Left out

22 Jan

Warning: Self-indulgent post ahead

We live in a world where women are objectified on a daily basis, that is disturbingly obvious. In the past I have thought of porn, stripping, glamour magazines and the like, imagining that in at least some of the cases we women are taking some control. In a lot of ways we are, a lot of women in the differing industries often really enjoy their work and find it empowering. The problem I have is, while living in this world where everything seemingly is about pleasing men, where the hell does that leave us girl loving women? – Left out!

Though i have been taught to, I have no desire to please any man, and this small little fact sets me – and all my fellow gay ladies – apart from most of our female friends. We women usually take great pleasure in the morning after talk or dishing about which celebrity we fancy but there is a bit of a road block when there is such a fundamental difference. Most of the time, if we are lucky enough to have good friends, we may not ever feel this divide but on some level its always there.

My feelings change daily on the subject of being gay and what it means but today feels like a sad day as for the first time in a while, I actually really wish I was straight. Its sad because I am quite a proud person and love being a part of the LGBT community but lately I feel very out of touch.

In September I moved to a different town to begin university, having in mind this exciting time of meeting new people, having a great time and maybe a few flings. While for the most part I have indeed had a good time, I’ve been left feeling the loneliest I’ve felt in quite a while. Being gay is a huge part of my identity and I’ve come to the realization that my mentality suffers massively when I feel unable to express that.

Before coming out, I felt extremely low for about seven to eight months as I felt I was hiding such a massive part of me but once I opened up to people I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, cliché as it sounds. Lately it feels like I am right back at that place four years ago and it sucks.

Recently my house mate has begun seeing this guy, while obviously I am happy for her I cant help feel that pang of loss/jealousy of someone else having my best friend’s time, but there’s something else. I remember how I felt at school when a friend got a boyfriend, or started making out with some random guy while out at a club – left out. Left out as it isn’t that simple for me, I get a similar amount of attention as my friends, I’m not terrible looking but the problem is I’m looking for the hot lesbian. The hot lesbian that unfortunately is not as hot in supply as their male equivalent. While I go out to drink, have fun and dance with my friends, it would be nice to find someone I’m actually interested in – even if it is just for a drunken kiss on the dance floor. This was never a real problem in my home town, I had a lot of gay friends, often exclusively went to gay clubs, I always feel comfortable there, and of course there are more gay fish swimming in that particular part of the sea. Here, it seems, though I know untrue and completely stupid, that all the gays are hiding – which brings me back to why I’m sad, for the first time in a while, I find myself longing to be ‘normal’. To be able to go out and know that there will be people I’m attracted to, people I have things in common with and its just pretty depressing. I know it isn’t going to be like this forever and that ‘it’ll get better’ – that corny old phrase, but knowing that doesn’t make it suck any less. Where are my Bette Porters, my Shanes, my Helenas, Alices and Tashas, I wish my life were like The L Word, where I could just rock up to The Planet and live my life as gayly as I please.

And yes I realise ‘gayly’ is not a word, but it really should be!

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It’s hard

10 Jan

Having not posted much over Christmas, I felt prompted to write this post after watching a youtube video (details below). I feel like I spend my life on youtube and have done pretty much since I started coming to the realisation that I might be gay. As I’m sure many of you are aware there are so so many videos and channels dedicated to the LGBT community and the issues and conversations that come with it. When coming out to myself, youtube was an absolutely massive part of my process and crucial to my learning simply that it is okay to be gay and for that I will always be eternally grateful to youtube and all those lovely LGBT guys and gals in their rooms with their webcams.

While my youtube obsession began about five years ago, it has in no way slowed down and still to this day I am daily made to feel part of a community, comfortable with myself and my sexuality and generally made to laugh and smile and carry this confidence into many other areas of my life.

The particular video I watched today was a coming out story video from the channel Thisisliving (look it up, totally worth it) and for some unknown reason when one of the lovely ladies frm the channel told her story of the difficulties, that lightbulb moment and her parents reaction, I started to cry. Having come out to myself and to my parents 5 and 3 years ago repectively, it brought back all those memories. I was extremely lucky in the fact I got an absolutely amazing reaction from my parents after a drunk text the night before revealing I had a girlfriend, which is the story I tell people when they ask the typical question of “What did your parents say?”.

However one thing that I don’t usually talk about, like, ever, is just how scared I was about it for a good year before hand. There were so many moments when sexuality would come up, boyfriends etc that felt like a possible time to come out but each time I had such strong heart palpitations that I chickened out.

Looking at it now it seems so strange that I was so excruitiatingly afraid but I really was petrified. I realized myself at 16 years old a full year before I told anyone else. I felt like such a giant weight had been lifted from my heart and chest just realizing it myself, I felt elated like that last puzzle piece had just slotted into place, as if all the differences I felt from my peers suddenly made sense.

