Not So Sweet Little Lies

I can talk endlessly about lies. It's gotten to be a pastime for me: picking up on lies and finding lies in every day conversations. I think I may be able to feel them. I get a slight shiver up my spine and then I just get pissed off. Nothing makes me angrier than people attempting to "pull one over on me." When a person lies, they are assuming that you are too stupid to bust them. That's one of the biggest insults to me.

I hear lies all the time on Lesbian Love and Advice. Here are some of my favorites:

1. It's not you, it's me.  What does this statement even mean? Of course it's "me" (or in this case you.) If you were the girl she needed you to be (or wanted you to be), then she would be able to open up or be vulnerable or whatever it is. So the fact that she is unable to, means that she sees a flaw in you and that flaw is what is preventing her from continuing the relationship. Now, of course I'm going to tell a person who has heard this lame ass excuse that they are not to blame. I don't believe in changing for another person (more on that later) but the fact remains, this bullshit statement is a lie. She doesn't even believe it's true, it's just a way of getting out of telling you what she finds lacking in your person. 
2. I am not ready for anything serious right now.  What this means is "I just want to fuck who I want to without any accountability." Or it could mean that she does not want to have a relationship with you personally, but is more than willing to have a relationship with someone else with qualities she desires. Trust me, I may "think" I'm not ready for anything serious with one person, but then one day someone comes along with every quality I have desired and now my "readiness" is no longer an issue. That degree I was always putting off? Suddenly I'm enrolled in classes. My new fitness goals? I'm now hitting the gym and have returned to weight watchers. My commitment issues? I'm as loyal as they come. You get the picture: she is not ready for anything serious right now WITH YOU. Realize that and move on. 
3. I just can not do a long distance relationship.  While this might be true for several people and not directly a "lie" per se, what one needs to ask is why a person can't do a long distance relationship, because anyone can do one, most people just don't want to. They don't want to deal with the distance and the cost and the lack of physical intimacies or the trust issues or whatever. But again, they will in a heartbeat if you are worth it to them, believe that. Janelle has told me several times that she never wanted a long distance relationship before. She had million alphabetized reasons why she didn't want one. But now look at us: long distancing away and blissfully happy about it. I didn't change her mind. She changed hers when she assessed the risk and determined that it was worth it. So if someone says they can't, understand they can, they just won't with you.   
4. I don't want to ruin our friendship.  I saved the best for last. I call bullshit on this one too because this is the thing: If you are with someone intimately you are still their friend. You haven't given up anything. It's only if you break up that you risk losing the friendship. So if you are already assessing whether or not the relationship will work and utter those famous words ("I don't want to ruin our friendship",) you have already determined that that relationship will not succeed or the chances of the relationship succeeding is not in your favor. Saying "We're not going to stay together long and it's not worth potentially ruining our friendship" sounds awful though, so we stick to "I don't want to ruin our friendship."

So, there you have it: my four biggest lies that I hear all the time from members on Lesbian Love and Advice and friends of mine. Hell, I've even used a few of these lies myself. It's not intentional, it's automatic, these excuses, but they are still untruths.  I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble or ruin anyone's game, I just think that truth gives us the opportunity to move on and stop wasting our time with certain individuals. When people hear these types of lies, the tendency is to keep hearts open and possibilities still on the horizon. You miss out on meeting a person who is really right for you. You miss out on being with someone who knows they have a future with you and there ain't nothin' sweet about that.

Think about it.

I'm not checking you out in the locker room.

This is a public service announcement to every straight woman I know from pretty much every gay (queer would just encompass us all, why can't we just say queer and be done with it? Next blog...)woman I know:

We do not want to fuck you. 

Usually.

Let me break this down for you, and I use "you" lightly. You know what "they" say -- if the shoe fits...

Women are attractive to me. I appreciate women for all different kinds of reasons. I'm one of those women who doesn't really even have a type because at any given moment "you" might do something that either turns me on incredibly or pisses me off tremendously rendering you undesirable and icky.

