(in response to a "Why don't we just enact a national 'don't ask, don't tell' policy?" sort of thread)

What I want ... is for people just to shut up about it.

So... you want people to stop talking about their sexual orientation in public? Funny you should ask! I've been doing that for most of my life, so here's how you do it, translated for your benefit.

...

Don't tell anyone you're straight.

If put into a position where your orientation might become implied, or obvious, change the subject. If directly asked, say it's a personal matter and it's none of their business-- plead the Fifth, in other words. If someone says something to you that implies they think or assume you're straight, look uncomfortable and make some sort of vague sideways denial. Avoid. Deny. Lie, if necessary, and sometimes it will be, because some people just won't let you escape until they get the answer they want, and you cannot tell them you're straight at all costs. Your job, your family, your physical safety and that of your loved ones, your standing at church-- it's all on the line.

Police your mannerisms, clothing, and language-- try to femme it up a little when people are watching, things like crossing your legs at the knee and paying extra attention to your grooming, so people don't assume you're straight. Make sure your eyes don't linger too long on attractive women. Make extra-special effort to be as cool and aloof with women as possible, lest anyone think you're paying too much attention to them.

In conversation, omit any gendered pronouns concerning actual or hypothetical relationships and marriages-- this is called "the pronoun game," and it takes a great deal of skill to do well. Don't let it bother you when people give you funny looks because your phrasing is stilted and you keep trying to change the subject. In fact, don't ever let the conversation turn to things like sex, gender, relationships, marriage, children and parenting, religion, politics, or anything else where sexual orientation might possibly become relevant. Talk about the weather, or TV shows (but make sure you don't mention if actors are attractive, or comment on relationship dramas, or show an interest in shows about straight people like Friends or Grey's Anatomy...) or music (but make sure they don't think your interest in country, or rap, or whatever is too heterosexual) or sports (except not too enthusiastically, because then they might think you're a straight man; mention something about watching it for the tight pants). Do some community theatre-- throw them off the trail.

Make sure your browser history is cleared on shared computers, and that no one looks over your shoulder, in case they notice you've been surfing Playboy, or Focus on the Family (that heterosexual activist organization), or anything else that might give anyone the slightest hint that you're interested in women. Be very careful of your computer and email passwords. Hide your journals. Make sure you put your Maxims and Sports Illustrateds and Popular Mechanics in the bottom of the magazine basket underneath the National Geographics and Reader's Digest-- ooh, and some InStyles just to make it look good. Make sure the books and DVDs on your shelves are carefully neutral. Make sure your interior design isn't too masculine-- they'll think you're straight.

When you're around your family, everything above goes double, especially conversation topics. Make sure your comments on family goings-on like weddings and childbirths are carefully neutral; change the subject if you can. If someone asks if you have anyone you're dating, or if you'd like to have children someday, or why you're still single since you're such a nice, handsome man (because remember, you're not allowed to tell your family you're straight, lest they disown or estrange you if they don't like it!) start dodging. Tell your relatives you're too involved in your career to get into a relationship, and you haven't met a man you're interested in yet (which is true! allowing for the part where you never will). Talk about your close male friends-- with any luck, they'll light on them as Possibilities. They can think whatever they want; it's not your fault if they assume there's nothing there.

Don't mention your wife to anyone. In fact, obfuscate the fact that you're heterosexually married as much as possible. Take off your wedding ring. Avoid all mention of in-laws. Take down any pictures of her you have at your desk or work area. If she calls you, be careful that no affection shows in your voice beyond that which you would show to a friend or relative. Don't ever let anyone catch you telling her you love her.

If asked what you did over the weekend, avoid talking about watching movies and eating dinner with your wife. If you're out with [Wife] and you are obligated to introduce her to someone, make no mention of her relationship to you or refer to her vaguely as your "friend." Don't hold hands with your wife where people might see you; don't touch each other; don't walk too close. People can see you, and then they'll know you're straight, and what's more, that you have a female lover. It's rude to put it right out there and let everyone know that you enjoy penis-in-vagina intercourse. No one cares what you do in bed! Stop flaunting it!

...