For a while this was more than enough for me, just knowing myself sent me into a spiral of excitement of learning about the LGBT community, watching documentaries, reading blogs and ofcourse the beginning of my youtube addiction. Unfortunately this wasn’t greatly long lasting and soon I began to feel as if I was lying to my friends and that I could no longer really relate to the people I spent most of my time with.

Eventually I came out, had agreat response form everyone I told and felt so much support that I felt silly for ever worrying about it. Knowing that I had such a supportive network and yet still went through a great deal of pain and fear in the process gives me a feeling of both relief and sadness as I know that there are many people, far too many, that are not as lucky as I was. For the most part I had forgotten this anguish and its not something I think about each day luckily so I just want to say that cheesy ‘It gets better’ phrase is true, it will. No matter at what stage you are in your own personal coming out process, know that it won’t always be the way it is now. Try to find excitement in your newfound and unique identity, embrace your differences and know that one day you’re going to look back and appreciate the hard times as they make the good times just that much better.

You never know , in five years time you might find a youtube video or a blog post that will bring back memories of this time in your life and may even for no logical reason make you shed a little tear… then start re-watching The L Word for the umpteenth time… as I’m going to be doing right now.

Thanks for reading!

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Everyone I know is gay…

19 Dec

Or so apparently are assumed. The age old “Oh you’re gay, you must know______” still rings true but it has become apparent that it also now works the other way around “Oh you’re gay, so does that mean that your friend is… you know?”. While majority of the time a person of queer disposition will perhaps know one or two others, he or she may know less or way more, just as any straight person could. Though often it doesn’t come from a bad place, it does make you wonder.

What brings me to this post is a conversation with the mom (tis the season after all) who said my dad had asked whether my house mate was more than just my house mate. Since I came out to my parents, I have become a lot more aware of when and how I talk about my friends because thankfully in my parents eyes everyone is not simply presumed straight (when it comes to my friends at least). In fact a lot of the time they are very much presumed otherwise, its like they think I have a gay bug that I automatically just pass onto all of my friends. While I do try my best to bring out the queer in everyone, this obviously is not the case. Most friends that I’ve talked about in the last two or three years have involved at some point my mom asking (diplomatically as ever) “oh, is she…” for the first year of my outness, moved onto straight up ” so is she gay, bisexual?”.

In this particular case it was my very much straight house mate who, admittedly, I do talk about a lot. In the last three months since we moved into our uni accommodation we have become very close quite quickly. We are each others best friend, cooking together (e.g. microwaving mac n cheese) attempting to skateboard and of course lots of drunk toilet conversations. All of which are completely platonic, I explained to my father. Though as he pointed out, she is very pretty, I thankfully have a sort of filter, whereby once a I know a girl is straight, although I can appreciate they may be attractive, I no longer feel attracted to them.

Thankfully it seems, as people are always going on about those straight girl crushes that break hearts, I am yet to fall victim (apart from Jessica Alba and Penelope Cruz who sadly will never be mine).

Us queers are often represented as a highly-sexed ‘keep your children’s eyes covered’ type group, probably not helped by our crazy rainbow and often naked pride gatherings. That may be because one of the only things that set us apart from our straight peers is who we have sex with, being the general consensus that we like to concentrate on the differences, I guess its easy for a lot of people to see sex as our most important quality. On some subliminal level, I believe this may be why we are believed to be having sex with any friends we talk about, because hey we are all about the sex, why wouldn’t we?

This goes hand in hand with the constant ” you’re gay so you’re attracted to all women(/men depending on your persuasion) right?” or even worse “So you’re bisexual, that means you’re attracted to everyone”. As we all know, whether straight, gay or anything in-between, we all have friends that while we may love them, we would NEVER dream of sleeping with. Why is it so hard to remember this and not jump to the sexy conclusion we are simply incapable of not boning our nearest and dearest?

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The boys club

16 Dec

Again, really?

16 Dec

Today I was reminded once again that no matter any girls I date, how many times I am honest and open about my sexuality, I will always be assumed as ‘going through a phase’ until I’m ‘straight again’.

In a coffee shop today during a venture out with my grandparents when my grandfather was talking about a wedding coming up and how I must find a boyfriend to bring… There was an immediate “No thanks” from me, to which my grandfather replied “why not?” and I have to admit, I didn’t quite know what to say back. Luckily for me, any family member I have told/heard through the family grape vine that I’m a big queer has been – to my face – absolutely fine and welcoming but I get the feeling a lot of them think its a phase.

Having let my mom out me to my grandparents just under three years ago, I took my ex-girlfriend along to a number of family occasions, they visited the flat we shared together – there was no denying we were a couple. Last summer we had quite a long chat about whether I could see myself in ‘this type of relationship’ again – ever tactful they are! Asking what the hell they were going on about, my nan cleared up that they meant ‘a type of relationship, you know… with a girl again’. My reply was honest, telling them that yes most certainly there would be more of these ‘girl type relations’ in the future. Which brings me on to my point of writing this post, it can be hard enough coming out again and again to every new person you get to know, but what do you do if you feel you need to come out repeatedly to same people who have seemingly pushed you back into the closet of their hetero-normal boy meets girl world?