Let me back it up.

It seems that whenever I make the general announcement that I'm a lesbian, women, who are my friends, who have been perfectly comfortable with me previously, start acting funny around me. Any time I bring up a gay issue -- hell, any time I mention the weather almost, they are right there telling me how absolutely heterosexual they are. How much they love penis in their mouths and testicles banging against their chins and how they could never live without a nice juicy...you get the picture.  I'm not kidding. I could mention softball and someone close to me would find that too gay to not insert a heterosexual disclosure.

I have a very open and liberal family. Coming out to my family was really quite hilarious. I did it over a meal with my parents who informed me after I got done telling them that I "probably was, but wasn't quite sure, I was gay," that it was my life to do what I wanted, and to please pass the salt. They were not phased at all and the big confrontation that I had spent years preparing completely went to waste (see post on fighting.) My family was a breeze. You know what was the challenge and continues to be a challenge? My straight girlfriends.

All gay women do not want you. Just because you have a vagina, tits, and an ass does not make you automatically my type of woman. Especially if you are involved with someone (male OR female) I am not interested in you. Think about it for a second: just because you love men doesn't mean that all men are attractive to you.  Right?

Stop getting all nervous and agitated when I go into a locker room and you're changing.

If I give you a compliment and say you look nice, don't think I've been fantasizing about licking your coochie -- I'm just giving you a damn compliment. While we're on the subject: if I don't make a pass at you or compliment you, don't be all pouty and sensitive about it. Your attractiveness does not increase by 100 points when a lesbian compliments you. (Your shoes, however, do increase in value should a gay man compliment them. I'm just sayin...)

So -- my darling breeders (that's what my bestie Kenny calls you. It's all love.): Relax. It's going to be okay. If you relax and take it down a notch, we can get back to being the friends we were before you started imagining all the things I do to my girlfriend (or in my case want to do with my girlfriend.) Stop making my relationship (and consequently OUR relationship) all about sex. There is so much more to "us" than what we happen to be doing in bed (which is likely watching Tom & Jerry or arguing about why the socks are on the floor again.) Don't talk about your sex life in front of us if you don't want us to join in the conversation by talking about ours because really, your sex life doesn't really interest me and the same sort of "eeew" you might be experiencing when I talk about how she makes me feel, might be the "eeew" we are sayin when you talk about whether or not to swallow.

I'm just sayin.

Hang Ups

About three years ago, I started a book. I wasn't sure what it was going to be about, except that there was a little white dog involved, and a single woman looking for something out of the ordinary. She didn't have a name at first, but as I began writing a story formed.

For people who haven't written a book or poem or story before, this next part is going to sound crazy. I didn't know what book I was going to write, but I have several instances where I was writing and there would be a knock on my character's door, and I wouldn't know what was on the other side until my character opened the door.

I'm not insane.

There was another part of the book where my main character is at work, and suddenly this man appears and I have to keep writing until another character introduces him. I didn't know what his name was until the character spoke it into existance.

I repeat: I'm not insane.

This book started to write itself just a few chapters in. There were times when I would try to reel it back in, to demonstrate my control of the story and that's when things would start to fall apart. I literally felt at times that I, the author of this book, was a mere vehicle to put some character's stories on the page. They would speak to me in frantic whispers in the middle of the night and continue pestering me until I wrote it down the next day.

If you write, you understand that these characters take on a life of their own. But at the end you know them. You've named them sometimes and you've grown to appreciate their triumphs and epic fails. When you finish the book you release it onto the world much like a birth mother might release her biological child to adoptive parents. You know you have no more control of its destiny. You hope that the reader (parent) cares for your book (child) the way you have cared for it. You wonder if the reader will sit back and sign when it reads about the first kiss. You anticipate the reader's discovery of the dream in chapter fourteen or hope s/he gets the nuance of your words in that final scene. If a person is lucky enough to get that very first draft, you wonder if s/he knows what a precious, precious gift they have. And, if you no longer speak to the person who holds that child of yours, you secretly wish for it back. You can never trust someone with a your child if you can not trust that person with your own heart or soul.