[Heterosexual Married Man], *this* is what "shutting up about it" is. There is a social assumption of heterosexuality, and every time you break it in the smallest way, it's seen as a brazen political act in a way it's not when you're straight. God knows I wish it wasn't a Huge Freaking Deal every time I mention my girlfriend, or my preference for Scully over Mulder, or the fact that there will be no groom at my eventual wedding, but I'm not the one who's making stuff like this a matter of "talking about sexual preference in public" like I'm somehow telling people whether I prefer soft-focus and Barry Manilow to floggers and Nine Inch Nails.

-------

There is very little that annoys me more than people approaching living an out gay life from the standpoint of "Why you gotta flaunt it? No one cares about your sex life!" Honey, I'm hardly the one making it all about my sex life. If I was flaunting that, it would be obvious a lot sooner.

Labels: love/sex, Teh Gay

[+] Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. (I had midterms.)

[+] I'm trying very hard not to think about the fact that I'm GRADUATING IN FIVE MONTHS AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO DO HOLY SHIT SNOOZE BUTTON! SNOOZE BUTTON ON LIFE!

I know that I definitely don't want to go back to live in Terabil, because Terabil is the sort of place that eats your soul and makes it impossible to leave. It's like the Sarlacc Pit of employment opportunities-- you can make just enough to make it there, and even live well there since it's relatively cheap as far as cost-of-living goes, but the opportunities for advancement even for a normal non-creative job are few and far between. And I did not just spend four years in art school to be a cubicle monkey.

Not to mention the fact that I would rather chew off my right arm than be forced to live within supervisory distance of my immediate family.

[+] I know that at some point I want to come back for my MFA, but I don't yet know in what. I'm seriously considering coming back to get it in painting instead of sequential art because I'm completely in love with my basic painting class right now.

[+] Iris and I are still dating, but not seriously. She isn't looking for a serious relationship, and while I wouldn't turn one down I don't have the time or energy to work on developing one, but we make time to hang out on weekends and I usually see her on my walk to my art history class. It's sort of a relief not to have to think about OMG Are We A Couple Now sorts of things and just enjoying her company. And, you know, the earlobe nibbling and random kisses and whatnot are a rather nice bonus too. Mmm, earlobes.

[cheesy moment] I was over at her dorm last Saturday after helping out on Hans' senior project film shoot (my role was Anonymous Office Lackey Windexing the Plastic Plants in the Background) and when I had to go walk home we kissed goodnight. About six times. She almost didn't let me leave. Heehee. [/cheese]

[+] Helga dumped Hans the day before his birthday back in December. On Valentine's day, of all days, he officially started a New And Improved relationship with the heretoforth named Heather, whom he has been acquainted with for years and who only recently he started getting to know in earnest because of a shared interest in Japanese monster movies and the fact that she's in my art history class and is also my next-door neighbor, so she hung out around me a lot, and anyone who hangs around me a lot eventually ends up hanging around Hans a lot too.

They are a very well-matched couple, and I'm happy for them both because they're both my friends, but if they don't stop making out in front of me I'm going to start carrying a bucket of cold water around when I'm with them. I am violently allergic to PDA, particularly the kind that produces wet smacking noises. Eurgh.

[+] I (sort of) cleaned my room today. Go me!

Labels: art, love/sex, school

When I was little-- eight or nine, just before puberty basically-- I held the firm belief that everything useful to know could be found in a book. (Nowadays I'm more likely to believe that it can be at least located via Google, though it may be behind a subscription wall.)

At the same time, I wondered why all the other little girls were always running around talking about wanting "boyfriends." I had boys who were friends, of course, but I wasn't precisely sure why someone would want a "boyfriend." What, exactly, would you do with one that would be different from just having a boy friend, or a girl friend for that matter? Was I missing something here?

So at that age, I sincerely believed that one day, I would receive a book, in the mail perhaps, entitled "How to Have a Boyfriend," that would clear up this mystery for me.

Maybe I'm just gay because my book got lost in the postal system.

I think at this point I could probably use the companion volume, though. Starting with When To Tell If You Can Use The G-Word, 'cause honestly, I can't tell.

My friends will refer to Iris as my "girlfriend," albeit in a joking tone, and tell me I can't look at cute girls anymore because I'm "taken." I'm more along the lines of describing it as "sort of dating," for lack of a better term, even though none of the times we've been together could be really described as a traditional date (...inasmuch as anything lesbians do can really be traditional, I suppose). We've both hung out with each others' friends, and sat around watching movies together. I'm at the point of not worrying too much about the specific terminology, "going with the flow" and whatnot.

