Butch-Femme NYC
What kind of a mood am I in this morning? A shitty one. It seems to be my default state of mind these days. Whatever. So I went to the Butch-Femme Society meeting last night. Yes, there's a society. In attendance were approximately 11 women, nine of whom were self-identified butches, which didn't help me a whole lot.
Now, before I go on with this story, I have to say that I noticed some reservations I had about attending the meeting. My interest in identity issues has me questioning such stringent declarations of one identity or another. The butch-femme binary within the lesbian community represents a clear distinction in modes of behavior and other such things that comprise identity that I can't go into now because it's late and my head kinda hurts.
Having addressed this, I realized that if I ever wanted to date again (read: get laid -- sorry, mom, and those others of you who may have recoiled at that comment), the process would go much faster if I dove into NYC's community of gays. So onto butch-femme night I went (because I didn't think the gay polyamorous group was for me, what with my jealousy issues and such, nor did the Zappalorti Society interest me -- this is for psychiatric survivors. I don't know what it means to survive psychiatry.). It began innocently enough. We sat in a circle and discussed homophobia within the lesbian community, romantic gift giving, and the difference between butches and femmes. The meeting was actually much better than I expected it would be. Despite the therapy we handed out to a postal worker, it was fun. There was this woman, 27, who seems nice. Her name is Katherine. There was this other woman, Rian, with whom I hit it off almost immediately. She's younger than me, a student at a visual arts school in the city and she sports multiple facial piercings. She invited me to a Melissa Ferrick concert next month with her friends. That should be fun. Hopefully we'll hang out.
After the meeting, some of us went to a diner. After we ate, the group fragmented even more and the remaining few went to Crazy Nanny's. It was karaoke night. I didn't sing. Even after four beers. My voice was going out (still is, I think, which could be to my benefit because I sound even sexier than I know myself to sound normally...ok, let me stop. I'm totally frontin'). We just hung out and I found myself in various conversations about nothing in particular. Another woman who was at the meeting said to me after her third (way too many if you ask me) glass of wine -- with her hands placed firmly on my shoulders and breath in my ear -- "if I were 20 years younger, I'd go for you." She wasn't scary. In fact, she is pretty cool. And that was nice of her to say. She wants to come to the conference I'm presenting at. She teaches creative writing sometimes. She just didn't do much for me. Well, for me ego, yes, but nothing much more. But who knows, maybe I should go for someone 15 years my senior. I'm probably less likely to get hurt that way. I'm gonna go read an essay now.
