We All Fake It

Every time I attempt to try to understand the MTV Show Faking It, my thirteen year old heart feels a virtual blow from a former bully. I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't struggle to come out. I was always Y'A. I hated my mother up until the day she died and everyday I discover a fondness for this heinous, unaffectionate woman who saw in me what took me 18 years to see. I was me. My mother, by not focusing on my OCDness, by not focusing on my GAYness, made me feel pretty damn normal by default.
So what is my issue with Faking It? Every time I watch, my feelings are jumbled. I didn't have issues with my gayness as a kid, but that doesn't mean I didn't have problems and people didn't have problems with me. My gay ass was damn near last on the list of my struggles. I was called tomboy so much I found it insulting. There was always venom on the tongue like I should be in the house baking at 7 instead of running around. My mother called me a tomboy with no venom in the confines of our walls in our house like an observation. Everyone else said it like they knew me more than I did. Like they were telling me my future and it would be hard because I like to run and jump. Life is lived half out of the house. I have adoption identity issues that trump my gayness. I remember when I was in junior high school and high school when you "accidentally" let a friend go too far at your expense. They laugh a lil too hard and you allow it. My problem with the show is simple. We all fake who we are. We become who we are out of necessity, but in 2014 when the restrictions to marriage equality are falling what seems like daily, should we even promote the idea of faking sexuality? Should we watch a show about a girl clearly struggling with her sexuality get VERBALLY abused by her best friend? We have made so much progress. So much so, that I no longer have to come out. Not that I ever did. But finally my coworkers don't find it a requisite speech on my first day. 
Do we really want kids to think it is funny and cool to pretend to be gay? The realities that homeless trans and gay youth are faced with after they come out is not funny. I have a few coworkers that are in the closet at a job that has a no tolerance policy on discrimination. A job that is great in that respect. A job that has many gay and lesbian employees. I have a job where I have to pretend to be stupid. I have co workers that stop speaking to me because they feared others would discover their long hidden sexuality. Even hidden from me. I have coworkers that run on the assumption that because I'm gay I understand, we nod and smile and are not seen in a corner alone talking. The show reminds me most of these people. This is why I know a 40 year old woman who just had a baby with her gf who is in the closet. What should be the happiest time in her life is shrouded in secrecy. I can't watch the show Faking It because we ALL know when people fake it is not funny at all.

. . .And In This Corner

I went on a first date last night. Admittedly, I met this chick in a dark bar and I have really bad eyesight. I was just hopeful that when she showed up, I didn't have a beer goggle situation. Originally, we were supposed to meet up Friday afternoon for a late lunch (read early dinner date). Originally, originally, I had suggested having lunch together in a casual and not-at-all-date-like-setting sometime during the week. Here’s the thing. I can’t eat shit. No gluten, milk, soy, eggs, nuts…you name it and I’m pretty sure I can’t eat it. I spent all week stressing out about trying to find a restaurant that fit my non-committal vibe and also served food I could eat. No easy feat, even in New York fucking City. I wanted to avoid a gluten-free place cause, let’s be honest, that just plain sucks. So I found a place and by the time I had it all figured out, she rescheduled. Fine. Saturday night dinner date it is. I gave up all control and let her pick the place with the soft instructions of no Italian and no Asian.

When she showed up she was still pretty. She then proceeded to spend 30 minutes making fun on my gluten-free ass. Within the first 5 minutes I was told I was not ‘date material’ because I don’t eat Italian food (which, unless GLUTEN-FREE, would kill me!!) and because I don’t eat/like cheese (still made out of milk last time I checked). If we had gone to the restaurant that I had stressed to find for our originally scheduled casual lunch soiree and she had acted like the ass she ended up being, I would have completely lost my shit. At this point I’m about half an hour into this ridiculousness and decide I’m in it for the story from here on out. I am a curious person with thick skin. It’ll be fun and logged for research.

