The Lovely Lydia's Blog for February 2020

Lydia, what is lesbian dating like? Is it hard for a girl to pick up other girls?

It's as hard as you make it. Granted, lesbians have a smaller dating pool. And you don't always know if the girl who caught your eye even swings that way. Add it all up, and you have to be pretty thick-skinned and tenacious. 

I think it's harder for femme lesbians like me than it might be for women who advertise their orientation in more outward ways. Since I pass as straight, I find myself having to come out all the time, to men and women alike. The men say ridiculous things like "But you're too pretty to be gay," or "Are you sure?" (Or, my favourite, "You just haven't been with the right man." To which I usually respond, "Maybe you haven't either.") Women tend to say things like, "Oh, I didn't know." And then you wait for them to either say, "Sorry, I'm straight," or "Want to go out for some coffee?" 

Femmes have to deal with quite a few stereotypes, one of which is that we're passive, in bed and otherwise. Now, I am a rather introverted person, but that's different from being passive. People, I think, tend to equate introversion with shyness. But when it comes to pursuing women I'm interested in, I've been fairly bold straight from the start. Though I don't keep count, I've slept with around a hundred women in my life -- and that doesn't happen if you don't assert yourself to get what you want.

You see, I've known that I was gay since I was a little girl. There was never any doubt in my mind. When I was 12, I developed a serious crush on another girl at school, and I was terrified of saying anything for fear of rejection (from her) and ridicule (from the rest of the school). The only thing I could think to do was come out to my parents and ask for advice. I knew my dad would be supportive, and he was. And he encouraged me to start by just talking to her and seeing where things led. It was a nothing-ventured-nothing-gained kind of pep talk. At least if I talked to her, Dad said, I'd know one way or another. And of course he was right, like he was always right. I miss him so much.

This would have been in 1990, when being gay didn't have the social acceptability it does today. That was doubly true in a fairly conservative private girls' school. But I swallowed my fear and said hello to her one day. I'm certain I was sweating bullets and my knees were knocking. She smiled the most beautiful smile back at me and returned my hello. I felt so awkward, but I'd made the first step. We became close friends, but I dragged my feet on telling her how I truly felt towards her. I waited till summer holiday to break the news. When I finally did, she giggled and simply said, "Okay." That was certainly not the reaction I'd been expecting! 

She would tell me later on that she could sense my attraction to her, and that she didn't know what to think of that at first. She'd never considered herself gay, and she had to work through her own feelings for me once it was obvious to her how I felt. When she finally said she was willing to give a relationship a try, I was both elated and terrified! I didn't know what to do next.

Without going into detail, all I can say is that I'll never forget our first kiss that summer. I very quickly pushed things further along, and by the end of that summer we'd both had our sexual awakening.

We were very secretly a couple for the next few years -- until her dad found out what we were up to. He made a scene and demanded that his daughter never spend time with "this deviant whore" again. Those words cut me to this day, some three decades later. After that, the looks and the whispers began at school, and things became very awkward and hurtful. Our relationship was over, and not by choice.

I could have wallowed in my self-pity, but instead I made a choice that would set the stage for the rest of my romantic life. I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and refused to be made to feel bad for who I was. I owned the fact that I was a lesbian, and I went out in search of a new relationship. 

And I knew right where to start, as I very aggressively went after a girl I knew at another school in Glasgow. She didn't know what to think of me at first. And similar to my first girlfriend, she'd never thought of herself as being gay. But she said my assertiveness turned her on and awakened something in her she didn't know was there. Long story short, we were a couple for around three years, until we went our separate ways for college. 

All through college, grad school, and the first several years of my career, I had a voracious sexual appetite. I had girlfriends, flings, one-night stands, threesomes, inappropriate relationships... you name it, and I probably did it. I pushed myself on curious straight girls if I thought they were cute. I consoled the girls who'd had fights with their boyfriends or girlfriends. I had sex with strangers in public. I had drunken sex that I can scarcely remember. I even had an affair with an unhappily married woman. Good or bad, all I did was assert myself. Some girls walked away repulsed by my advances, whilst others were curious, and some were very receptive. 

And that's the way it's always been for me. I take what I want. Sometimes that's led to very poor relationship decisions on my part, but I'd rather live with mistakes than with missed opportunities. You only live once, after all. 

I've never really felt like part of the gay community, so I can only say that my approach to dating is my own, and I don't know how it is for other lesbians, other than what my romantic partners have shared with me. I feel as if I'm probably as assertive as most men are when it comes to relationships and sex. The assertiveness tends to turn women on. I'm probably not typical of most lesbians, though. I don't feel as if I ever have been.