My book is a big deal. It's my very first. It's not my last, as Janelle reminded me this evening. "You're going to write many, many books," she reminded me, and I know she is absolutely right. "If you cry whenever you write a book, you're gonna flood a river." She's right about that, too.

I'm just sad that this part is over. It was the first time I dared to let anyone read my entire book. Now that I have it back, I'm afraid of touching it. There's so much to fix, so much to correct, and then there will come the day when I have to release it again. Forever this time.

There will come a day when I hang up on this chapter of my life and start another book. I don't know if I have the strength to write another.

And I don't know if I have the strength not to.

Annie, Jack and Payne.

So, Speed came on the television this afternoon and I couldn't help but watch. Yes, I know that Keanu Reeves can not act. Worth a damn, (Thank you JLS for your contribution to yet another one of my blogs) but I think the story line and the psychology surrounding the plot is brilliant.

Here we have this man, Howard Payne (hardy har har! Get it... Payne), played exquisitely well by Dennis Hopper, who loves bombs. He loves destruction. Yes, he's a sociopath. Yes, he is planning on killing many people just for giggles. But he has an eye for truth, and knows exactly what strings to pull in order to get the kind of reaction from others that validates his existence.  And then there's Can't Really Act But I Look Good On Screen Keanu Reeves who is playing officer Jack Traven who is attempting to stop him.  He's sure he can outsmart the terrorist, puts himself on the bus to be the savior, and tries his damnedest to stay a step ahead of Payne.  Oh, and Sandra Bullock plays Annie, a passenger on a bus just trying to get somewhere but later recruited as bus driver when the original driver is accidentally killed by a criminal. She is an unlikely hero, a born protector, someone we can trust. A someone who is an ordinary person who does an extraordinary thing.

What I find delightful about this movie is found in this quote. Yes, it's said by a maniacal, sociopath, lunatic terrorist, but it's true and can be applied to my life so I'm including it here.

A bomb is made to explode. That's its meaning. Its purpose.

How brilliant is that line?

There are so many times when I expect things to go a specific way, but the signs are there that assure me that it's not about to happen. I tend to ignore the little voice inside of me that says that a person is a bomb. They are made to explode. There is no purpose that they could possibly carry in my life (just mine -- they may be suitable in another person's life...) except to bring me a fair amount of discomfort and pain. For me to be upset when they fulfill that job requirement is about as silly as me being angry at a bomb that explodes. That's its meaning. Its purpose.

So I'm praying for a bit of discernment. I need help in understanding when I'm destructive and an unneeded element in a person's life,  as much as I need to know when another person is that for me. But there's also the  part of me that is all intellect and playing to win a game -- the mastermind that thinks I can outwit evil and sometimes surprises myself when I succeed. At least until the devil rears its ugly head again.  And then there's the ordinary me -- the girl that just wants to get somewhere and ends up doing something extraordinary. 


Yup.  I suspect that there's a little bit of Annie, Jack and Payne in all of us. 

And In This Corner ...

We don't fight.


Wait. We have disagreements. Sometimes I say "bye" or "ttyl" and really I mean "I'm just done right now, you're making me angry." and she says something like "you're amusing me right now" and she means "you're amusing me right now." Really. That's what she means.

 I fight like I'm going to war. I have a list of grievances, like ammunition, rifles, and I'm even dressed in camouflage. I'm marching into battle like I mean business. I've already figured out what she's going to say and have three comebacks prepared. More than that, I've already figured out how I'm going to tell my parents (because they love her) and how I'm going to defend myself when my auntie and uncle ask me what the hell happened. But she hasn't even dressed for combat. She doesn't bring with her any bullets or nerve gas. She just brings her.

I tell her what's going on, heart pounding, and my face heating up. I reach over to run my fingers up and down the chamber of my pistol (do pistol's have chambers?) and I'm rehearsing my next line when suddenly she says something like:

"I'm frustrated and I miss you."