I think in a lot of ways, dating Hans was the merest of training wheels when it came to relationships. I'm totally thrown by the simplest things now because it matters now in a way it didn't before. Like, do I call her and see when she's free, or see if she calls me, because I don't want to be stalkery, but I also don't want her to think I'm not interested? Didn't matter with Hans, both because he usually called and because I always had an underlying sense that that relationship wasn't the most important thing ever. Do these jeans make my butt look fat? What if she LIKES fat butts? I told Hans to fuck off if he didn't like what I was wearing, but I really want to look nice to Iris because it matters to me what she thinks (though the available evidence suggests she doesn't have a problem with how I look).

In other words, I'm completely acting like a girl. There goes the "wanting to be a man" part of my mom's Theory of Lesbianism.

I might not get to see her this weekend, because we both have craploads of finals to finish. This makes me sad, because this is the last weekend before winter break and then I won't see her again until January.

I'm hoping to work in a viewing of But I'm a Cheerleader before then, because she hasn't seen it. I will MAKE time, dammit.

Labels: love/sex, Teh Gay

She squeaked when I kissed her on the cheek.

It was so cute.

Labels: love/sex

I kind of have a date. Or I have a kind-of-date. Whichever it is when you have a culinary gathering for your natal festivities and invite a girl you've been trying to get together with for a while. I don't know if it's technically a DATE date, but it serves the same general purpose, so I'll go with it.

--------
Backstory: Here's where it gets complicated. Feel free to skip it if you like. Pardon my rambling, this is all exciting for me and I know people who'd like to hear the gossipy bits.

This Girl (call her Iris) whom several mutual friends have told me I should get together with. I know that she's (a) single and (b) gay, which eliminates the two major reasons why girls are usually unavailable to me. Being the proto-stalker I am, I looked up her profile on Facebook and basically, she's a big ol' geek, like me. And she ain't bad lookin', either. So after the couple dozenth repetition of "You should really get together with Iris," and constantly seeing her around at the strangest places (like Waffle House at four a.m. and a local Mexican restaurant the day after getting back to school, among a ton of other incidences) and wondering if Someone was trying to tell me something, I bit the bullet and sent her a message on FB asking if she'd like to hang out sometime.

The main friend we had in common, Chuck, informed me that she doesn't check her FB or her school email (to which FB reports) very often. He said he gave her my phone number. I waited around for a week or so with no response, and figured that meant "no thanks."

Now, my roommate Maureen (whose boyfriend Mercer knows Iris) knows Iris' best friend, who told her that Chuck was not necessarily in Iris' good graces at the moment (truth be told, I'm sort of annoyed with him as well, for various reasons) and that it was likely that she'd just ignored him. So Maureen asked her to pass the message along again, and so about two weeks after I sent the original message I got a reply saying of course! Iris would LOVE to hang out sometime! here's her e-mail, and her deviantArt site, which she checks often! and her room number if I'd like to stop by anytime! (She writes really girly. I'm not even including the smileys.)

(Maureen chewed Chuck out for screwing things up. He implied that it must be my fault somehow. He is now officially banned from matchmaking capacity, because Maureen is really scary when she's mad. I've seen it. Don't piss the bubbly little blonde girl off if you want to keep your head.)

So I e-mailed her asking about schedules and gave her my screenname, and she IMed me later while I was away so I got hers. Thus establishing something like five routes of communication. Ah, technology.

Anyway, I was going for coffee during midterms with Maureen and my friend Helena and she happened to be online, so I asked her if she'd like to come along. Alas, it was midterms, and she was busy. (I was too, at that point, so I didn't blame her.) Maureen has made it her mission to Get Me Laid, Or At Least Pretty Close To It, so she suggested (read: browbeated me into) setting up a group thing that I could invite her to. Given that my birthday is fairly close, I decided to throw myself a pizza party and sent her an email inviting her, to which I got a "Count me in, I'm glad we finally get to meet!"

