At twenty seven and as my mother's only daughter I was under constant pressure, not all of it subtle, to produce darling grandchildren she could coo over while she was 'still on this earth'. This was invariably accompanied by a hand to her throat as if to imply that any day now she might stop being as strong as a horse and go to her reward. I did wonder if the Almighty might actually have been putting off the day he had her there with him to tell him how to run things for as long as he could. (Although I must admit I was careful to keep such disloyal thoughts to myself.)
The fact is there wasn't a man in sight as far as my romantic desires were concerned although this was a mere detail to my mother and her friends who worked tirelessly to match me with this man or that but all to no avail.
"Well if they had found a half pie decent one maybe," I used to mutter (under my breath -- refer 'disloyal thoughts concealment policy' above) after I had shared their disappointment another date hadn't worked out and, you want to know why thirty something men are still available? They are pitiful in the bedroom and have all the romance of a dirty sock with more hang-ups than a wrong number. Why they don't just propose to their mothers I will never know.
Sorry? Did that sound bitter? Surely not.
Not that I didn't hope that one day, you know, Mr. Right would come along ...but for all that I had a career and was actually getting on just fine living on my own with the occasional bonk from some stranger I might meet in a bar somewhere. I was acutely aware that the biological clock was ticking but I worried that I should be worried rather actually worried about my diminishing prospects of having babies.
. The problem was that I didn't feel in the least maternal and while a good fuck was still a good fuck I sure had no intention of them sleeping over because I had found in recent years that I preferred the company of women. Well most women do; we're much easier to talk to, we don't tell each other what we should have done and we're up with the play because we don't go off in our own little dream world.
To be fair I have to admit that the physical attraction was becoming more important than the sisterhood bit. Not that I was a raging lesbian at all; more like a furtive voyeur although once or twice my glances had been outright stares with my though processes all too obvious. One lady came over and told me she knew what sort of a pervert I was and I thought hours later that I should have asked her how she knew but brilliant- on- the- spot repartee has never been my strong suite and I had let her harangue me as I turned bright red and apologized profusely.
But I got positive responses too; a moment of meaningful eye contact, a slightly raised eyebrow with just a hint of a smile, that sort of thing. Gradually I had worked up courage and I had joined a website where I discovered most of the gay girls were guys pretending but I tiptoed through the phonies and found a few buddies I really could talk with. I chatted in private and on forums all the time discussing the subject of 'same sex' relationships (yes, the very words I used) as a bystander, an interested and, I was confident, compassionate observer.
All the time I kept my distance until finally someone had had enough.
"How much bait do you need to cut?"
I found in my inbox on girltogirl.org one morning.
It stopped me in my tracks and I stared at the screen wanting to write something but unable to find the words. I logged off and carried on with my day at work, the words tormenting me. When I got home I logged on and there was a new message:
"Sorry I was so harsh but you're driving me insane. We're not that far away from each other; let's meet up and you can see a real lesbian-in the flesh."
I sent a reply straight away telling her " I'd love too" and hoping I wouldn't be too much of a disappointment. A few moments later she replied suggesting that if I was that worried I could send her some shots of myself, preferably nude and she could judge for herself.
Well that was logical; terrifying but logical and I sent the temporizing message:
"Now?"
Seconds later she sent her pics and she was gorgeous- older than me but just perfect. On the verge of sending my reply I stopped. Something was wrong; I didn't know what or why but it just didn't feel right. Then I looked more closely at the pictures; they were professional shots and from the look of the woman in them she was a model. So who was I dealing with?
I sent a rewritten reply making an excuse and saying I wasn't quite ready to take the next step after all but I had deleted the photos she had sent me because it wouldn't be fair and so on. She told me to go fuck myself so I felt fairly confident it wouldn't have gone that well.
I'm being droll and nonchalant of course but right then I was gutted and my confidence, such as it was, had simply evaporated. This was my ace in the hole- girls- but maybe I couldn't accept a simple offer. Maybe it was me and I couldn't commit? A few days later, as luck and my mother would have it; I was fixed up with a Blind Date. Evan was thirty six, well advanced in male pattern baldness, delightfully attached to his mother- with whom he still lived- and I felt an antipathy towards him the moment we met.
"I shaved my legs for this prick," I remember thinking with more than a little bitterness. Mind you, any other time I swear I would have been a delightful date, laughing at his jokes and his witty one liners but the episode with the Great Pretender, who I was sure now had been a guy had been festering and I had reached the Really Pissed Stage. As I said Evan irritated me the moment I met him and when he made a comment about someone he had never met and to whom he felt quite obviously superior I ripped into him.
He finished his main without once looking up from his plate. When he had finished he put his knife and fork neatly together then put his hand up and kept it there, still not looking at me, until the waiter came and he could ask for the check. The other diners looked at us; the men trying to get a look down my front and the women sizing things up immediately and reassuring me with a glance at him with one giving a quick raise of the eyebrows while another pulled a face. It boosted me but I was still the woman being left alone at the table.
I blamed him, which was totally unfair looking back but I was resentful towards the world at the time and just as he got to the door, I called out sweetly:
"Give your mother my love."
Then I poked my tongue at his back. He stopped, tensed, then thought better of it and left. It was stupid and petty, I know, but so was he and I had had that Road to Damascus moment- I didn't fancy men. It wasn't just stale Dale it was men; men period. It wasn't just that they were always trying to get something out of us; the whole they want: we give thing no it wasn't that; it was that they just didn't do it for me.
Pleased with myself for having made such a momentous decision I looked up at the hovering waiter who had been doing an in depth examination of my cleavage and rewarded him with a stretch as he took my order for dessert. Eye roller looked over again and smiled. She was in her forties and she clearly thought the Waiter was a spunk. I ran my tongue over my lips and smiled back.
Mini skirt, boobs out; they thought they knew what I was: a hottie on the prowl. They moved a little closer to their husbands and sneaked a bit more cleavage into their line of sight making sure their men folk didn't have any reason to look at the sad lonely gal on her own with so much on display. Ignored by all I made the best I could of being the only woman on her in the room and concentrated on my dessert which I made abundantly clear was quite delicious.
The first txt came in ten minutes, from Mom: what did I think I was doing? A nice young man like that, single, still with all his own teeth, a good job, looking to settle down? Had I looked in the mirror lately? I wasn't getting any younger.
I sat looking at the words, brooding over them then I did one of those really dumb things you do and immediately wish you hadn't: I told her what I thought.
"Mom I'm not just interested in men."
Just after I hit send I tried to get it back but by then it was thundering through cyberspace to shock my mother.
"So; my daughter the pervert? This is what I tell your aunts, your grandmother? I have raised a pervert?"
I turned the mobile off and drank my coffee trying not to let the cup chink against the saucer too much as my hand shook. It was no use and the clinking betrayed me; so did the tears streaming down my face.
I had alienated my irritating, overbearing mother who had spent her life doing the best she could for her husband and her kids and this was how I repaid her? No grand children for you to dote on mother dear. I'm a lesbian.
The words repeated over and over in my head "I'm a lesbian", "I'm a lesbian", "I'm a lesbian."
So was I different? I didn't feel any different and for all that I really wanted to find someone, I hadn't. I was just me, a bit surer of where I wanted to look for a relationship- by which I meant love- but no closer and I had alienated my mother who I wouldn't have hurt for all the money in the world.