I'm a lover not a fighter. I enjoy a hefty serving of spirited debate. My friends and I are most often debating sports, Harry Potter, and unfortunately, politics. I don't like fighting with girls. Girls I like. Girls I want to date. I see no need to argue.  By this standard, this date is a fight…of the cock or sword variety. Typically on a first date, I leave my cock and my sword at home. This gal was double fisted and raring to go. She gave me her ENTIRE resume. I feel like I should have taken notes in case I meet someone that wants to hire an over-educated know-it-all. She was really smart, which is always my thing. It was hard to get off on the smart when it was heavily shrouded in her bitter and jaded anti-pregnancy, anti-breast feeding, and anti-children diatribe. I LOVE children. And I said so kind of just to shut her up, to which her response was a pedophile joke. I shit you not. ALL of this happened on a first date. A pedophile joke that was really painful and I had to literally beg her not to keep going with it.

To add to the growing list of ‘things this chick hates’ she also hates my neighborhood. I hate my neighborhood, too. Somehow, without actually living there, she hates it more than I do. It was a sticking point throughout the entire date. I hate Brooklyn. I also hate all of the Bronx. That's because I'm from Queens and people from Queens hate everywhere except Queens. That is the sole reason I still haven't adjusted to living in Brooklyn for the last 12 years. I didn't need to talk about my hatred of Brooklyn, nor did I bring it up, but apparently this topic quite intrigued her. What’s worse, she interlaced her hate expression with a completely inappropriate bad sex story. ON OUR FIRST DATE! The bad sex girl lives in my neighborhood. She complained, quite accurately, about every piece of shit detail that I deal with on a daily basis living in my neighborhood during her story of going to this chick's house to get laid. I interrupted and said "that poor girl". She said "why that poor girl?" (Disclaimer: I generally say what's on my mind. Usually, people like the fresh and frank way I speak. Jess told me not to be normal Y'A on this date. I was so fucking muted I had to go to the bathroom and look myself in the mirror to remind myself of the shit talker I usually am. This spontaneous utterance was the first sign of true me.) As I thought about how I would answer this, I reminded myself that I don't like to argue with girls. Even her. A chick I certainly did not like at this point. So I come back quickly with "you cast aspersions on a girl because of where she lives." Nice save.

I understand first dates are nerve racking. You don't want to seem anxious or nervous and telling yourself not to be anxious causes anxiety. I stress about details and things like that because of my mild, barely noticeable, OCD. This girl was on another planet. Having an agenda on a first date is very common. Her agenda was to let everyone in the restaurant know she had the biggest dick. Unfortunately, she ended up just being a big dick. When she cracked a joke about me not coming home with her I said "I thought we established that 5 minutes into the date." Not a trace of sarcasm or humor. I think she got it. So I walked her to her car and she is doing her big dick walk and big dick talk and I told her she is just too competitive. She chuckled. I thought I was competitive. I will kick your ass in Wii Tennis guaranteed. This chick was on a completely different level. It’s called not fun.

As I got on the train I mused to myself about how this chick should apologize, but knew she definitely wouldn’t. Imagine my shock when I got a half-assed non-apology apology for her assholishness (my word not hers). She blamed it on fatigue and thanked me for hanging. I responded ‘Thanks and sleep well’, to which she got pissy. I am the Queen of apologizing by not apologizing. It is a really bad trait. I could smell this shit a mile away. How was I supposed to react? As I sit in my shitty apartment in my shitty neighborhood drinking a cold gluten free beer that's actually good (despite her making fun of it viciously), I had to give myself credit for being a fucking saint throughout this whole ordeal.

Know When To Say When

"Hi I have OCD and food allergies. Would you like to go on a date?"

"Sure"

"Great. Let's go a week from now. I'll OCD the hell out of the plans. It's going to be perfect [the way God intended it to be]"

Then it happens. Not the date, but she asked to reschedule. At this point I would rather her cancel entirely. Rescheduling just starts the OCD clock all over again. I'm not anxious, but my OCD is. My OCD is not quite sure I will be able to plan whatever it is we are now going to do on no notice. So, I have decided to lay caution to the wind and not think about it at all. I'm going to try to do this date thing like the rest of you people. By the seat of my pants. I must give her major kudos for letting me know 24 hours in advance though... 