So. Yay. ^_^
-------

Before all this happened, I had no idea that relationships between two people would involve so much strategy and networking on the part of so many other people. It struck me during all this how... social dating is. It's not just about the two people involved; all these social connections are intertwined based on who knows who and what their relation to each other is. It's hard for me to conceptualize, being someone who builds friendships one by one, but there it is in all its six-degrees-of-separation glory: society.

In this sense, gay marriage bans can be constructed as an attempt to exclude gay people and their relationships from the community, partly to delegitimize them, since relationships outside the general social network and the auspices of legal obligation can be seen as less "real", and partly to make it harder for them to exist at all-- I wouldn't have known Iris even existed were it not for the people I knew that did know her, and it wouldn't have gotten to even this tentative stage were it not for the encouragement and social support of my friends. (I was frequently threatened with bodily harm for being waffly on sending the invitations.)

It was hard for me to take the initiative. Part of it is just my extremely ingrained introversion; it's hard for me to reach out to people period. I frequently say that I make all my friends by accident. Part of it is also, frankly, women aren't socialized to make the first move. I just got tired of sitting around waiting to be noticed.

As well, I was/am concerned about the repercussions of having what will almost certainly be a relationship closeted from my parents. Lying sucks hardcore, I'm really, really bad at it, and I've developed an attachment to the Quaker idea of integrity (blame Peterson for making me into a wannabe Friend) as an ideal for me.

I dislike the implications of going against their stated policy of not wanting to "financially support a gay lifestyle." Up until now I could just say "well, I'm not doing anything really gay, like, oh, dating a woman, so I don't feel overly guilty about being out since my actions are basically congruent with their expectations otherwise." If I end up dating a woman, though, I have to deal with this.

And outside Teh Gay Issue, I love my parents. I mean, they're sending me to college sans loans, they bought me a car, they get antsy when I don't call home frequently enough... if I wasn't gay, there wouldn't be a problem in the world. If I don't push the issue, if I stay in the closet for their peace of mind, everything functions fine. I wonder in my more insecure moments why I have to fuck everything up by being selfish enough to insist on my sexuality.

Which is, I suppose, the sticking point. All this material and emotional support-- essentially, my parents' love-- is predicated on the assumption that I'm not "being gay." Am I willing to risk that? What matters more to me: being gay, or being part of my family? Obviously, it sucks that this even has to be a choice, but this is indeed how it stands unless my family has a radical change of heart. Or unless I magically wake up craving penis one day. (Ask Hans-- penis is, at best, something that can be overruled by extraneous factors, like friendship and/or sheer lonely desperation. It's not exactly a selling point for me like, say, boobies.)

When I had no prospects, it seemed like I was going to go crazy because I was beginning to consider that I might never have any. I almost want to say I sent the original message because I subconsciously believed that I was going to get rejected anyway, so it wouldn't matter. Now that this might not be the case, it looks like I'm going into reflexive self-doubt about the whole thing.

I'm almost worried that outside of just being a weirdo whom she might not like anyway, which is indeed a distinct possibility, I might subconsciously sabotage things just so I don't have to deal with the questions.

But... the chance, the mere possibility... it makes me happy. I sit around with a goofy look saying stupid things like "She really talks about me all the time?" (Which is apparently what Helena's friend who knows her said.) I run down to Hans' room just so I can tell someone "I got an Ijavascript:void(0)M from Iris and it says [blah blah blah] and she put a smiley at the end and yaaaaay!" I discovered I bite my thumbs when I'm excited and nervous.

This... feels real to me, in a way that even dating Hans didn't. It's hard to say what I mean.

I guess I feel like crap for feeling happy, essentially.

Labels: friends, love/sex, Teh Gay

Hans has a new girlfriend (well, new-ish). He met Helga online (she lives on the West Coast) through his art gallery site. From all indications they're perfect for each other and she makes him delirious with joy. All of which is fine and dandy. I'm glad for him. I just wish he would shut the fuck up about how gloriously in love he is and how marvelous his ladylove is and how he's never felt this way before and how he wants to marry her and have babies and live happily ever after.

In fact, all my closest friends (within, say, a five-hour drive) are rapidly becoming smugly coupled. My friend Bennett just found a boyfriend. Sorcha is totally besotted with Scott (who I met and actually rather like, so it's not as if I resent it). Maureen and Mercer still glomp all over each other in plain sight. I can't go anywhere without being visually assaulted with Shiny Happy Couples.

