Gay Speed Dating is FUNdamental

Photo by Dan Berlin

Gay Speed Dating is FUNdamental

I, with gentle prodding from friends, am putting myself “out there,” whatever that means. If you’re like me, you have a group of established friends, and unless the women in that group bring in new prospects (work friends, college friends, ex-girlfriends, one night stands that mistake your bedroom for the bathroom…), then finding a date seems impossible (and no, coworkers do not count). So what’s a lesbian to do? Do I stand on a street corner holding a sign saying, “will promise not to bring drama into our relationship?” Do I answer every bad Craigslist w4w post? Do I buy a drink for every woman at Sisters and end up going into credit card debt? Personally, I like it a little better when there is a little less drinking and a little more conversation. So, with the aforementioned prodding friends, I figure what better way then to meet a lot of new people, in a relatively supportive environment, than Gay Speed Dating?

Yes, you read correctly. Gay Speed Dating. [When one thinks about speed dating, one conjures up an images of women drinking martini’s in low cut outfits making inane conversation with whatever man sits down across from her.] William Way marketed this semi annual gay and lesbian event as “a night of fun and romance.” I decided on a whim that this might be fun, and if it wasn’t, it certainly would be good for a laugh…remember when we went speed dating…

Of course, no lezzie outing is complete without the company of other lezzie friends. So with the support of two of my friends, I walked into the William Way – and saw that we were the only women there. We distracted ourselves with the art on the walls, with the subconscious purpose of looking worldly and sophisticated. (Look at us, we like art!) Another few minutes passed and more women shuffled in; they furtively darted their eyes at the others in the room. Did we pass inspection? Still too early to begin, we took a seat. Looking around I was amused/frustrated to see that “J” was there. “J” and I went out one time. Armed with superior small talking skills, I felt comfortable that if we did “speed date” each other, I could be nonchalant.

The organizers finally opened the gay speed dating flood gates and let us in. We were all given a number. I was excited to learn there were snacks! If the evening went sour, I always had snow peas to look back on – they make me happy. The numbers we were given turned out to be important. All the even numbered people sat down at a table, and all the odd numbered people were to rotate around them. We had 1-2 minutes to make a deep and meaningful connection before moving on the next potential soul mate. If you liked the person you saw across from you, you wrote their name on a card. If they wrote your name down as a potential something something, then the organizers would make the “match” by sending you each others info after the event ended.

The first “date” I had was with one of the friends I brought, which instantly broke the ice. Some highlights from the conversations include: what do you do? | Yes, this is a tight election. | Really, you’re from Baltimore, why are you here? | I’m sure we could find a great sperm donor for our first born from the group of gay men over there. | Tansania? Really, wow, that’s awesome. | When did you come out?

After almost an hour and a half of speed dating fun, the organizers called it a night. They were overwhelmed by the turn out and apologized for not allowing time for all the odds and evens to meet, and encouraged us to mingle afterwards. Seeking out snowpeas, I stuck around. I decided that I wasn’t ready for the fun to end and so I invited some new people to join me and my lezzie support system for a quick bite at Cosi. It turned to be a wonderful time.

While I doubt I made any significant love matches that evening, I did have the promised romance and fun that William Way had advertised. Even if one of those dates were with someone I had dated already. And if nothing else, I had more of an opportunity to make new friends … and as we all know, new friends lead to potential new relationships. – Sasha 

Question for the reader:

What are some tactics you’ve tried to put yourself “out there” and meet other women? Were they successful?

Links:

William Way Center: WayGay.org

PhillyGayCalendar.org

How I Found True Love in a Bowl of Breakfast Cereal

 

I believe you can often find love in the most unexpected of places. At the age of 20, I experienced a kind of love that I was certainly not expecting at that point in my life. 

I worked as a part-time caregiver for a little girl, whom I’ll call “A.” I cared for A in the early mornings, five days a week, sometimes in the afternoons, sometimes overnight, and at times when I even had to explain her to my perplexed peers and curious professors. It was my job. It paid well. There were many perks, the most obvious one being a family, something that had started to slowly scatter and slip away from me then – my own family. I wish I could say that the reason I stayed with this family was because of the money, or the companionship I found with A’s mother: the street parties, the holiday parties, the Friday parties, the Christmas/Chanukah bonuses, and everything else that went along with that.

