Twelve Years of Lesbian Six Degree's of Separation in Brighton.

The New Girlfriend and I were reminiscing about our time in Brighton. I moved here 12 and a half years ago. The New Girlfriend moved here a few weeks after me. Yet it was not until 11 years later we were introduced for the first time by a mutual friend. That's not strange you may well think, until we discovered....

We both went to 'Fresh' - a Friday dyke night above the Pavilion Tavern (The Pav Tav). Anyone else remember those days? Dark, grungy and I always made sure I left around 1am before it all kicked off in the final hour with a drunken girl in your face shouting "YOU LOOKING AT MY BIRD!!!!!"

We laugh as the New Girlfriend jokes that we could have knocked elbows at the drinks bar 12 years earlier.

We both went to Zanzibar, the smallest nightclub in Brighton probably - how the heck did we not meet in there!

When the Candy Bar opened up as a cafe bar on St. James Street, I spend a good deal of time in there often working my way through the wine and shots - Oouch! Here our paths did not cross - for the New Girlfriend was to be found in Legends - a venue I rarely bothered with. But we were both regulars on the dance floor at the monthly Candy Bar night 'Wet Pussy' in Club Envy.

We could both be found on a frequent basis in the two Brighton girl bars: The Marlborough (Marly) and The Princess Victoria (PV), but whilst I was probably in the corner sipping a G&T, the New Girlfriend was absorbed in annihilating everyone on the pool table. Close, but not close enough to collide.

We were both regulars at Club Revenge but as I prefer the top floor and she prefers the bottom, only a chance encounter in the toilet queue could've happened. We may well have been stood in the same line but it seems that destiny firmly had plans on keeping us apart despite the odds.

Then we start talking about the people we know. I pointed out in 'Like a Pack of Wolves' you may not know someone, but it turns out 20 of your mates do. Suddenly the lesbian six degree's of separation in a small world leaves us to ponder further about how our worlds overlaid each other but yet we never met before we did.

The 'ladies' the 'New Girlfriend' danced with at 'Fresh' 12 years ago were flatmates with Lezza A who dated Lezza B. Lezza B was a friend of mine and regularly helped me empty wine bottles at the Candy Bar Cafe that the New Girlfriend never went too. Through Lezza A, the New Girlfriend met Lezza B, whilst I met Lezza A a number of years later through Lezza G. The bouncer on the door of 'Fresh' is the New Girlfriend's best-mate (Lezza C), who may or may not have been the bouncer to throw me out for shagging a girl in the 'Fresh' cloakroom!

Lezza C was friends with Lezza's D, E, F, G and a whole load of others and introduced the New Girlfriend to them all whilst I met Lezza's D, E, F, G and the others years later through Lezza B, but by this time the New Girlfriend was not hanging out with Lezza's D, E, F, G and the others..... and so it continues.

It was only when Lezza H who is friend's with the 'ladies' the New Girlfriend danced with at 'Fresh', who also happened to be a friend of mine through an ex, that we were finally introduced!

Alice's L-Word chart is not just stuff of fiction!

The effects of being a Complete Relationship Failure (CRF)

I'm a Complete Relationship Failure. I know this because I've dated girls for the last 17 years and yet the longest relationship I sustained was just over 4 years and even that I managed to screw up. My shortest relationship was three months and everything else including flings that never got off the starting block, have been something in between.

12 of those 17 years of failed relationships have been in Brighton and most of my exes are scattered about the city. I've noticed that my exes get rather friendly with each other once we've split up. It's not uncommon to discover that they are now BFF. I had a mate I was due to meet up with once, call me from 'The Marly' the local Brighton lesbian hangout,

"Susan, you may not want to come here this evening, there's enough of your exes in here to have their own party!"

As a result of being a CRF it means I'm now quite insecure which doesn't help my prospects much. This insecurity might be age, but I also think it's because I have come to believe from experience that it's only a matter of time before the person I'm with has had enough, my faults (as long as your supermarket till receipt) too much to bare and leave just like all the others with blame firmly placed at my door.

I find it amazing when I meet anyone who's had a relationship longer than five years wondering how they did it. As a child I always said I would marry the person I made it to five years with. Now 36 I'm still waiting for that to happen and question whether it ever will. At least marriage will be an option in law by the time and if it were to ever happen.

I've noticed increasingly the adverts of lesbian nest building activities as brands begin to target the 'pink pound'. Flick through any Diva or G3 these days and it's full of adverts for home purchasing and articles about having babies with the images of lesbians all coupled up in love-you-forever-after situations, enough to make you vomit into the nearest container you can find. I almost can't bare to look at them any more, giving me about the first five of 30 pages to read, before I toss them asside.

The portrayal of lesbians that we like to believe is real, is that which we are fed as a child by Walt Disney, the reality is that civil-partnership dissolvement is at 3.3% and not every lesbian is in a nest building situation. As we increasingly gain equal rights and acceptance for our relationships and families, it means that we are now provided with ideals by the media that for some are realised, for others remain a longing dream and for others a desire they are completely uninterested in. I have enough exes across Brighton reminding me that I'm a CRF, I don't need a further reminder from the media. 

One-night-stands are pure ego? The Girlfriend starts a debate

Quite a bit of wine had already been consumed by the party of four sat together in the pub. This included me, The Girlfriend (luckily Cupids arrow was not laced! See 'Why Lesbians Should Celebrate Valentine's Day' if you've no idea what I'm on about!) and a couple of mates.

As happens when large quantities of alcohol are consumed when trying to have a rather calm and civil evening, someone drops a deep and meaningful topic into conversation towards the end of the evening. A debate that's rather challenging with brains not fully functioning and with slightly less brain cells than we started the evening with.

It's normally me that gets the drunken heated debate's going, so was rather surprised when The Girlfriend who openly self declares on a frequent basis that 'she has no opinion on anything (dog shit on city streets being the exception to the rule) and is happy to drift along whilst the likes of me try and change the world, decided to start a debate!

The conversation went something like this:

"One-night-stands are all about ego"

Two of us at the table immediately questioned this statement, stating that one-night-stands are not just ego, some times they were about self-harm, distress, frustration, low self-esteem and heart-break.

The Girlfriend and other friend at the table were adament, whether pain or pleasure, one-night-stands are about fulfilling your needs, wants and desires, to make you feel better, to make something in your life feel less. It was all still ego.

The conversation then shifted to what the definition of ego was, with me saying that ego implied selfish super-inflated behaviour and self-image and that not all one-night-stands came from this.

I went on to express that ego regardless of official meaning could not be used so sweepingly to describe one-night-stands because of the connotations associated with the word. That it was negative and insinuated a selfish act. Can one-night-stands really all be described as such? It seems so harsh to me.

This brought the conversation back to the definiton of ego and where we started the debate, that one-night-stands are all ego regardless of why we do them.

The debate remains unresolved.

What do you think?