Don't even talk to me about Valentine's Day. As if a celebration of all things pink and heterosexual weren't enough for one day, they had to start putting up decorations halfway through January. I swear, if I saw one more diamond commercial ("Propitiate the little woman-- buy her a shiny rock!") I was going to break the TV. Rub it in, why don't you, you corporate sons of bitches.

All of this was probably exacerbated by the fact that while grocery shopping the other week, I saw a girl from one of my classes that I was developing a crush on, attempted to strike up a conversation, and was quite soundly blown off. I figure four monosyllabic responses in a row and a refusal to make eye contact pretty much constitutes a nonverbal "please go away, you're embarrassing yourself."

If I complain about being single, I'm told that I should try to get out there more. When I try to "get out there more," I get blown off. Then it's my fault for not knowing HOW to get out there. I wish my advisers would be a tad more specific in the first place.

Random venues for meeting people-- classes, clubs, friends-of-a-friend, etc.-- are sort of aligned against me; my most generous estimates give me a 15% chance tops for said target being inclined to my gender. Out of that, then, assume that two-thirds of those girls will be bisexual and, most likely, have boyfriends. This leaves me with five percent, of which, say half will already have girlfriends, bringing me to a best-case-scenario of 39:1 odds against.

Now would be a good time to mention that I lose a lot at games of chance.

Should I choose to increase my chances by gravitating towards a more pointedly gay establishment, I'm still at a disadvantage. It's pointless for me to try bars or nightclubs because I can't drink (meds) and can't dance (natural lack of talent). I went to a few meetings of the school's GSA, but it struck me as rather cliquey. The last meeting I went to, I would sit down next to someone and five minutes later, s/he would get up and move across the room. After this happened about three times, I gave up and just sort of watched everyone else talk to each other from the other side of the room.

I've very little chance of attracting anyone with my dazzling outer beauty-- I would actually have to be attractive for that to happen. I suppose a certain segment of the population might have some sort of predilection for geekily androgynous Christina Ricci/Summer Glau* lookalikes, but I have yet to meet any.

You know those coming-out stories where people will fall in love with a best friend / roommate / next-door neighbor / barista / Wal-Mart greeter / etc. and fortuitously find out that the person is just as madly in love with them, and they're still happily partnered twenty-five years later? I want one of those.

Lately I've been fairly depressed by the above ruminations, which tend to pop up every time I see yet another Smug Couple holding hands (which is, oh, every ten minutes or so). My mom complained that every time she called and asked me how I was, I was always "tired," and wanted to know if "everything was okay."

Frankly, no, but I sincerely doubt she'd be much help.

Labels: friends, love/sex

Sad, but true: "Yvonne" said the magic phrase that does a stompy dance all over my hopes: "my boyfriend."

Oh well. Moving on.

While I was home a while back, we were discussing (for whatever reason) the fact that the new puppy needs to be neutered. (Mainly he keeps humping everyone's arm and biting them, and while he's small enough so that kind of dominance behavior's not dangerous it is rather annoying.)

I discovered that I seem to be the only person in my family who can unhesitatingly say the words "penis" and "testicles." There is more than a little irony in this.

Maybe it's lifedrawing class, where you get used to contemplating a nude human in a fairly dispassionate manner, or maybe it's just that everyone at art school has a more relaxed manner towards sexual matters in general, but I don't have a problem with nudity. When I did my nude self-portrait, I was a bit self-conscious hanging it up in class, but while I was actually doing it Maureen and Hans would hang out in the room with me while I was nude (in socks). It was funny when Maureen decided to draw my "shining ass," but it wasn't embarrassing.

On the flip side my family has always had pet terms for genitalia, and sex and genitals are discussed with a sort of giggly hesitation, as if they were something "naughty." They give lip service to the idea that "sex is a beautiful thing" and whatnot, but their ATTITUDE towards sex and nudity says something totally different.

I don't remember ever getting a Sex Talk, or at least anything beyond an explanation of menstruation. Most of my sex education came from classmates and books. I remember being ten or so and reading a book about various stories in a maternity ward, with graphic descriptions of women giving birth or their various sexual ailments. I sort of hid it as if it were a "dirty" book, even though there was nothing actually sexual in it. It was just various stories of women in pregnancy and labor, and I somehow felt like just the fact that it discussed genitalia made it taboo.