 

Perhaps I didn’t know it then, but what drove me to pull myself out of bed every morning at 5am, with only a tiny gulf of sleep between the three or four hours earlier I was sitting at my cluttered kitchen table, head bent over my computer screen, surrounded by books, papers, and empty cans of green tea, pondering the lives of imaginary individuals, that maybe it was a kind of love that kept me doing what I did. I woke up before dawn, and would stumble around my half-lit apartment, grabbing what I needed for the day. I would lift my bike over my shoulder, and step out into the quiet darkness of South Philadelphia. I was barely deterred by even ice and snow. I’d fly north up Broad Street: Jackson, Snyder, Passyunk, Mifflin, Moore, Castle Ave., Morris, Tasker, Dickinson, Reed, Wharton, Federal, Ellsworth, Washington, Carpenter, Montrose, Christian, Catherine, Fitzwater, Bainbridge, South, Lombard, and then east to 13th, where I’d round a small corner onto the even smaller Iseminger St., where my little A slept peacefully. The early mornings with A were often some of the most peaceful moments in my own life then. I would watch her sleep for a few minutes before heading downstairs to the kitchen, where I would slowly stir a pot of oatmeal or Cream of Wheat. It’s best when stirred slow. 

 

I’d sit on the edge of her mother’s bed, where I’d talk her softly into the day. She’d eventually announce that she “was up,” which was my cue to leave. She preferred to come to the kitchen alone. We would eat breakfast together, me eating whatever she didn’t. We studied together, me lost in Shakespeare and Arthur Miller, while she spoke Hebrew over her oatmeal. Other times, we played backgammon while watching silly cartoons. I explained to her that one frame of one of her cartoons took weeks, sometimes even months to create. Almost as hard as learning Hebrew. 

When it was time for A to go to school, we’d stand on 12th street, waiting for her car. We talked about A’s tests for the day, and her weekends in New Jersey, and her classmates. She told me that we should go wake up my classmates. What wicked fun that would’ve been.

 

But it wasn’t as simple as bike rides and breakfast and board games. The mornings started to weigh on me, literally. There were plenty of days where my eyelids were heavy with sleep, and I could barely talk to A without yawning through a sentence. Sometimes, many times, I thought about staying in bed. “Calling in sick.” Perhaps applying for a part-time job at one of the numerous Starbucks’ that I frequented. But I kept going. I figured out how to mold this part-time, full-time job into my very full-time job as a college student. But mid-way through junior year, my first year with A, I felt I had come to a breaking point. I was tired, spent, over. School had become a chore, for so many reasons. I felt my tiny world closing in on me, the two-mile stretch up and down Broad St., A’s mother’s kitchen, the windows in the kitchen, the local news at 6AM, chai lattes, bike racks, bike locks, cigarettes, dirty clothes, tomato pies, Alice Munro, cheap wine, friends’ bedroom floors, the New Yorker, my heavy backpack that never seemed to get lighter, sweatshirts, tea, all that caffeine that made my heart race in the middle of the afternoon, the Cream of Wheat: three teaspoons of butter in the already boiling water, slowly stir in milk. There were moments when I found myself thinking of my own parents, and how my mother must’ve felt all the mornings that she willed herself out of bed every morning. I thought of my father at age 20, not knowing that his young life was being consumed by mania, every day more unbearable than the last.

 

I got a call one afternoon, as I was on my way out of class, from A’s mother, who was out of the country. A was sent home from school early, she told me. There had been an outbreak of lice in the fifth grade. Could I meet A at the house, and possibly wash her hair, and her clothes, and everything else she had touched that day? Possibly even myself? And there I was, on my knees in the still-unfamiliar bathroom, scrubbing A’s scalp, my clothes getting soaked, then drying her long hair, patiently answering her questions. Where do the lice go when they die? What if they laid eggs on her neck? Later that night, when A’s mother finally returned home, and we’d gone through the entire box of Rid, and all the clothes and blankets had been quarantined and washed, A’s mother thanked me. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I was simply doing my job. It was much later that I remembered that afternoon as one of the moments in my life where I felt so much love for someone else. The lice, the laundry, I could’ve run away. But I loved that child.  

