So, have you ever broken up with someone, and sworn to stay friends with him or her? Have you ever fallen out of touch with that someone, and decided to catch up on his or her life by looking at Flickr? When you found that person’s Flickr, did you happen to see several drugged-up hipster burlesque girls licking each others’ necks?

No? That’s what makes my exes special.

When I saw that my former beau was posting pictures of sexually adventurous Brooklynites, I had to call him up.

“Those ladies sure do like to lick each other,” I said. “Why is that? Are they tasty? Are they all covered in nacho cheese?”

“Girls do this,” he said. “Every time I get out the camera, they start making out with each other. I take picture one, they’re friends, picture two, they’re friends, picture three, they’re sucking face. I just stand there, like, ‘I didn’t ask for this! This is all on you two!’”

Kissing girls, to be honest, is trendy. Right now, one of the biggest songs out there is called “I Kissed A Girl.” It’s by Katy Perry, and it’s got all the right props: drinking (“I got so brave, drink in hand”), a Lolita vibe of horny-yet-so-far-untouched experimentation (“It’s not what, I’m used to / Just wanna try you on / I’m curious for you”), and, most depressingly, a boyfriend lurking just out of sight, reassuring us that this girl isn’t really a lesbian (“I kissed a girl just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it”). Read More »

I get looks a lot. That shouldn’t really strike me as surprising; everyone gets looks. Amused looks, horrified looks, heartbroken looks, enamored looks…I’ve gotten them all. Still, nothing was quite the punch in the gut as the look my mother gave me when I told her I was going out with a girl.

I’d been dating Megan for something like six months around the time I finally talked to my mom. For six months, I was horrified at the concept of telling my middle-aged, old-fashioned African-American mother that her daughter, the girl she had been a father and mother to for twenty years, was very much in love with your typical Irish girl (sans fiery-red Weasley hair).

I had told my mother that I was bi before, but it was some six years ago and I’m pretty sure that she just passed it off as me being dazed after being hit over the head with puberty. I was almost certain that she’d forgotten (she hadn’t, the old elephant), and when I told her, a look of terror and disgust would follow suit.

It didn’t, and I still can’t decide if I’m grateful for that or not. Read More »

It was the fall of senior year. My dorm was hosting a party loosely based around an Angels and Devils theme, but really—like a lot of college festivities—the theme was mostly centered on girls wearing slutted-out attire and screaming tournaments of beer pong.

I remember standing in the hall with one of my best friends since Freshmen year. We were pretending to have a conversation so I could stare over her shoulder at the snowboarding, dimpled love of my life. He didn’t know he was the love of my life, but somehow I was going to fix that. Somehow.

When I finally steered my gaze back to her face (the love of my life had fallen into a trashcan and was stuck in an adorable drunken stupor), I noticed she was looking at me strangely.

“Hey” she said, shifting her weight and pushing her long hair out of her face, “I need to tell you something.”

“Sure” I said, although I was hesitant to take my attention off my trashcan love. What if he got out and I wasn’t there?

“Let’s go into your room” she said, “it’s sort of…a weird thing.” Read More »