On the flip side, I've gotten shit about my more-modest-than-average way of dressing. I have been explicitly encouraged to wear "shorter skirts" and "lower-cut shirts." My response to it is usually along the lines of "I'm not advertising what I'm not selling," which is essentially true but doesn't quite get at the point. Frankly, I don't wear revealing clothing because I don't like being revealed.

Women's clothing is calculated to reveal. It becomes a game to see how low your neckline or waistline can go before it's public indecency. Women's bodies are so relentlessly sexualized that it's numbing. I've gotten to where it's a downright turnoff for me to see a girl whose breasts seem to be making a bid for freedom from their Wonderbra.

My roommate first year asked me once "You have such a nice figure. Why don't you show it off more?" Because to me, my body is not an object for everyone else to look at. It's mine to use as I see fit, when I see fit, and that does not include displaying it for public approval. I'm happy with my body and my looks, and frankly I couldn't care less if some random schmoe walking down the street I live decides I'm fuckable or not. Talk to me, not my cleavage.

So where does this fit into the messages I get about sex from my upbringing? If sex is dirty, why should I use my clothes and my body to elicit sexual desire from men? If nudity is taboo, why flirt with the edge?

Labels: family, gender, love/sex

So my last assignment in my lifedrawing class was a figure rendering on toned paper (blah blah blah). Since I couldn't find a friend with the time to model for me, I ended up doing myself. And since it was indeed a figure drawing, I did have to draw myself naked. I ended up doing a side/back pose wearing black-and-white-striped knee-high socks, because if you're going to be showing off your conte-rendered ass to your entire class, you might as well do it wearing fun socks.

At class, everyone starts putting theirs up right after they walk in. Mine goes up on the wall and I sit down to see what everyone else puts up. So Cute Girl (Yvonne, for the sake of creative pseudonymity) walks in with hers, and I'm looking around at everyone else's while waiting to see what hers looks like...

Hers was an extremely well-rendered full frontal nude self-portrait.

No socks.

When class was over and I'd already put mine in the pile, I looked around to see where Yvonne was, and walked over and said (mostly to my feet but NOT ALL) "Hey, um, I just wanted to tell you that I thought your picture was gorgeous. I figured you'd probably see me steal it, though, but I thought it was really well-done..."

And she laughed, and said thanks, and reaches out to pat my hand AND I SEE THAT SHE'S REACHING OUT TO PAT MY HAND AND...

well, I bolted, really. But I was still sorta proud that I had the wherewithal to say anything at all. And it was a really good drawing, the class was agreed on that.

(Critique revealed a consensus that the best part of my picture was, yes, the socks. Not that the rest of it was bad, but that the socks were simply the coolest. I tend to agree.)

Also, she sat next to me on the floor during critiques and struck up conversation again. I'M SO CONFUSED. But HAPPY.

Labels: art, love/sex

How do you tell if a girl is flirting with you? Especially if you are a girl?

In my Lifedrawing 2 class, there is a girl (well, duh). She's absolutely gorgeous, seems quite friendly and reasonably intelligent, and incidentally draws really well (not that it's necessarily a consideration, but it didn't hurt that her bra-wearing self-portrait was extremely well-rendered).

Several times she's given me compliments on my work in class or made small talk with me. Today she took the drawing board next to mine (while the majority of the easels in the room were still unclaimed) and struck up conversation with me throughout class time. We were talking about the model's particular body peculiarities and how different models' proportions and structures are easier or harder to draw, and she began using her own form as an example. "See, I have a really short torso-- my belly button is all the way up here..."

Oh geez. Please don't ask me to stare at your torso (any more than I already have been).

I have no "gaydar" for women. Men I can pick out fairly easily and on at least two occasions have predicted it before he himself knew it. Women? If she's not wearing rainbows, double-venus-symbols, or a t-shirt saying "Yes I am, and no, you can't watch," I've got no way of telling which way(s) she swings. Go figure.

I also have no skills in or refined knowledge of flirtation. I can't really do it, being prone to doing things like conversing with my shoes, temporarily losing my grasp of basic grammar and extensive vocabulary, tripping over my own feet, and generally finding ways to make myself look more inept than usual. I also have a hard time recognizing when other people are trying to flirt with me; usually I only realize it in retrospect, after having done something that in retrospect was probably mean. Hence, my dilemma.