A’s mother has a friend that recently told me that if I did anything, I certainly made a difference in at least three lives, whether I realized it or not. Lately I think about his words a lot, as I watch A grow into a young woman, and as I navigate my own uncertain path into adulthood, and the many other forms of love, I know that no matter how dark that path might get, I’ll find my way. I have to. There might be someone else counting on me.

– Deb Long

 

January Sunburn

 

 

January Sunburn

I was 24, my ever-changing hair was red and spiky, with bangs swooped behind tortoise shell glasses. I pretty much always wore my tattered Levi’s with boots and prided myself on my simplicity. I had just graduated college and was ready to become a serious journalist – except I was scared to death, which was true of my attitude to just about everything – especially dating.

That December, I still didn’t have a real job and I craved time with my four sisters who I hadn’t seen. My younger sister Rebecca is an artist; she attended UArts for a few years, and I was able to make it to one of her shows. So, I had been perusing the crafts show when I saw her – the future love of my life. 

Picture her, if you will: she’s tall, towering at 5’7”, with bleached short hair and freckles, stylishly dressed in a blue button down and jeans. She had been peering curiously over the Great Hall balcony, taking in the crowd, when I happened to look up. I stopped in my tracks, admiring her smiling eyes from afar – until she looked at me! “Crap,” I said to myself, “I got caught staring! God, don’t be so pathetic!”

My heart jumped into my throat; my face reddened like a summer tomato. I darted my eyes to the floor.

Since I graduated, I hadn’t had a date, a crush – nothing! My love life suffered a lonely season of suburban solitude; I was living with my parents.  Not to mention, my Polish Catholic family wasn’t ready to deal with the fact that their straight-A earning, overachiever was also a happy little lesbian.  Since I was seeing anyone anyway, I reverted back to high school closet life. Me, a serious journalist, 16 again!  

But, then, that joyful girl on the balcony – she turned out to be Rebecca’s good friend from woodshop, Sarah. Rebecca was her “bench bitch” and I think she was the only reason why Rebecca stayed in school as long as she did. She had a magnetic power. From one glance, she had a little hold on my heart.

“Kimmie, I have someone I want you to meet,” Rebecca grabbed my arm and tugged me across the floor. “This is Sarah Boyle. Come see her work, it’s awesome. You’ll love it.”

Like a mouse, I said: “Hi.”

Smiling, she said: “Hi.”

She had created dreamy, whimsical wooden stools, adorned with colored light blubs. She asked me to sit down – electric glitter energy moving from that stool into every cell of my little 5′2″ body. 

I savored this moment; I loved her. I mean, I loved this moment! I cheered myself all the way home on 76: “Good job Kimmie, you talked to her! And, she’s cute! And, even better, she doesn’t seem to have a drug problem! And she’s an artist – that’s so hot!” I was totally freaking out.

I had this unfortunate history of falling for girls who happened to be in their lowest moments of life. Usually with drug problems, or abusive partners or they were in relationships with men. I liked being their shelter I guess.  Turning my new post-graduation leaf, I was determined to leave that behind. I was ready to meet someone as great as me!

Sarah was different. The memory of the inspired sparkle in her eye warmed me from the inside for days. Fleeting moments like those give a lonely heart hope. Hope in love. Hope for world peace. Hope for a hook up. I wrote her poems I never mailed and dreamed of being girlfriends like a 7^th grader. 

New Years Eve rolled around, and Rebecca had a party. Rebecca and I were outside were having an tipsy, but intense, conversation.  

“Everything will happen when the time is right Kimmie,” she comforted me. 

I sighed, and sipped my lager. The sound of kicked stones echoed down the old frozen street. The surrounding house lights cast a halo around a figure walking towards us. Sarah. 

“Hi, Happy New Year,” she said, smiling warmly, her thumbs tucked into her jean’s pockets.

I squeaked out a high pitch “hi!” 

Inside, we sat on the couch together, petting a puppy, our hands colliding serendipitously. We sat closer and the night drew on; people started leaving. She told me she liked my hair, and pushed her hand up the soft fuzzy back to the crown of my head. My body rushed on fire, in chills! I bravely swirled my hands into her fuzzy shaved noggin too. We pretended to sleep, side by side, on the couch. I wanted only to kiss her, just once. 

