian representation!!!! It was also before PFLAG was something mainstream people had heard of and there were hot lines for sexually questioning youth. It was way before Google. You know, back in the Dark Ages.
Stealth Lesbian was my default mode through High School even while obliviously crushing on girls and dating boys. Until college. Then obnoxiously undecided ambiguous scared person was more of a fitting label. I told them I was confused or undecided like my sexual orientation was a major I had to declare. I was scared to hang out with gay people, but gay people were the only ones I ended up hanging out with. They kinda "got" me, scared little closeted me with the weird fascination for the lesbians. Me who devoured the GALA library (and the LGBT section of the university library) one book at a time and cough cough permanently borrowed a couple of them. Yeah very straight. sure. But in that period of time, it occurred to brilliant me to ask but be too scared to find out: what do lesbians like? What is attractive to Lesbians? Am I attractive to gay girls? And the brilliant: how do I turn on a gay woman. Because I still felt locked out of the scene. I was as culturally and politically gay as I could get by reading and company, but there appeared to be a couple of barriers to my membership. I must have still been an honorary Bi person, because they still hadn't shown me the secret handshake when I left. Dammit.
It is only when I look back after almost 30 years of struggling with my identity that I realize how far I have come, and how far it was that I had to come. I was very very scared of my own skin, my own sexuality, my own desires. It was a teenage rebellion thing to say I was gay or bi, but at the very same time I was NOT OKAY with being gay or bi. I was afraid of liking it too much, or of being a crap lover or not being turned on by my female lovers. For years there was a weird defiant opposition thing going on for me where I would loudly declare my sexual orientation of the moment and then back the hell off from it from that moment forward. So can you be closeted to yourself while the rest of the world knows (because you TOLD them)? Can that be a real thing? Apparently it can, because after all this time I just realized what I was doing. Counterproductive much? I only recently admitted to myself that I had a "thing" for girl butts! And that lesbian porn turns me on. So apparently you can be both oblivious and homophobic while being a theoretically out gay or bi person. Been there, hopefully done with that now.
All of this is a very round about way to say that I figured out the secret handshake after all this time: there is no secret handshake. There is only the acceptance of fully inhabiting my skin, my desires, my self. I had to step up and claim an identity for myself, and be ready to accept all the baggage and joy that comes with that identity. All of the fear that followed me around dropped away when I was ready. All the other armor dropped away too because I didn't need it anymore.
To all those people who supported me in my oblivion, in my blind thrashing about, Thank you. I know you have probably been there and that is why you were there for me. So thank you to all of you over the years for putting up with me. I really am Bi, it never was a phase (although the gay label seems to have been). I really am not in that silly closet any more, I promise. I hope I can be a sounding board and support like you were there for me.
Now, was that last outing a date, or just coffee? I think I might need to re-purchase the manual. I am ready to embrace a little more risk :}
Being a stealth Lesbian I did silly things like stalk butch barbers and get truly horrendous haircuts in an attempt at "research". (I was way too shy to talk to said Butch, however). I also followed other fascinating lesbians to see what they did while at the mall. There had to be a code, a key, a secret handshake that once learned would gain me entrance to that mysterious world. I only dimly understood what I wanted, only that I did. Mostly what those 1980s lesbians did was stupidly boring things like shopping and walking, but sometimes they looked back at the pathetic teenager stalking them with a sad smile and got the heck out of the mall. I was not creepy. I was too cute and curvy to be creepy. I swear. That is probably why they never called the security on me. Or possibly they had done the same kind of creepy pathetic things? But even if they sympathized, they never stopped to give me the decoder ring or the next meeting site for Lesbians Local 569. It was a confusing world back then with little information available for the clueless.
This was before "Gay" was a relatively neutral word, "Bisexual" was synonymous with "AIDS", and where being homosexual was actually dangerous for your health. It was when the only book I could get about real live lesbians was the horrible horrible "Everything you always wanted to know about sex" book that told me NOTHING I wanted to know about gay sex except that it was for men and took place in toilet stalls. Where was the Lesbian representation!!!! It was also before PFLAG was something mainstream people had heard of and there were hot lines for sexually questioning youth. It was way before Google. You know, back in the Dark Ages.
Stealth Lesbian was my default mode through High School even while obliviously crushing on girls and dating boys. Until college. Then obnoxiously undecided ambiguous scared person was more of a fitting label. I told them I was confused or undecided like my sexual orientation was a major I had to declare. I was scared to hang out with gay people, but gay people were the only ones I ended up hanging out with. They kinda "got" me, scared little closeted me with the weird fascination for the lesbians. Me who devoured the GALA library (and the LGBT section of the university library) one book at a time and cough cough permanently borrowed a couple of them. Yeah very straight. sure. But in that period of time, it occurred to brilliant me to ask but be too scared to find out: what do lesbians like? What is attractive to Lesbians? Am I attractive to gay girls? And the brilliant: how do I turn on a gay woman. Because I still felt locked out of the scene. I was as culturally and politically gay as I could get by reading and company, but there appeared to be a couple of barriers to my membership. I must have still been an honorary Bi person, because they still hadn't shown me the secret handshake when I left. Dammit.
It is only when I look back after almost 30 years of struggling with my identity that I realize how far I have come, and how far it was that I had to come. I was very very scared of my own skin, my own sexuality, my own desires. It was a teenage rebellion thing to say I was gay or bi, but at the very same time I was NOT OKAY with being gay or bi. I was afraid of liking it too much, or of being a crap lover or not being turned on by my female lovers. For years there was a weird defiant opposition thing going on for me where I would loudly declare my sexual orientation of the moment and then back the hell off from it from that moment forward. So can you be closeted to yourself while the rest of the world knows (because you TOLD them)? Can that be a real thing? Apparently it can, because after all this time I just realized what I was doing. Counterproductive much? I only recently admitted to myself that I had a "thing" for girl butts! And that lesbian porn turns me on. So apparently you can be both oblivious and homophobic while being a theoretically out gay or bi person. Been there, hopefully done with that now.
All of this is a very round about way to say that I figured out the secret handshake after all this time: there is no secret handshake. There is only the acceptance of fully inhabiting my skin, my desires, my self. I had to step up and claim an identity for myself, and be ready to accept all the baggage and joy that comes with that identity. All of the fear that followed me around dropped away when I was ready. All the other armor dropped away too because I didn't need it anymore.
To all those people who supported me in my oblivion, in my blind thrashing about, Thank you. I know you have probably been there and that is why you were there for me. So thank you to all of you over the years for putting up with me. I really am Bi, it never was a phase (although the gay label seems to have been). I really am not in that silly closet any more, I promise. I hope I can be a sounding board and support like you were there for me.
Now, was that last outing a date, or just coffee? I think I might need to re-purchase the manual. I am ready to embrace a little more risk :}