Partners to Best Friends: Being Friends with your Ex-girlfriend

In the lesbian community it is expected that you will remain friends with your ex’s regardless of circumstance or torture it might inflict. Choosing to remain friends after a break-up is something that is distinctive and unique to lesbian relationships. 

Whilst therapists would argue that it’s about ‘trying to keep a connection with that person and not being ready to let go’, there’s no denying that it’s ‘problematic’ for everyone if you no longer get along as avoidance is not an option. The lesbian world is a small one, even in the gayest city in the UK where there’s only one lesbian pub to serve us all. 

Dinner Party Anyone?

I decided to throw a dinner party for my closest lesbian mates. It sounds simple enough with what should be the biggest stress for me being an inability to multi-task and burning the food in the process.
 

But with two degree’s of separation causing enough dyke drama in the lesbian community to make EastEnders look tame by comparison; serving up burnt food was going to be the least of my concerns. Holding a dinner party for a group of lesbians is not a task to be underestimated in the skill it requires of the host to make sure all goes smoothly and everyone leaves happy at the end of the night. 

Amber to Green, Friendship to Lovers

I’ve heard the same thing four times this week from four different mates. They were all talking about the individuals they had recently met, and they all finished their sentence with the same (popular!) phrase.

 “... I just don’t need another friend!”

It’s a confusing world when both your friendships and lovers are of the same sex. If the signals are not as clear as red for no and green for go when you meet a girl you fancy, you end up on a perpetual amber light unsure whether it’s safe to make a move. Frustrating when the last thing you want and need is ‘another friend’. 

Smoking Lesbians: Being a Minority in a Minority

When I typed ‘lesbians smoking’ into Google, I was expecting to get a load of websites detailing research and studies undertaken on our health and well-being with a plethora of stats. It’s disturbingly (though may be not surprisingly) lacking. In fact when it comes to lesbian health, we are pretty much ignored with more focus on gay men’s needs whose sexual and social activities are deemed ‘higher-risk’ than our own. 

Instead the first page of search results Google provided (disturbingly but not unsurprisingly) contained eight porn sites. It seems that to many, ‘lesbians and smoking’ is the perfect hot and sexy combination.  

The new lesbian Uniform

At the weekend, I headed off to Manchester Pride with some mates of mine. A group of girlz eager to sample the delights of the north. I packed just about my entire wardrobe for the occasion, to cover all eventualities and weather that might present itself.  I’m wearing my usual attire: Levi jeans, adidas trainers, Lazy lady belt and Roxy hoodie.

At the allocated rendezvous meeting point for us all to get the coach together, K shows up in her black Superdry jacket. She is equally dressed in casual brand wear. I tell K that I have packed and intend to wear the same Superdry jacket, only mine is white. Her response makes me think.

A Reputation Not Always Earned

I recently acquired a new friend...No; I don’t mean a hand held device which powers by batteries! (You’ve such a dirty mind!) She’d recently split from her partner and like most lesbians when they’ve been in a serious relationship, had been in a cave out of contact with others for most of it. Her gaydar would have struggled to follow the pheromones to the ‘gay village’ even in a city such as Brighton where lesbians are two for a penny. So I offered to initiate her with the local dyke bar and introduce her to the girls I knew. 

I pre-warned her though, ‘Just so you know, everyone will assume you’re my new girlfriend, just because we’re arriving together’.  

Over the threshold and as expected when my new friend disappears to the toilet, mates use the opportunity to get the gossip on the new girl in my life. I tell them we’re just friends, I know her through work,

‘Uh huh, they say, yeah right!’

Another time, another friend (this time someone I’ve known for years) who offers to come with me on a BLAGSS walk. I was nursing a broken heart from a recent split, so she offered to make us a nice picnic. There was no champagne or strawberries dipped in chocolate in a super deluxe no expense spared picnic set. Neither of us looked particularly sexy either in our mud covered boots and layers of old clothing. Lets be honest, if anyone wants to ‘woo’ me, I think they’d know that taking me on a date that involves a seven mile hike is not going to be effective – picnic or not! 

Lunchtime arrives and I’m handed sandwiches by my friend watched by four pairs of eyes. No one says anything but the sound of four lesbian brains going into overdrive is louder than the chirping birds in the nearby tree.  I knew it was only a matter of time before their brains hit meltdown and one of them would ask the inevitable (and for me, cringe-worthy) question on all their lips,

'So, are you two, like together now?’

‘No!’ We say in unison.  

Then walking around town this weekend with my ex, we bump into people we know.  We stop and chat and they enquire how we are. I know they’ll ask my best friend later about whether we’re back together. She rings and confirms the next day,

‘I put them straight’ she tells me. 

“I’m getting a reputation here!” I confide in her. “I’ve been paired up with nearly all the single lesbians I know! When I do meet a girl, she’ll hear I’ve slept with half of Brighton!”

“You have*” my friend retorts, “Just not the one’s people think!”

(*I just want to add here in defence at my best friend's retort that not only have I been unlucky in love, but a large number of people in Brighton have been here a mere few years, compared to my 13 visiting the same dyke bar, and therefore do not have the 'public history' that I do - of course writing a public blog about my life doesn't help the rep either!)

Don't mess with Her! Extreme Loyalty In Lesbian Circles

I’ve been ‘getting to know better’ a certain female individual. As a result she invites me to a house party of lesbians she knows. Always eager to meet some new faces I agree to go.

“They’ll think I’m your girlfriend” I point out.

“It’s OK” she tells me. “I’ll just correct them and say were just having some ‘fun times together”.

We arrive and the party’s in full swing with about 25 lesbians chatting, smoking and drinking, spread throughout the lower ground floor of the house and garden. It’s clear immediately that everyone has been acquainted for years and has long histories together. I’m feeling relieved to be at a party where I don’t know anyone (though a couple of the faces are familiar) and where my ‘lesbian chart’ is not public knowledge.  

Following polite introductions and a drink handed to each of us, my 'fun time' companion is whisked off, I presume for the latest gossip on who I am.  No I’m not being big headed; it’s just what girls do! 

I relax as the alcohol kicks in and chat to those I’m left in the kitchen with. I could begin to unearth some of the connections,  as I’d put money on being ‘linked’ to someone here, but am enjoying the two way anonymity beyond people’s names that’s not normally afforded to lesbians. I discover some work connections, and happily leave it at that. 

With latest updates on gossip secured, my ‘fun time’ companion returns along with fellow mates and the party continues long into the night, The alcohol free flowing, I get the opportunity to chat and dance with the friends who are all very welcoming and friendly. 

But underneath the joviality I detect a subtle undertone when my ‘fun time’ companion disappears out of ear shot. They get in close to speak to me above the noise of the music, and in emphasized words tell me,

“She is a great girl. We all love our ...”

I’m left uncertain whether they’re genuinely praising my ‘fun time’ companion for my benefit, or akin to the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where the brothers of the bride tell the groom that, if he ever screws up, he should expect an ass-kicking of epic proportions involving guns, ‘accidents’ and kidney extraction. 

We lock eyes and clink beer bottles in mutual acknowledgement that yes, she is a great girl, and (not wanting to take the risk on the latter) that should I do anything not considered acceptable, I will end up with the same fate as the groom in MBFGW. 

As we leave, they bid us both farewells. With a goodbye hug they turn to me,

“We’ll see you at the next party Susan” 

I heed the unspoken words .