“Hey Kimmie and Sarah,” a sleepy Rebecca startled us. “You don’t have to sleep here – you can sleep upstairs.”

Electricity shot through me. 

“Ok,” we said, acting sleepy, trying not to reveal our flirtations. 

Tucked inside an empty bedroom, the door barely shut, I approached her on the bed, sneaking up behind her, kissing her neck. I could not resist! She welcomed me with those big beautiful eyes and kissed me back. It’s hard to explain instant chemistry. But it’s real. What I didn’t know: I was her first girl.

Come morning, we followed the mummer’s parade, fingertips grazing as we turned corners. I blushed for three days – like I had sunburn in January. But, what were we to do? We were both living with our parents. 

We visited Rebecca at her West Philly apartment, staying up late with the Last Unicorn looping in the background, like a movie montage of our love affair. The air smelled of anticipated kissing, sweet breath and lips secretly waiting for each other as we lay face to face in the furniture-less room. Our faces, the only important architecture. 

For three months, our relationship consisted of emails – love letters for the long distance relationships of the electronic age. We often escaped our houses to steal kisses on the steps of the art museum, to walk along Penn’s Landing, or grab beers on South Street, with passing cars smearing a canvas of light around us. Once, we were making in my car outside the Wyndham Franklin at 3AM, like two teenagers on a lovesick summer night, and ran inside to grab a room. What I didn’t know, was that while we were making out in my car, my phone was unlocked and dialing my sister Annie, again and again.

It’s hard to explain, but ultimately, I grew uneasy with my amazing secret love. Really it was the “secret” part of it all. I was a coward. Sarah was Rebecca’s friend and I was afraid to tell her about us. I felt like I was betraying her somehow. In a freakish panic, I made a really bad decision. 

I broke up with the love of my life. 

Within the next three years, I moved out, my car got totalled, I worked two jobs seven days a week, and was engaged to a girl who ultimately fed me my own heartache. And, always, I missed my Sarah. We didn’t know, but we had been in many places at the same time but never saw each other – the universe behind us chanting, “No, not yet. They need more time.” 

For a friend’s birthday, I went to see Ani at the Keswick in ‘04. She hit the lue, and I stood waiting at the bottom of the cascading stairs. Laughter echoed around me. Three girls came bouncing down the stairs – all with jet black hair. The third one in line hit the brakes, stopping in front of me. My Sarah.

I nearly fainted. I thought for sure she would slap me. No, she smiled sweetly and hugged me – gingerly, and I said something forgettable, like, where are you sitting? She stared at her ticket like it was written in Sanskrit. 

We got in touch the next day.  I had no idea if she had forgiven me – or if she would pull me in close, and chop my heart up revenge-like. She had a thin ice layer protecting her warm gooey interior. She still loved me, and I loved her. But I was on trial. In purgatory. Lovesick and ready to die. I wanted in; I wanted to stay forever in those eyes, in those arms, in this true love. Would I ever deserve her?

We spent three months in the sanctuary of my tiny one-bedroom apartment, making up for lost time, talking about life, as crazy pink-faced lovers. Summer came to a close, and I headed to Seattle with a friend and could not leave her side without saying those words that I will never stop saying: “I love you.”

She cried. I cried. We re-ignited a burning love that only comes once in a lifetime, or twice, if you are lucky enough. We really were perfect together. I never thought I would find true love. But, the universe had something else in mind for me. 

“Take care of her Kimmie,” Rebecca said. “She is a very special person.”

I will, Rebecca, forever and ever.

– Kim Kunda

 

Kim and Sarah

 

Question for reader: How did you meet the love of your life?  If you could imagine meeting them, what would that be like?

 

 

There’s More to Life Than Books, You Know, But Not Much More. To Love Tomes More Than Humans.

 

 

There’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more. To love tomes more than humans

 

My earliest childhood memory is me, in a very clean, shiny, dated kitchen, sitting on the counter top reading words to my mother for the first time. Her old-school thick, glasses so large they almost rest on her cheeks; I remember they glared the ceiling light onto the plastic coating on my book.. I think I cried because I made my mother very happy. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me at the time. 

I read Dick and Jane like a pro to her and that’s where it all began. I read like a binge eater the night after Thanksgiving, my eyes furious, scouring for anything my brain could digest. 

