Love will set you free - or will it?!

German Girlfriend was away again for this years Valentine's Day – last year she headed off to snow topped slopes and this year she's headed off for sun, sea and sand. Having started a new job in London, I wasn't in a position to go with her.

Love was definitely in the air at work– there were a number of deliveries of red roses in the office, one of my colleagues left early to have fun with her beau whilst others described the things they had planned for their romantic evening and bolted for the exit when the clock struck five.

I attempted to block it all out as just another day. Cynical GGF did attempt to send me an e-card, knowing I would want something being more of a romantic than herself but it didn't work, with neither technology nor romance her forte.

Despite my efforts Valentine's was hard with the girlfriend away but then she's not into it anyway; her absence about how little she rates it. It summed up to me though, how emotional love can be for the wrong reasons.

My former boss once commented to me “Susan, you seem much happier when you're single”.

Happiness was the wrong word. I definitely feel freer. I don't mean in the sense of having freedom to do what I want, with who I want and how I want, but I do mean free from the “emotions” caused by being in love. When I'm single I almost feel more stable.

Don't get me wrong, I love GGF and would not choose to be single in replacement of having GGF in my life, but being in love with another can be a roller-coaster of emotions that are not necessarily euphoric. You are two individuals where compromise and consideration are paramount for the partnership, but not always given.

I've shed more tears caused by actions of girlfriends than I have from other causes. My heart felt broken when GGF went away – I had to keep reminding myself she was coming back and I wasn't dumped!

We can all recognise times in our week when our relationships affect our emotions causing us to feel upset, stressed, anxious and distracted whether through mis-communication, mis-understandings, jealously, disputes, tensions, selfish behaviours or their absence.

Times when I wish I wasn't affected by the love I felt for another.

Today at work a colleague asked if I'd swap my brain for a robot one if I could – giving me super intelligence.

“Like the Borg in Star Trek?” I asked. “Or Data?”

I pondered his question seriously, as the idea had some appeal.

“But then I'd have no emotions.” I say realising how much these actually, good or bad, make us who we are. “I'm not sure I want to be emotionless. The Borg were mean – I wouldn't want to be like that and even Data developed an emotion chip he believed it so necessary!”

Living up to the label Part 2

I'm pleased to say that I completed the half-marathon in 2hrs 58mins for the Sussex Beacon. Hurrah! I learned a lot about myself today, mainly that I am rubbish (mentally) at endurance challenges and are unlikely to ever run a full marathon, which had been on my bucket-list until today.

Finish line in sight. Can you see the relief on my face! 

Some of the Bear Patrol who ran in the Half Marathon today

It was an experience I am pleased to have dedicated and pushed myself through, but feel no inclination to repeat. Seems I've just proved that as a lesbian I don't fit the 'sporty dyke' stereotype or label either!

Living up to a label when failing the prerequisites

This weekend I'm running in the Brighton Half-Marathon as a result of a crazy moment last year when I thought that setting myself some challenges might be good for my soul.

Of course having been forced to train in bitter winter temperatures and against icy on-shore winds; the half-marathon now a mere day away, the idea of running 13.2 miles on Sunday for a healthy soul leaves me thinking that more sedate challenges in the future might suffice.

I'm running as part of the Bear-Patrol team, a community fundraising group who raise money for the Sussex Beacon, an HIV inpatient unit and specialist service provision. Hanging out with gay “Bears” apparently makes me a “Beaver”.

In the post 'The lesbian checklist', I described how I had failed many of the prerequisites of a “lesbian” label: no ownership of a checked shirt, no knowledge of how to get a BBQ going, the Channel 4 ‘Gay-O-Meter’ mocking me as a “straight acting girl”, the 'femme test' at Pride failing me as “Oh dear”. Now I have been christened with a new label which is as butch as they come.

Beavers are adept at DIY after all, capable of building their own 'lodge' and delux swimming pool! Their skills with building materials as renowned as a butch lesbian!

Labels can feel somewhat of a burden, with stereotypes whether we like them or not giving us plenty of fodder to jest and joke at each other with amongst our LGBT peers, especially when we don't fit them.

As I am determined to finish the course and not fail for the team tomorrow or my soul, being a 'Beaver' that's butch without the accompanying stereotype skills necessary, might just be a label I'm successful at! 

Quick to critique - classic lesbian 'knocking it'

Yesterday I met up with The Ex for lunch whom, after a two year split of wound healing I'm now good friends with.

"Are you going to this new lesbian night later?" she asks.

"Oh, is that tonight? Not sure" I admit, less than enthusiastically. "You know what these nights can be like - either absolutely brilliant with a great vibe where you can have a good catch up with everyone or absolutely shite with comatose lesbians getting into arguments with each other!"

The Ex points out to me I'm doing the classic lesbian thing of 'knocking it' before it's even happened and it's no wonder lesbian nights struggle to get off the ground. I hang my head, because she's right.

I take my hat off to anyone that organises and tries anything solely aimed at a lesbian audience. We're a fickle bunch that are hard to please and quick to critique, with the success of a lesbian night often less about what the organisers do, and more about the mental and emotional state that lesbians go out with. In a community where everyone know's everyone, all you need are a couple of fall-outs and recent break-ups or affairs to have happened to change the whole atmosphere of a venue. Asked by friends once what I would do differently for a lesbian night, my answer was simple - I wouldn't organise a lesbian 'anything'! It's a brave soul who's not risk averse that does.

I decide that since I've become somewhat of a homebody of late (thanks to my beautiful new dining room table) and risk becoming a stay-at-home lesbian with her cats that no-one sees for years, going out and socially engaging with others in a lesbian venue would be healthy for me.

As it was I had a good night with friends, caught up with people I'd not seen for an age, the woman The Ex had an affair with kept out of eyeshot and there didn't seem any bad vibe's going on generally with others or were very contained if there was!


The motto of this story being 'don't be quick to (pre) judge a lesbian event or night'!

Gay babies - changing the way we converse

Last night I watched a short lesbian film called ‘Birthday’ about two women who had one child together from insemination about eight years ago and wished for a second. It turns out that the to-be birth mother fed up with the turkey-baster approach ineffectively working has slept with the sperm donor to conceive much to the disapproval of her wife.

It reminded me of a birthday gathering last weekend where babies once again were the familiar topic of conversation, despite the group being gay men and women. One of the lesbian couples there were in the process of trying for a baby and my gay mate (the birthday boy) quietly whispered to me later ‘They asked me – but I said no!’

Babies came up again a few days later at an LGBT networking event, when another gay mate jokingly commented that ‘he had never been asked to be a donor – and wondered what was wrong!?’

His tongue in cheek comment a response to an increasingly familiar subject matter that were once the realm of heterosexuals but are now definitely a part of gay life – marriage, babies, children, schools - topics we all agreed at the networking event which made straight parties boring.

Mixed friendship groups of lesbians and gays has become akin to a family planning clinic where wombs and sperm are up for bartering over during a night out. I find it sad that it’s come to this – where friendship means the inevitable question will be asked with girls propositioning their male mates and male mates getting personal with their female friends. New friendships are made with the undertone of sussing each other out for potential shared parenthood, whilst other friendships are lost when your sperm or womb is pronounced as ‘not available’.

As an ever increasing number successfully make the move into parenthood or seek it, they are re-shaping the relationship between the gay community and the lesbian community, the way we socialise, engage and converse and where marriage, babies, children and schools are now a part of that.