The moment you know you can't or don't want to make the date, inform the other person immediately. This might be the first sign that you are barking up the wrong tree. I once had a girl who shall remain nameless [EE] who would invite me to any and everything. I didn't even know these were dates that I was saying no to until Jess told me. She wasn't getting it. Not only was I the wrong tree, she would tell me I'm the wrong tree repeatedly. I didn't get it. I chalked it up to schizophrenia and cut her off.

My friend suffers the same daft inability to see real life. By not taking the hint, he goes around being a door mat. The weirdest thing is he is a HE. I didn't think guys had these problems. He meets these guys, sets up dates and they consistently cancel. He then hounds these guys to reschedule with bated breath. I feel bad for him. Why? Because he calls me close to tears when these guys consistently bail on him and I have to say "He's just not that into you".

So where will I go with this chick whenever she wants to actually go out? I have absolutely no idea. That is pretty refreshing. How long will this new found freedom for my brain last? I have no idea. I'm willing to bet it will last up until the minute she texts me again. In the meantime, I will take myself on a date today. I'm never late and I'm easy breezy. Clearly.

OCD is a bitch

OCD is a bitch. No other way around it. I fancy myself pretty organized, in a completely dysfunctional and slightly half-cocked way. OCD assures there’s a place for everything and everything in its place, even if that means last year’s Christmas receipts in a No. 10 envelope stuck in a jewelry box.  Or having enough soap to last until the apocalypse, but ‘saving’ it because each bar elicits an emotional story about its provenance. ‘This soap I bought in Austin, TX last year on vacation’. ‘This soap is only made in Baltimore and only sold in one store in one tiny neighborhood and I got into it with the owner so I’ll never go back there, hence I’ll never find THIS soap again’.  This causes me to create a hierarchy of soap in the linen closet, bars stacked according to importance and usefulness.

One immediate and telling sign of OCD is the accumulation of receipts. Piles upon piles of receipts. Some are important, I might return that bike if it proves unsteady. Some, not so much. I’m pretty sure Target will not take back the veggie burgers I bought 6 months ago. Gas receipts, food receipts, bar receipts (did I really drink THAT much on January 12, 2012?), grocery receipts, gift receipts, the list goes on.  This wouldn’t bother me so much, besides being a safety hazard as a fire accelerant, if each receipt didn’t hold a cutting reminder of who I was and where I was on that particular day. 

I target a particular drawer or box or envelope each weekend, to expel its inhabitants and let myself free. Without fail, there is the constant reminder of my ex.  OCD provides you a one-way ticket to Nostalgia because no matter how many things I throw away, shred, pack in boxes with her name in bold black ink – still there is a wayward birthday card mixed in with take-out menus from two apartments ago. Today I cleaned out my car (also a receipt receptacle) and pulled a U-Store-It receipt from FOUR years ago when all our belongings lived in a cold dark closet at the end of a long road. Sometimes I think she taunts me, stabbing blindly with these random reminders. Her credit card bills, her student loan paperwork from 2002, Easter cards from her mom, menus from our favorite restaurants two states away, even a copy of her father’s death certificate.  All these tangible reminders of her enormous presence in my life. OCD makes you hold on to avoid the anxiety of letting go – but what of the anxiety of being tethered?

I smile at my own inconsistencies, because even as I tear up and throw away this weekend’s pile of ancient receipts, I am starting a new one on the kitchen table – Target and Giant and the coffee shop and maybe a movie ticket stub. OCD is a welcome friend – without it I wouldn’t know the right way to sit the dish sponge or that a spoon has to rest on a plate or paper towel, never direct contact with the counter, or that my keys will never be lost because I check and recheck and recheck their presence in my pocket 20 times a day. I wonder if there will be a day when I stare down OCD, purge the past completely, and never have to find her old running shoes buried at the bottom of my old suitcase.