Katy Perry kissed a girl...and no one cared
This is probably the most real that you will ever see me be.
And I am scared to death, but I firmly believe that the ability to tell your story makes you a better writer. And sometimes you have to bare your soul to do that.
A few months ago, a friend mentioned that her life was going too well and it was making it difficult to write. I chuckled, but she’s probably on to something. Hemingway was a raging alcoholic (sadly, many writers are), F. Scott Fitzgerald probably gaslighted his beloved Zelda, and Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an oven. Tortured souls are not few in writing. And, while I would never have the balls to compare my writing or life experiences to theirs, I guess maybe angst and writing go hand-in-hand. Or, maybe it’s something in our personalities that make us writers in the first place. I’ve said many times that I have no idea what I would do if I couldn’t write anymore.
But this story isn’t about writing. This story is about a recent stop on my life’s journey. I almost said “detour,” but I think detour implies that it was a path you didn’t want to take. While it wasn’t a path I ever thought I would choose, I am glad that I took it. And even though part of me feels colossally stupid right now, I know that I will look back later on and realize that this was all part of the route my life was supposed to take.
I debated whether or not I should tell you all. After all, my heart was completely and totally ripped out of my chest this past weekend, so it doesn’t even matter anymore.
Except maybe it does. I could say that I am doing it to help just one other person who is struggling with the same situation, and that would be all nice and make us all feel good. But really, I think that no one should have to be ashamed of the person they love, and I am pretty sure that if I ever find out why I got dumped, that will be the reason.
I will never forget the first time I saw her. She had the most beautiful, big brown eyes, and the most perfect smile you will ever see, even with the gap between her two front teeth. She was with her grandson, although I found it very hard to believe that she was old enough to be a grandmother. While I was instantly struck by her beauty, I was also smitten with her intelligence, her kindness, and her sense of humor. She also has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and maybe that’s a good thing and a bad thing. She was someone I wanted to be friends with, but I instantly felt like we connected on a deeper level.
I will spare you all the details, but I will tell you this was very new territory and I never felt scared with her. In fact, I’ve never felt safer than when I was with her. Have you ever kissed someone and not known where your body ended and the other person’s began? That’s how it was. We were both wild about each other, and we had to keep pinching ourselves to make sure we weren’t dreaming. We did a lot of romantic stuff, but we did a lot of stuff that friends would do like going shopping for shoes in the middle of the night on Black Friday.
It was complicated. She had a husband, and I understood that he came first. I liked him, and he liked me. We both wanted her to be happy. I had no illusions that we would live happily ever after, although I did ask her one night if something happened to him would she want to get married, and she didn’t even have to think about it.
So, maybe I was foolish to think it could go anywhere. All I know is that being in this situation turned my life upside down. Was I OK with this, and what would I do if people found out? I decided, also perhaps quite naively, that I didn’t care. The only thing that was important to me was having her in my life.
I don’t know what went wrong. She got a new job, and she was working insane hours. She was stressed out, and she told me that she pushes people away when she gets stressed. But at some point, I realized that she was shutting me out for whatever reason. And now, things aren’t good anymore. In fact, they’re about as awful as they could be. We had a horrible fight on a few weeks ago, and I’m pretty sure that she’ll never talk to me again. So, if I wasn’t sure what I’d done to make her stop loving me before, I guess I know now. Maybe it’s better, because now I have a reason for her to hate me.
While it’s over and only about four people in the whole world even knew about it (although there may have been more because my roommate says we were incapable of looking like straight people when we hugged), I feel like I need to share this part of my journey. Am I gay now? No, I still like men. Very much so. I don’t even know that I would call myself bi, because don’t think that I would ever seek out another woman to date. What I realized was that no matter whether you call yourself gay, straight, bi, whatever – you don’t choose the person you love. If you do, you’re doing it wrong, and you’re probably missing out.
I don’t even know at this point if my friendship with this amazing woman can be salvaged. I hope that it can, but I apologized for being an asshole and left that ball firmly in her court. Ironically, now that she’s told me that she just wants to be friends and stopped sending me mixed signals (which has been our dance for the last month or so), I would be OK with just being friends. In fact, I told a friend last week that I think I just do better when I only have platonic relationships anyhow. However, I was not nice, and I won’t be surprised if I never hear from her again.
