I could hardly take my eyes off her. She was a gorgeous tomboy, with bobbed brown hair angled toward her adorable face. She sported the ubiquitous white ribbed tank top that lesbians seem to have adopted as code for, “I like girls,” and plaid Bermuda shorts that hugged her plucky little ass. Welcome to Henrietta Hudson. The bar was packed with eye candy after the Pride Parade, but this girl stood out from the crowd. “I like her,” I said to my friend B. as we shared a beer. “Go for it,” she said. But I stalled and stared and stalled before I finally approached the tomboy’s femme friend, who was also gorgeous, just when she slapped Tommie’s plucky little ass. No reason for shyness now: I pulled out the wooden paint-stirrer paddle that someone handed to me during the parade and held it up for the ladies who lust.
They laughed as the femme took the paddle. “I was looking for one of those!” She stuffed it into Tommie’s pocket, then asked me if I wanted to dance. “Sure.” We danced while Tommie danced with someone else. Then I drifted back to B., because we were in a loud, crowded bar where you’re lucky to dance or hold a conversation with a stranger for more than five minutes. Or maybe that’s just an excuse for my shyness.
I drifted back to the girls and felt somebody snap my bikini top. I turned around and Tommie was smiling with her eyes rolled up, as if to say, “It wasn’t me. I’m innocent!” “Was that you?” I asked in flirtatious rhetoric. She continued with her game. “That was very naughty,” I said into her ear. “Like snapping the bra of the girl sitting in front of you in school.” She giggled.
We danced, but not for long. I couldn’t compete with the distraction of her friends. Or girlfriend. Or girlfriends. It was hard to tell.
“How do you pick up a girl?” I asked B., a 22-year-old lesbian expert.
“Just act like you’ve already fucked her,” she said. I thought about guys who have done that to me, just grabbed me or kissed me as if one tryst entitled them to my body from then on, assuming that I would sleep with them again.
“You mean just grab her without any invitation? Isn’t that rude?” “No, you don’t have to do that, just act confident like you’ve already fucked her. It’s all in the attitude.” She leaned against the wall, crossed her arms, and made a face like a hip-hop dude smugly expressing,“Yo, I got with that bitch.”
I looked over at Tommie, and she was making out with a girl more boyish than she. What happened to her femme friend? Was she her girlfriend? Or was the boi with the backward cap her bitch? Maybe they were all just friends and enjoyed fooling around with each other. I’ll never know. It seemed as if they were swapping dance partners to confuse me. Of course, I could’ve asked, but I’m shy. Really. A lesbian clique is more intimidating than a dozen straight guys playing poker.
I drifted out of the bar feeling a bit like I was leaving a high school dance. I didn’t get with anyone, and yet I was feeling very lesbian that day, parading in my bikini and rainbow lei, eyeing the girls behind the barricades. Their waves and whistles made me feel like a rock star. I realized I enjoy this type of attention more from women than men, after years of habituation to annoying male catcalls. I can’t imagine women being annoying in this way. Maybe it’s a matter of exposure. I’m not in the gay world every day.
And I’m not a situational bisexual. I certainly don’t feel straight around straight people; if anything I feel queerer around them, particularly when they assume I’m heterosexual. Yet when I’m in the Pride Parade or a lesbian bar, I feel gayer, almost like a different person. There’s less fear about gays judging me for the fact that I’m bi, because I’m more like them than hetero-inflexible folk. However, when I was in Cannes with my now ex-girlfriend, I can’t say that the glamorous boy-girl environment had nothing to do with the demise of our relationship.
In Jennifer Baumgardner’s recent book, Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, she writes, “Bisexuality…is a label that alludes to a life of changes and complexity in the most positive sense. It doesn’t imply abnormal flux as opposed to normal fixed identity, but rather a human being’s singular physical evolution.” Whether I’m with a boyish girl or feminine guy, my sexual core remains the same: I always look both ways before I cross the line, shy one moment, holding up a paddle the next.
