Monday, March 28, 2011

there's an app for that!

I recently pontificated that if my Kobo, iPod, and vibrator were all one magical device that could also tell me how great my ass looks in those jeans and that I'm way prettier than my ex's new flame, I would pretty much never have any need for a Significant Other again.*
Listener's response: There's got to be an app for that!

*except for the part that a magical literary/musical/film/orgasm inducing/self-esteem device can't hold you at night or go to the pharmacy for you when you're sick.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

just that time and that song

I should probably start by saying, because I don't believe that I have yet, that Mon Amore and I went our separate ways back in June.
In August I moved from Colorado back to my home town in Nova Scotia.

Yeah, I know, I never post, one more excuse, I probably have zero readers. Whatever. I write because I can't help but write, I'll try once again to do more of it in this forum than on paper or never going past my personal screen.

The next thing that I'm going to say is how not being in a relationship, and specifically not being in my relationship with Mon Amore has sort of re-opened some questions for me about my own sexuality. I used to be fairly solid in my gay-ness, but always allowed for the possibility of being attracted to or loving anyone. Then I found myself in a relationship with a wonderful man with whom I'd been friends for many years. At first I had a certain sort of defensiveness about my sexuality, some sort of need to justify myself or prove that I was still queer 'enough'
"Queer enough for whom, Kinsey?"
Queer enough for all of the Lesbians with a capital L who glared at me for holding his hand at GLBTTQQIA spaces and events, that's who. I never expected to experience discrimination and dirty looks for being a 'hetero' couple. I'd also like to add that, quite honestly, my relationship with Mon Amore was far more queer than any other I've been in, if we are going to use that term to indicate non-normative in some manner, challenging established and binary systems.

I came to a point at which for the most part I would pretend, in the majority of casual company and situations, to be straight, and always to have identified that way in an attempt to protect every other queer person from the old 'oh well they just need to find the right man/woman' bullshit that so many spout. I wasn't going to be used as evidence of that. I would put part of myself out of the public preview for the sake of the community. It might sound noble, it might sound stupid. It probably was a bit of both. I think largely I just got tired of explaining myself and seeing that 'I told you so!' look on people's faces.

So, now I'm single. I am very adamantly single. I have in fact made the decision that I will continue to be for at least the rest of 2011. I will not be anyone's someone during that time.
I have already reached the bench mark of having been single for the longest period in my adult life thus far - having only really been in two serious relationships. I have decided that I need to be me, on my own, without the influence, however positive, of anyone else in that way. I need to be completely my own person, because people are different in relationships. They just are. That doesn't mean that they necessarily cease to be themselves, but we are different when we are with different people, sometimes it's good for us, sometimes it is not.

Being single does not mean being alone at all times, by which I mean, I'm not a monk. I have been left with much to ponder about loves and lusts past and present regarding exactly who interests me and in what ways, and what that suggests to me about my own identity now. I'm sticking with 'queer.' I am not enjoying how frequently I have to define that word and what it means to/for me, especially to health-care providers, but there you have it.

Kinsey: on my own, still here, still queer.

Get used to it.