9:03 p.m. - 2012-06-26
roses and hypocrisy
A sent me a rose -- an e-mail rose -- it was an e-mail with just a smile as the subject and I didn't expect it to say anything, but when I opened it it was a photo of a rose. A virtual flower! It surprised me and made me smile, the sweetest thing.
Did I ever think about Matt so much? In the beginning? I sit in biology half-paying attention and try to remember. I am sure I thought about him quite a lot, thought he was the man I was going to marry and thought I was in love, but I think I daydreamed much more about a future with a brilliant, handsome man I could really connect with intellectually, and maybe emotionally, and who I thought I shared goals and dreams with, and could have a perfect family with -- but I'm not sure I spent much time daydreaming about being alone with him. Being alone with men, for me, was always the unfortunate cost of doing business. I guess I assumed all women felt the same way.
Kate, I ONLY thought about being alone with, since there wasn't any socially recognized couplehood and never would be. In fact, it was always fairly awkward to be together around other people -- I couldn't stand her friends and she couldn't stand mine; our families hated each other, and both of our families looked slightly askance at the two of us. We would go to my room and shut the door. Or go somewhere in the car, holding hands and singing rounds, secret and silly. Sit on her porch in the dark where no one could see us and we could see other people walking by, arms around each other, and wonder in whispers if everyone had a secret "you," and hid it better than we did, or if they really didn't, and if so did they know how alone they were?
I was quite sure I would die without her and I thought about her all the time. In chemistry and calculus, at track practice and on dates ...
I wished I could have loved her in public, in a recognized way and for life, but you don't get to do that with your best friend. That's what you do with a man, and I married the best man I've ever found and got to do that for a while.
But maybe Matt was right when he's said that I never really loved him. I've always thought I did, but it's true that I wouldn't have married him if I could have married Kate. That is definitely true. But how many people don't get to marry their first love -- does that negate their love for the person they do end up marrying?
Sometimes your first choice is not the choice that's best for you or would have made you happiest in the long run. Sometimes something that is more intellectual and less passionate is better in the long run, isn't it?
I am still not real comfortable with this dating women deal. I have zero desire to be gay. Zero. And I've spent most of the past 20 years reasoning that if you have a desire to burn down your neighbor's house, you can choose not to do it, and if you have a desire to sleep with women instead of men, you can choose not to do that too. Can you choose your sexual orientation? Probably not. Can you choose not to act on it? Yep. People do that shit every day; it's called eating celery instead of chocolate even though you'd rather be eating chocolate.
But maybe I'm old enough that I don't care anymore if I get fat, I'm going to eat the damn chocolate because I absolutely cannot, cannot, face another goddamn piece of celery. If men are the only option out there, I will become a nun or take a vow of celibacy before I will let myself be mauled one more time while my skin crawls and my stomach churns, all in the name of love. No can do.
And faced with the option of lifelong aloneness or being with a women, I realized that I only get one life and I'm going to be a social outcast either way, so I might as well enjoy it.
So those are my dirty secret feelings about dating women. Obviously I am not going to tell that to any lesbian or, for that matter, any real live straight person I know. I am quite ashamed of being so spineless in my own life and the way I evaluate my worthiness as a human being. For the record I am speak-up-and-say-something vocal about gay rights; I think gay people should be able to marry and have all the rights and protections of heterosexual folks and I will say/have said so to any homophobic, fundamentalist or conservative creep out there. I sign the marriage petitions. Blah blah. It's about being a decent human being, as far as I'm concerned.
But just because I support 'em doesn't mean I want to BE one.
Gah!!
Touching A makes me feel electrified intstead of appalled; I'd say I might fall in love with her except that that would be idiotic, but I think about her all the time in bio in a way that has nothing to do with building the American heterosexual dream and the epic heterosexual love and success story together. (Although she does have an adorable house with two empty spare bedrooms and a fenced-in back yard ...) I want to watch movies and be lazy and do nothing with her, and normally I hate watching movies, particularly with guys. She is younger than I am but parent-less and un-self-pitying and practical, which makes her seem older sometimes. And she is shorter than I am, which makes me feel like an Amazon (which I usually hate) but she is also much more butch than I am, and strong, which I suppose compensates. Oh dear, I like her a lot, I do...
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