What the ...  I hadn't prepared for that.

Fighting in my world always meant that I was going in with the big guns and only one person was coming back out alive. Fighting was a matter of having a foster home or having a family. Fighting was a matter of loyalty and never, ever had to do with love because people, in my little 4-year-old heart and mind, never stuck around long. If ever. So if I was going to go out in some technicality caused by a fight well then, I was going to go down.

But then she came along and we don't fight like that. Finally there is someone who understands that fighting really is fighting to be close to the person. Fighting for clarification. Fighting to stay close. Fighting isn't about pushing the other person down enough times that they can't get back up to hurt you. Fighting isn't about you or me it's about we.

So, we don't fight.

We have our moments when one or both of us are tired. And one or both of us can't easily be tousled out of disagreement or a bad mood. We have our moments that last mere moments before I eventually ask if we're having our first fight, and she, laughing, insists that we are not.


I think we've just redefined the word. Neither of us are perfect, and I'm sure there are several times I've gotten on her nerves. I'm a bit spoiled, and so is she (and I am not responsible for that!) I don't always act my age, and sometimes I get too loud in her ear. She has some issues with road rage, and even though she says she's listening to me, I suspect she just knows when to pipe in with something and then go back to letting me spew out boring details of my day to day life.

Or it's probably that, with boxing gloves on and the bell about to ring, she knows exactly what to say to make me laugh, can push me against the ropes, tilt her head to the side or shrug that shrug she always does, and disarm me.

Just like that. Ding, ding, ding.

In My Day...

I'm using my blog today as a time out. I can feel when I need one, I start to get emotional and fired up and then eventually I call someone and vent for a few hours. To spare this person from my endless ranting, I've placed myself in blogger time out.

Deep breath.

Back in my day, we didn't have facebook to solve our problems. We couldn't post things on our walls that were really meant for other people, hoping they would get the hint and change in some way with out us ever having to say anything. We didn't convince ourselves that a bunch of strangers could settle our disagreements that we had with friends, family or our lovers. We didn't give a flying you know what what this person said about so and so unless that person was directly related to the person and could have some sort of influence on their behavior.

Back in my day, we didn't reward people for shit that they were suppose to do. We had chores. These chores had to be done before we got to do fun stuff. We got allowance that was in no way shape or form fair -- it was like a tease of a lesson: Here is .50 (yes, that's fifty cents!) as a token of what will happen when you get older. You will get paid for doing a job, and you will then have to use that money you have earned to buy things that you need. But since you are a child, and have food, shelter and clothing-- and since I'm a parent and am paying for gas, vacations, and your education as well, here is a token on what real life will sort of be like. Yes, we could get a lot for that .50 -- stuff was dirt cheap back then. Candy was almost ten cents (if not a nickle) and penny candy still existed. You know what we did if we wanted more money? We got a job. Yeah. We got a job. My brother had a paper route he worked every single day on his bike -- even in the winter!, and I babysat. I was eight or nine and I was taking care of toddlers and changing their diapers. Yes, I know times have changed, but I'm just saying if the kids today asked my parents for money for picking up their rooms they would have a hard time sitting that week because their feelings and behind would have taken a bit of a beating.

Back in my day, there was one way of dealing with bullies. And generally speaking, it worked. I have beef with my parents for placing me into situations where I could have used their assistance. That's another blog, but generally speaking, my parents were right in helping me deal with my own problems by first telling me to deal with them. It was not their job to insist that my childhood was the happiest childhood ever. They didn't introduce unnecessary pain, but they didn't protect me from every possible bump and bruise, either. If there was a problem, I would first need to go to the person directly (not make a post about them on facebook, not tweet pics of them in compromising situations, not tell so and so to tell them, etc. etc.) I was instructed to wipe my tears, and go to the person and tell them I didn't like being called that bad N word name. Or go to the teacher myself and ask if I could get help with an assignment. When I stole candy from the store (just because I could), I was told to go back and tell them I had, and then go and take my punishment (I had to sweep the store and replace the candy I had stole). And something amazing happened to me when I was growing up: I learned to fight my own battles, I learned that my actions had consequences, I learned that life sometimes sucked balls, and I learned that I would survive if Kandace Love didn't invite me to her birthday party. And when I became an adult, I then learned that I would survive if a stranger (yes, a stranger) didn't care for me. And I learned that even though I think it's unfair that the store charges too much for whatever purse, bag, or shirt I want, it's not okay to steal it because I will get in trouble even if I'm not caught, and I was taught that life is not fair and sometimes it's not at all happy, but that everything is relative and nothing is really permanent.