Hans, being who he is, says she's obviously hot for me and I should suggest private lifedrawing study sessions. Maureen asked how long her hair was. (Longer than mine is, so no help there. If she was visibly queer this wouldn't be nearly as much of a dilemma.) Paul (Hans' roommate), like me, had no idea.

My wishful thinking says anything's possible, but then again, my natural pessimism says that given the usual statistics there's about a 90% chance she's just being friendly.

Oh well.

Labels: love/sex, Teh Gay

Well, that should make for a suitably provocative title.

Hurting refers to my throat. I think it's sinus drainage or something similarly prosaic, and it's not particularly debilitating, besides the coughing, the cough-induced headache, and sounding like the Southern female equivalent of Ben Stein on a cigarettes-and-bourbon bender. (Normally I just sound like the Southern female equivalent of Ben Stein.) Mostly I'm downing Luden's Wild Cherry Throat Drops like there's no tomorrow and getting on with things as usual.

Anyway, on to things as usual.

Hans is apparently "in love" with an Italian redhead in his film class who is even shorter than me and likes God of War and other similarly bloody video games. What's really funny about this is how much he protested that he wasn't going for another relationship, he just wanted to play the field and not get tied down... Right, well, that resolve lasted about two weeks. He's such a sap. I was almost surprised at my own reaction to it, but quite honestly I was happy for him. I expected to feel a little jealous or something, but... nope. Nothing. I just feel glad that he's found another "prospect," and genuinely happy at my friend's good luck. It was... odd. (I'm a little peeved that he got a redhead before I did, though.)

As long as he continues to let me play Burnout: Revenge, all will be well between us.

I sort of hope that he doesn't go into Couple Mode too soon, given that just about all of my friends are paired off. Maureen has Mercer, Hans' roommate Paul has his girlfriend Paige, my friend Tom has Teresa... I can really only think of maybe two people I'm friendly with here that aren't currently attached. (For that matter I can only think of two friends I have that aren't heterosexual, and they're both bi males.) It gets sort of depressing seeing yet another Happy Couple™ every time I turn around and everywhere I go.

Mostly it reminds me that I am not part of a Happy Couple™ and not likely to be anytime soon, and if I chance to find anyone amenable to relieving said condition, it would have to be a guilty underground relationship because of my parents' ultimatum about not "financially supporting" a "lifestyle" they "disagree with," which translates to "dare to date anyone but fully be-penised manly men, and you can forget about having a family, much less the rest of your college funding."

It's something my mom brought up on the drive back to Terabil: "Maybe... maybe you're not meant to be married. God makes some people to be single. Maybe you're meant to be single."

I think it was a stretch for her because it meant she would even give up all her hopes and preconceptions about my getting heterosexually married and wife-and-mothering my own perfect suburban nuclear family (white picket fence not included) if I would just not end up with another woman. That, at least, was sort of impressive. At least she wouldn't be pissy that I'm not spawning.

I don't think she was best pleased when I told her that I'd thought about that scenario, and I honestly didn't think I was cut out for the celibacy business, and I definitely didn't want to marry a man. (Then she brought up Adam and Steve and I think I quit listening.)

Thing is, people with "the gift of celibacy," as it's called, actually have the capacity to deal with life without a partner. Some people really are set up that way and it would be as ill-advised to make them marry as it would to make someone not set up that way try to hack it alone. Me, I can only deal with singleness with the consoling mindset that it's not a forever thing. When I consider that I might have to be alone and unpartnered for the whole of my life, it's... well, depressing, to say the least. Hell, it's depressing to think that barring a miraculous change of heart on my parents' part I'm going to have to spend at least the next two years as a prospectless singleton.

Things are made for people to do in pairs. Free vacations come with tickets for two. Restaurant booths default to tables for two. Ever noticed how hard it is to walk in groups of three? Someone always ends up weaving around the lampposts and falling behind the other two because the sidewalk isn't wide enough. There's a reason that they're called "smug marrieds," and it's because the world is arranged to suit them.

I feel a little left out sometimes. A little envious. Lonely, mostly.

Labels: family, love/sex, Teh Gay