Last night I had a dream where I was at some sort of summer camp and all the lesbians I've ever known were outside playing/having sex/joking around/whatever in the water trough/pool area outside. I felt hurt, embarrassed, left out. My friend Lauren was with them even though she's always been straight and since we were the closest, I joked with her first, calling across the courtyard.
"Lauren, what the hell?" I tried to laugh. "Did you think I wasn't cool enough to invite or something?"
She looked at the girl next to her and then smiled at me, "We thought you were busy otherwise we totally would have invited you." She swam to the edge of the pool near me and I knelt down in front of her. I could feel them, all of them, staring at us while their hands skimmed along skin under the water.
"I can handle it," I assured Lauren, and then out of desperation and anxiety and fear I grabbed her and kissed her quickly. I felt nauseated. I wasn't attracted to her and everyone knew it. She was my friend, my good friend, and instead of making myself fit in I was just floundering further, drowning in the sea of manipulative games and subcultures and titles. Lauren looked at me - angrily, harshly, and I tried to backtrack. "Look, this doesn't mean you're gay or that I like you, I just-" I tried to explain that I wanted to prove myself but she cut my off.
"I don't know what you take me for," I'd never heard her so cold and harsh, "but I'm not gay. And if I were, I'd definitely go for the pretty femmes." I recoiled. Which you're not was implied in her sentence. I'd never been attached to the title of femme, but the way she tore it from me left me reeling - empty handed and wanting to cry.
I feel this a lot. I feel this all the time. Constantly defending and proving and feeling like my sexuality is not broadcast clearly enough. Constantly feeling as though "lesbian" is an exclusive club to which I am not invited or wanted. Constantly aggravated because I'm subjected to male gaze and overtures while easily passed over by lesbians and dismissed as less than or an outsider.
Maybe I'm not femme, but Femme Invisibilty seems to apply to me so easily.
I understand that it is my own shortcomings and brainwashings and past manipulations that have given me this not enough complex, but just because I know that doesn't make it go away. It's a trend in all my writings - not enough - and I'm trying so hard to tamp that down but then it rears up in dreams like this and I know it's still plaguing me.
AW, girl! I feel for you. I know this may be hard to believe right now, but you are NOT invisible. Just the fact that you look at girls; that alone separates you from straight girls. You are beautiful. Know it in your heart. That's the most important thing. That first step. Afterwards, girls will be flocking to you guaranteed.
ReplyDeleteHere are some things you can do:
Go to gay clubs. It's harder to assume you're straight there.
Go to websites like www.autostraddle.com
They have helped me TONS. Their articles are hilarious, and they have really GOOD, HONEST, advice.
And talk to girls! Lots of them. ALL THE TIME. Get comfortable.
Comfort in talking to girls = Confidence in talking to girls.
I wish you well, stranger. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. <3
I'm dating someone, so I don't really need to go chat up girls. I'm fine talking to people one on one, I just feel like in groups my sexuality is easily dismissed and something that has to be proven rather than taken at face value when I say "I'm a lesbian."
DeleteI can feel your pain!!
ReplyDeleteJust because I have long hair and dress in girl clothes (because I'm a girl damnit and like being pretty!) doesn't mean that I am not gay. And yet more often than not when I go out it is the men that are hitting on me, not the women. And half the time when I tell a man I'm gay he thinks this means he just has to try harder! It's frustrating not being seen as actually gay. And hurtful.
Most of the women I've found/dated have been from online, so clearly they already knew I was gay.. I said it in my profile!
I'm at a loss too.
I've definitely gotten the whole "try harder" thing, and when I was in college, the whole "you've just never had a man treat you right" thing, like a nice dinner and movie would change my mind or something.
DeleteYou and your dreams ;)
ReplyDeleteDreams have meanings but very rarely do they mean what you think they mean. That's my cryptic comment for this morning.
I was reading the comment above and had to laugh a little. At certain times (all times?) guys hit on anything that moves. Sometimes you have to pinch them really hard at the right spot and they get the hint fast. I'll leave up to you where you pinch them.
Than again it helps being taller than them too but that's just me.
I totally got felt up by a guy at a gay club last month and I wanted to say "Really? You don't see me standing here with ALL these other lesbians?" I feel like it gets ridiculous sometimes.
Delete