Half the issues I see on line seem to be because of a lack of good old home training. Some of the people are downright spoiled. And I get it. I'm spoiled, too. But I know the world does not take kindly to spoiled people. Some people in my life might think I'm cute when I want what I want, but the general population doesn't care about my "needs." They shouldn't. The world doesn't owe you anything. People aren't here for your entertainment because they have their own needs and families and issues. You are not more important than anyone else. Just because you want what you want when you want it does not mean that you should be given what you want when you want it. You are not the center of MY universe, even though you might like to pretend you are. And I say "you" loosely -- I really don't have anyone in mind with this post. This is generally speaking.

We need to get our shit together. Point blank. There would be a whole lot less drama if we just took a look at what people use to do back in my day.

And I hate having to say that because that's what I heard all the time when I was growing up. But it's true.

So there.

Oh, What a Lonely Boy (or Girl)

 Janelle tells me often that I should stop thinking about facebook as anything but entertainment. People lie, she says. All the time. I know she's right. People aren't who they say they are, she tells me. And I nod. People will say whatever they need to do to be close to you, she reminds me, and I feel it in my heart that she's right.

But then, I tell her, I met you. And I met you, she says to me. But... But nothing, she interrupts. Most people are liars. The sooner you realize that, the better off you will be.

Many, many moons ago, I chatted online at Virtual Places. Picture a chat program where you could go to different pages and hang out with your buddies and chat. The cool part is that your self was represented by these avatars or pictures and you could paint and decorate them. That's how I learned about paint shop pro and websites. The avatars or pictures you used, were never you. Ever. They were always pictures of celebrities you admired or wanted to be. I of course picked the sexiest people to be -- Janet, Naomi, Tyra. Whatever my image of beauty was, that's who I would be in my avatar.  In the most bizarre of circumstances, people would fall in love with you based on your selection (that wasn't you) - and then want to chat. People would also "get married" in pretend marriages and have vows and flowers and venues and even honeymoons. On line. Yes. I was one of them. It was the most silliest things I have ever done in my entire online life. And there were hundreds of thousand of people who did it.

It's ironic (I think) that we have created a world online under the guise of connection, but really what happens is people become more and more disconnected the longer they are online attempting to connect. We have built this world online where you can only share what you are really doing to whomever you want to share it with. You can select permissions and let people only see a glimpse of who you are. You can take pictures, apply filters and cover up scars or crooked teeth if you want to. You can also maintain several profiles and have one for "fun" and one for "work" and "family." I've seen people married and calm on their family profiles but wild and single and living the life on their "fun" profile and no one is the wiser. Catfishing people is so easy it shouldn't even be referred to as a sport. It takes nothing to be brilliant at it, and there's so many levels, anyone could participate. You could be a catfish running around Facebook spouting out truth and light and be sitting in your own world of darkness and no one could ever tell. Or you could be Naomi Campbell and find someone thirsty enough to believe it.

So I know I shouldn't be surprised when I find out that people are lying about their relationships, about their off line lives, about their commitments, about their sexuality, spirituality, philosophies...I shouldn't be surprised when people suddenly become clear to me and I see their fraudulent selves. I shouldn't be disappointed when people fabricate stories to illicit sympathies, or create dramatic situations for themselves so that they can appear to be the hero or voice of reason or even some defendant of a cause.

There are a lot of lonely people in the world. And lonely people will do anything in order not to be.