My parents seem to understand that even I don’t have all the answers and kind of leave it at that, if they find me talking about a particular girl a lot, they perhaps skirt around asking if she is more than a friend but I never feel judged and only ever a little awkward to expand on the subject.

It just so happened that within the cafe that the conversation took place, my gaydar went of for the waitress serving us. In a Christmas jumper, low jeans and shoulder length brown hair she was cute and kinda my type. It may have been wishful thinking or the discreet rainbow bracelet I had on but I got the feeling she was flirting with me as she recommended her home-baked cookies (pun intended). She was sitting at the table next to us when said awkward convo ensued and I swear I heard her chuckle at my half-arse attempted reasoning for why I was so outraged at the prospect of having them find me a boyfriend (I went with “well I’ll choose my partner myself thank you”).

It was such a cop out but hey sometimes a girl just wants to have her lesbian cookie and green tea without having to de-closet, you know?

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Femmebot

8 Dec

Oh I do like to be a femme. Wearing dresses, enjoying chick-flicks, and my great love of clothes shopping, oh and being completely ignored by all the hot ‘not femme’ lesbians that attract my attention all too often. While I’ll admit there are definitely advantages to said femme appearance: the afore mentioned points and the ability to fly under the gay radar should I ever want to, but the downfalls… oh the downfalls.

In a lot of ways I’m pretty damn ‘gay’, I could re-watch The L Word until every last lesbian has U-hauled their way into the depths of the most homophobic village in Russia. My all-time favourite movies include Blue Is the Warmest Color, But I’m A Cheerleader and Vicky Christina Barcelona – while the last one isn’t necessarily considered an LGBT movie, it’s got some hot girl on girl action, and hello Penelope Cruz anyone?

blueAs much as I could talk about why I like these movies – Penelope AND Scarlet Johansson TOGETHER anyone? – the point I’m trying to make is that, as my film taste suggests, I consider said queerness to be a huge part of my identity. An identity that for the most part is automatically hidden from most of the people I interact with on a daily basis. While this may not seem like a particularly terrible thing, of course people who I get to know I come out to (daily occurrence). The problem is that instead of my sexuality being a question mark until I get to said coming out conversation, as really should be the case, I am always considered as straight until proven, well, otherwise. While there is obviously nothing wrong being straight… I’m not, and as you can imagine it gets kinda old constantly being assumed as such.

There are the more serious sides of the ever present femme battle, which I will no-doubt go into on another occasion, such as the constant need to come out and the difficulties and sometime awkwardness that often come with.

However for this here blog post the side I’m most struggling with – How do I get the girl/s to notice me?

Having had a couple of flings in the past with the fairer sex and one serious relationship, it’s evident that I have had girls notice me, but it’s not come easy. The girls I’ve been with I’ve usually met in gay bars, gay pride or have been set up by my gay girl knowing friends, which for the most part, if I spent all of my time in a gay bar, would be fine, however I don’t. I, like many of us, function in a mostly seemingly heterosexual world day to day, which means unfortunately going reluctantly under the radar.

OMG-katherine-moennig-9840677-354-500So I want to become a Shane McCutchen, or a Whitney Mixter but don’t fancy cutting my hair or growing dreads, what are my options? Having googled, an embarrassing number of times, ‘how to look more like a lesbian’, ‘how to let others know you’re gay’ I’ve gotten mixed results. Embrace the rainbow! Yep that’s right femmes and studs get decked out in the all the colours after all the rainbow flag is our very own home grown symbol of homofabulousness. While this may be a good choice, and if the right lesbian is paying attention, might even get you a date, it will also scream baby dyke.

 

So if you don’t fancy drastically changing your hair or looking like you’re constantly at gay pride, what’s a femme to do?

Honestly your guess is as good as mine, meaning I am more than open to suggestions 😉

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Greetings

4 Oct

Searching the web for lesbian and what do you find, yes you get some cutesy hand holding pictures but mostly you get porn, don’t get me wrong porn has its pluses but what if that’s not what you’re in search of.

A huge part of coming out or readjusting to this identity is the research, i know i spent countless hours on the internet just trying to find something to relate too. While there are now many wonderful services and sites that offer advice and the like it all comes across quite serious, when i was searching i wanted something fun. That is why i started this blog, its not going to be how every lesbian is living but its how this one is, with mistakes, lessons and bad hair days along the way.

Being a lesbian isn’t always easy but it’s not always so hard either and so although there might be pieces on LGBT news or some more serious topics its mostly going to be about day to day life and my personal journey, relatable and honest with hopefully some comical elements too. The highs and lows and everything in between so welcome aboard and feel free to comment, i dare you 🙂

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