Would I go back and take a different path if I had the chance? Not anything except when she started to shut me out, I would have had more of a conversation about it (because I didn’t realize she was friendzoning me; I thought she was just pushing me away to deal with stress), and I never, ever would have fought with her last weekend. I wouldn’t have never met her, or never gone out with her, or never fallen in love with her. I treasure every minute that we’ve had, even if we never see each other again.
Maybe someone will read this and have the courage to look for love in unexpected places. Maybe someone will read this and have the courage to come out. Maybe someone will read this and have the courage to deal with their own issues about their sexuality instead of hurting his or her partner. Maybe someone will just have the courage to talk to his or her partner instead of running away. After all, who would better know what you're going through?
And, maybe just maybe, someone will read this and realize that no one really chooses who they fall in love with and that it’s not our place to speculate or judge about what happens behind closed doors.
Whatever your journey, I hope it’s the ride of your life.
Song of the day:
“Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
(Sidebar: The title of this post comes from the fact that
Katy Perry kissed Miley Cyrus this past weekend. On the lips. In front of tens of thousands of people in the Staples Center. And no one seemed to care. The times they are a' changin', folks.)
Labels: coming out, dating, Katy Perry, love, relationships
I got you, babe.
As I find myself newly single,
yet again, I am wondering if I should just go all-out channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw and make this blog about the trials and tribulations of a single girl trying to date in the big city.
But a) I am not completely sold on the idea of trying to date in the big city (keep reading) and b) that might be a little too much TMI even for me. (And yes, I know “TMI” actually covers the “too much.” I wanted to convey a lot of TMI there.)
However, this post will be about a serious dating issue:
Why strangers think they can call you by pet names AND think that you’ll like it.
I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about my aversion to pet names before. But, I have one and it’s a serious issue.
Only a few select people can call me by pet names: My parents call me “Sis,” because I am, after all, my brothers’ only sister. My Aunt Foo (who obviously has her own pet name) and my Uncle Mike call me Daisy. I am not 100% my Uncle Mike knows my real name. This stems from the early-80s Dukes of Hazzard craze. My brother, Luke, became “Luke Duke,” and I, by association, became Daisy. Thirty-some years later, I’m still Daisy to them.
And my ex-boyfriend Chris still calls me “Dear” sometimes. I think he just does it because his parents call each other dear in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way. It’s not because he’s hot for me or anything.
And it’s something he started after we’d been going out for several months. You know, when we actually knew each other and had a relationship.
That’s it. Not on that list, you should call me Laura. Or LJ, if you’re one of the friends who managed to survive that dreadful era of my life. (The friends – well, most of them – weren’t dreadful, just that time of my life.)
So, anyway. You will noticed that “sug,” “hon,” “baby,” “sweetie,” or –my personal favorite – “sexy,” were nowhere on that list.
It is not cool for a stranger to call me names that are terms of endearment. It’s not cool for the girl who checks me out at the grocery to call me “honey,” and it’s really, really, really not cool for a guy I have talked to for 30 whole seconds to call me “babe” or – worse yet – “sexy.”
Honestly, I’m pretty sure that if I were married for half my life and my husband called me “sexy,” it would probably set me off.
I find men who refer to women with those kinds of terms to be disrespectful, and seriously, it is the quickest way to get shut down if you are trying to date me.
It instantaneously makes me want to kick someone in the nuts.
Needing a little self-esteem boost after last week’s hullaballo, I decided to dust off my online dating profile. This was a move that lasted about two hours, mostly because of the pet names. We could get into the bigger issue of people seeing your photo online and developing an absurd “connection” and displaying a creepy overfamiliarity, but that’s not even necessary because
I can’t get past the pet names.
So,
Mr. “Hey, babe, maybe we can go out sometime” (only with more atrocious spelling)? Oops. You’ve been deleted.
Mr. “How’s your day going, sexy”? You need to go out to a field and try that on a sheep or something.
I was mentioning this hindrance (aside from the atrocious spelling) to a friend – who’s Southern, I might add, because this apparently seems more friendly to Southerners – and after he lambasted me for being a cold, insensitive Yankee, he told me that I should just tell guys that it makes me want to kick them in the nuts because they probably don’t realize and think that it’s endearing. (And then he said “I’ve never done that to you before, right?” To which I assured him he had not since I was still talking to him.)
And I’ve done that. I’ve asked guys to cut it out with the overly familiar pet names. To which they usually reply, “Anything u want, babe.”
ARGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
If you do this, or you know someone (brother, friend, lady at the supermarket) who does, please tell them to tone it down. I just find it disrespectful and demeaning, and a brief Google search I believe I am not the only one who feels this way.
And in addition to insulting me and making me want to kick you in the nuts, whether you are or not, it makes me think you are a major player. When you call me babe, I assume that this isn’t your first rodeo and you think women are playthings whose names are not even worth remembering. I just assume that you are like this with every woman and you are looking for a quick score. And I think your parents never taught you manners, which is just something you do not want other people to think about you.
So, what does everyone else think? Am I just being a rude northerner and totally overreacting or do I have a valid complaint? I would love to hear other people’s feelings on this issue.
Labels: dating, stupid things men do
Quiet
In some strange way, I'm secretly hoping that I've been so quiet lately you've all given up on me and aren't reading anymore. What kind of writer doesn't want people to read her words?
One who needs to talk, has no one to talk to and just doesn't want the commentary.
Anyone who's been here for a while knows that a few years ago, I went out with someone for several months, helped him raise his child and then ended up having a nervous breakdown when he left me to try to work things out with his ex-wife. It was one of the hardest, darkest times of my life.
Once life had finally started to look up from that, I found out that I was having some health issues and got caught up in some nasty drama involving another man who had crossed my path.
With all that, I just put the whole dating scene up on a shelf high on a closet and worked on improving myself and not worrying about other people.
I bought a house. A house that I got a good deal on and that I love. I am excited every night when I come home.
But right after I moved into that house, I met a guy. A really nice guy. A really nice guy that I liked a lot. He and I spent a lot of time together and I just really enjoyed being around him. I didn't figure I'd be with him forever, but I was definitely enjoying it while it lasted.
And then last week, I went to Disney World with my family, which was probably the best week I have had in a really long time, possibly forever. It was so cool to get to spend a week with my nephew, whom I only see once or twice a year. Actually, that could be said about just about anyone in my family these days.
And Disney World? Well, I am not sure how I made it almost 36 years before I went to Disney World. That place is amazing. They really go out of their way to make sure you have a first-rate experience there.
I talked to my suitor while I was gone. I told him I had thought about buying him a gift, but I hadn't bought it yet. He and I talked and everything seemed OK.
Except it wasn't. I hadn't heard from him the rest of the week, but I knew he was busy with work, so I finally checked in once I was getting ready to come back home.
And he dropped a bombshell on me. He'd decided to reunite with his ex-wife.
Luckily, I've been dealt these cards so many times in the last few years that I new exactly how to play this hand. It's not hard actually. You cry a little. You try to figure out why the fuck this keeps happening to you. And then you go about your business because there's nothing else you can do.
I think the part that pissed me off the most is that getting dumped right before your birthday totally sucks. Not as much as the realization that you will never be able to keep a man, especially when his ex-wife that he's done nothing but talk shit about comes along, but it does suck.
Oh, well. Life goes on. I'm still healthy. I have a job. A house. I'm doing it all on my own, simply because that's the hand I've been dealt.
However, the guilt must have been getting to my little friend, because he felt compelled to email me a play-by-play of the events of the week that I was gone and tell me how great things are and how this was what was missing blah blah blah.
I'm not sure why he did that. It wasn't to rub it in or anything. I think he just wanted to tie up loose ends. It didn't make me want to tell him to go fuck himself anyless, but of course I'm too polite for that.
So, now I sit here. I sit here missing someone I have no right to miss. Someone who really, truly doesn't deserve to be missed by me anyhow.
Every time this happens I say I'm getting too old to do it again. And this time, at 36, I'm thinking I'm for real. The benefits (although they were really, really great this time) do not outweigh the costs. I own my own house, I have a good job, a nice car...I think I really am just better off by myself.
Before I left, my therapist asked me where I saw myself at 40. And, while I'm not a huge fan of setting arbitrary, age-based goals, I did have a few (which I'm not sharing right now), but none of them included having a spouse or even a significant other. While there really are no words to explain how I feel to come home, in the rain, to see a man holding flowers on my back porch waiting for me, there aren't any words to explain how I feel when I come home and realize he's not ever going to be there again either.
All I can really say on this gloomy day is that I'm thankful the eye doctor put all kinds of drops in my eyes, because it gives me an excuse to mist up once in a while...
Labels: dating, neuroses, stupid things men do
