San Fransisco Dim Sum- Brain Food

Last week I was in San Francisco with a friend.  (I was a long way from home but not tapping the heels of my red glittered mary janes and wishing to return to Louisiana).  We were eating dim sum at Yank Sing in the Rincon center.  I think she asked, or I might have offered, about my ideas for any potential “Next.”  It’s been 8 months since my “Ex” left and some would say that after two and a half seasons, I should begin to think about my next girlfriend. 

“Honestly, I don’t know how to date.” It’s not that I was with “Ex” for so long that I’ve forgotten, it’s that I’ve never known.  No one teaches a lesbian how to date.  We suck at it.

She nudged, shrugged, or offered some gesture as if to say that no one is born knowing how to date.

So, I responded to what she didn’t say.  “No really.  A dad explains everything to his son, or elder women teach young girls about boys.  Who teaches a girl how to date a girl?”

My friend seemed to encourage the topic, or she didn’t protest, so I continued.

“We suck at it.  If I’m in a public place and my gadar goes off, I do what she does.  We avoid eye contact.  Can you imagine how many girls’ basketball games I’ve gone to and never come home with a phone number?  I mean, here is an arena that's full of gay women! The lesbian mating dance is self-defeating.” 

This idea of avoiding what you desire seemed to be of interest to my friend, or she didn’t change the subject, so I continued to explain.

“There’s no healthy place for this process of finding and securing.  If you want to hang out with other gays, in public, you have to go to a bar.  This causes alcoholism.” 

I looked at her most recent acquisition- Pork Siu Mye and stabbed one with my chopstick.

“Sure, there’s the gay church. But that’s not a good fit for everyone.  Look across America.  What if there was only one kind of church that a straight person could go to? What straight person would put up with this lack of choice?”

Ok. I didn’t say the last two sentences but while typing this account, I realize that I should have added this insight.  Truth is, our choices are limited, and we’re the ones to blame.  Gays need to take care of their own.

I could go on with my diatribe about how ‘we’ are our own worst enemy.  We aren’t living like the breeders and we aren’t demanding equal citizenship.  Most of us want to fly under the gadar. 

I am guilty of protecting people who share my DNA, the breakroom, and sidewalks because I don’t want them to be uncomfortable with my lifestyle.  It’s my life!  (I have to ask, "WWJD?"  Jesus would say, “Live! Breath the beauty of free will.”  But, Kali who would be more likely to deliver the message.)  Besides, this conversation isn’t about that, this conversation is about the pitfalls of a lesbian who needs to know how to date.

So, my friend asked, “How do you meet another lesbian?”

“At bars.” I shrugged.

“How did you meet your first girl friend?”

“At the bar,” I pushed a puffy pocket of something with soy in my mouth.  “I dropped my pool stick, went home, and came back with my best friend who knows everyone in Austin.  We went back to the bar and I stalked her.” I didn’t really stalk her,  I sat next to her on a bar stool until she talked to me.

“What happened next?”

“I moved in.”

“No, before you moved in.   What did you do together?”

“Lesbians don’t date.  They go out once and move-in together or they don’t talk.” And then, I told her the joke.  “What does a lesbian take on the second date?”  

She chuckled at the punch line, but I don’t think she thought it was all that funny.  She probably thought it was morose.  I think she thought it was sad or alien, and she was a bit concerned.  (Or, maybe that’s what I think and projected her response because I want her to think my situation is so desperate that she’ll help me figure out what to do.)

She suggested that I ask friends how they date, and then I thought of a friend who is recently single and about ten years younger and has already had a few dates.  For the sake of anonimity, let’s call my younger friend, “Bear.” Bear has a wooing confidence that could lead me down a blind alley.  Her ability to take the helm in any situation is great on those days when you want to check out of everything except breathing.  I like that I don’t have to think when she’s around- except when she makes bad decisions like where to park in the French Quarter or how to get back to the car from Bourbon Street.  She’s not good at that stuff, and I have a better compass because a former almost-girlfriend left my drunk butt in Vieux Carre.  So, when I’m there, an imaginary string continues to unravel around corners and into bars until I’m ready to ravel it back.

Anyhoo, my friend who was ordering more dim sum, but not the chicken feet which would have been really cool to watch her eat, led me to the idea—or she had the idea—that I should write a book about lesbians who have actually dated.  I think I will.