There weren’t a lot of books in my house when I started to read. When I did get a large haul from the school library once, I would read to my parents at night time while I was tucked away in my bed. In the morning, I’d wake up and read. 

In the school library I would read Ranger Rick. I also got introduced to Nancy Drew at a young age. My problem was I’d read too fast and would be stuck with nothing to read. I eventually realized we had TV Guides and Reader’s Digest scattered around the house, in the bathroom and on the coffee table.  I was reading things I didn’t understand at all, but I could tell you when M*A*S*H was on. I enjoyed when we visited other people’s homes. I would check out their bathroom reading materials and stow away in the bathroom for as long as I could. 

We moved to the Midwest when I was ten. If I wasn’t a complete book geek already, the move pushed me over the edge, causing me to love books and detest people. 

The Midwest is a deeply personal time that I feel uncomfortable thinking and talking about. Writing about it seems natural since I read so much when I lived there. We moved to a farm in the middle of no where. We lived in a town that had a population lower than a New Jersey high school. We lived on a dirt road with barns on our property and silos. I learned what a combine was and the previous owner’s animals stayed with the house when we bought it. Dogs were kept outside. I couldn’t see my neighbor’s homes when the fields were filled with crops. We burned our garbage, as the local common practice was to do so. 

I would buy books and magazines any chance I got. I was reading Redbook. My mother would drive me into town and leave me at the library for hours. I developed very odd reading habits.  I think, during my six years in the Midwest, I started to realize that I’d rather read a conversation in a book than hear any noise coming out of someone’s food hole.  I would ignore people who bothered me while I was reading – I still do that on occasion. 

Although I didn’t talk much in school, I was a popular note-writer nonetheless. Other kids would seek me out when they wanted to woo someone with a love letter. 

I never don’t have time to read. I make time for reading. In college I bought books from Borders, read them very fast and returned them, claiming it was a gift gone wrong. 

I don’t break the spines when I read a book. I hold the tomes in the highest regard. Friends borrowing a book from me while get a speech about the treatment of my book along with a bookmark. Do not bend pages back!  Magazines that are mine are not to be read before I read them.  Every crisp page must be turned first by me. I start with the editorial and then flip through the magazine from back to front. I read a book I hate faster than one I like. I savor those rare few precious moments with a book that is amazing. Books that I dislike are just as important I have to have the knowledge of it. I disrespect the book when I’m finished reading it by leaving it on the TV briefly. A book I love I have been known to give a gentle hug to.  I will try to finish a book in a nice venue like a nice warm bath or reclined on the couch.  I will read an entire magazine cover to cover, every letter to the editor and every photo credit. Though I wouldn’t consider myself a collector I do have a few prized books, first editions from favorite authors and other little oddities. I’ve become very interested in zines and can’t seem to get enough of them. Zines are raw.

 

When asked my hobbies, I will admit its reading. A geeky answer like that often gleans a response like, “Why? I never read.” 

I read because I prefer it to life. I know about obligations to society and therefore will go through a day like anyone else; however, I would rather be reading. I’d exchange most casual conversation for reading.   I’d rather read a person than talk to them.   

People will ask what do you read or who is your favorite author? What are you reading now? There’s no way to really answer. I have books in every room. Both of my bathrooms have more than one book that I can grab at any time. I have books in my bag when I go to work. If I get to my job early, I’ll sit in my car for 5 minutes and read. I keep most of the books I read, but there’s a fabulous website called Bookmooch that I use to recycle my personal library. Librarians near where I live know me and know my strange proclivities with reading.

I don’t prefer pleasant books, but I will take a book I hate as much as one I love. I do reread books if desperate. 

I love to read.  I even prefer to read closed captions than to watch TV, and the internet has made my reading obsession grow.  When I think about my obsession I recollect watching an episode of The Odd Couple where Oscar and Felix are in a monastery. Felix can’t sleep unless he reads so he’s in a small single bed cowering reading the back of a toothpaste box. Though reading never puts me to sleep it is that much of a habit for me. I read the back of everything. 

If you ever find me reading, please, just leave me alone. 

- Jessica L. Smith

 

 

Photo courtesy of Courtney 

 

 

Question for the reader: What’s your obsession?

 

Links: 

Bookmooch.com

Library.Phila.gov