Friday, March 30, 2001

12:29 PM
not the kind of woman you marry.

Part of me takes pride in that. I can't be controlled or possessed or improved upon. I am complete unto myself. I'm independent. I value my own opinions above all others. I'll never say, as a former friend did habitually, "F. thinks this and F. thinks that."

Or worse yet, as she also said, "I'm just waiting until he decides I'm normal enough to marry." I think, I know, I feel -- I don't need a proxy, let alone validation of my worth. I'm not "normal," whatever that is, but it's not the end of the world.

The other side of me feels left out, always has. In high school my friends dated. In college, they began to have serious boyfriends. Now most are married, some are having babies and buying houses.

I hesitate to write about this, but it's on my mind a lot. Part of me is a bit pissed off that no one has ever loved me in that way. After all -- I'm brilliant and funny and have a huge heart. I've been told it's because of how I look. Well, we've come a long way, baby! I don't exactly buy that, because frankly, I see fatter and less attractive women (as demeaning as it is to compare us) married, not to mention completely fugly men -- inside and out.

I could blame the fact that I'm completely insane, but plenty of guys seem to have a fetish for fucked up women. I can't name all the men I've met who continually date manipulative princesses or who described their partners as "psycho."

I've even dated a guy who called me crazy in the end, but there was no love lost between us to begin with. It ended because he thought it was funny to tell me he was married and, when I told him I had to stop seeing him as a result, he claimed it was just a joke, that I'd misunderstood. I figure anyone can make a mistake once, so back I went.

He did the same thing a week or so later, this time saying I shouldn't worry about his wife because she was back in Casablanca and I was the one who got to be with him. He misunderstood my reaction completely. The fact that he might have been married didn't bother me because I was jealous, for fuck sake!

He couldn't understand, no matter how small the words I used, that I didn't date married men, period. I know what it's like to be on the other side of that, so it's a rule of mine. Unless the partners are polyamorous, I don't knowingly become involved with any part of a couple. Three times I've dated men who I later discovered were otherwise involved. One wanted to "take care of" me, but I knew the price of that in the end was more than I could afford to pay.

I took out a personals ad once, just out of curiosity. Most of the men who responded just sounded stupid or sexist and I didn't bother to call them back. I'd originally planned to call everyone back, but if I describe myself in terms of my sense of humor and intellect and they go on and on about how I look, why bother?

One of the guys from the ad had an IQ of 160. He was rather gifted in other departments as well. He's probably the only person I've ever met who might have been too smart for me -- he was a little out there. He wrote the kind of plays where the narrator is omniscient and godlike, but fucks with the protagonist and taunts him about it. We went out twice.

The first time we had fun and he asked if he could kiss me. I'd never been given the option before -- either the guy jumps me or isn't interested at all. I said I thought it was sweet, but thought it was nice to wait until it was more spontaneous. When I called him a few days later, he said he was surprised to hear from me, because he thought I didn't like him. I just thought it would be nice to get through a first date without kissing the other person not because they didn't want to, but to give us something to look forward to.

On the second date we got stoned and saw The Wizard of Oz at the Red Vic. The poppy and snow scenes were that much more hilarious and, for the first time, I was able to comprehend and deconstruct the movie as a political allegory. Pot has that affect on me -- if you think I over-analyze or "think too much" already, you don't want to meet me stoned. Anyway, we giggled a lot and ended up making out through most of the movie, right up front on one of the sofas.

I invited him back to my place because I had a whole lasagna I'd made for Fang and her boyfriend, but they'd cancelled on me. I honestly needed to unload the lasagne (neither of us had much money for eating out), but he thought I'd invited him over for sex. I ended up burning the lasagne. Goddess bless his best friend for being a lesbian and John himself for being such an apt pupil. Thus began my theory that skinny, little waif boys are the way to go. *Ahem*

Once I met a man on Hyde Street when I went to see if my friend Scott was home. He wasn't. The man, George, and I locked eyes and both just had this feeling like we'd known each other forever. I've never been one to believe in love at first sight, but that's the nearest thing I would call it. He just had kind, wise eyes. We walked around the corner to the local Thai place and had dinner, then walked around the Tenderloin, talking about everything imaginable. He was very philosophical and we shared the same perspective on a lot of things.

I took him home and though my horny 25 year old self just wanted to jump in the sack, he thought sex was beneath a deep, philosophical/spiritual connection and just wanted to hold me. It could only happen to me. I don't remember why we didn't try to see each other again. I'd just broken up with the married-not-married man, Hamid, who I liked to call "Hammy," because, being Muslim, he couldn't eat pork. I have a sick sense of humor, not many people get it.

Another seemed so very right, but decided he wasn't interested the minute I decided that I was willing to give it a go. He did the "Come closer, closer, closer, too close!" thing for five years. I thought it was funny when he said one of the reasons he knew a woman he'd IMed on AOL for two weeks was his soulmate was that she was older and he didn't work well with women his own age. Yeah, because he was like a 13 year old when we were 26! He said it wasn't fair that I thought he wasn't grown up because he "didn't pay $200 in rent." That he thought an apartment in San Francisco could be had for that amount reminded me of the basic fissure between us. In the Final Analysis, it's just as well -- if I ever want to be someone's mommy, I'll get pregnant.

I guess I feel left out. I'm almost 30 years old and have never been in love. Not mutually, at least and that's the only time it counts. I'm proud that I won't settle for someone who treats me badly, that I'd rather be alone than abused. I just don't understand why those are the only two options, why I can't get past the second date.

I had a roommate who had a rule about not so much as kissing on the first date. That doesn't seem to make a difference -- it's been the same end result whether I had sex on the first date, kissed, or none of the above. At one time I thought women were the answer, but I don't think it makes a difference.

One man did want to marry me, from the first night we met. He was convinced I was The One because we were from the same "culture" and his sister always told him that marrying women outside his "culture" (he meant race, clearly) was the reason he'd been twice divorced. Or maybe it was three times. The truth was we weren't from the same "culture" at all -- he presumed I was black and presumed that meant that certain experiences and beliefs must flow from that.

An aside...This is why it irks me when I get hate mail for identifying as biracial. People want to judge me based on light-skinned people over the last 400 years who passed for white as a matter of survival or social status, rather than recognize there is a difference between merely having light skin (which I don't happen to have, or so I've been told -- it's absurdity) and/or being the slave master's child and growing up being loved (in a fashion) and influenced daily by a white parent.

My mother didn't just give me her DNA -- her imprint is everywhere, as is my father's (which is why I say "biracial," rather than "white," which is, at least culturally, far more accurate. Just ask any of my black friends, or even my gay friends who tease me at how false black slang sounds coming out of my mouth. Even when "no she di'n't" became suburban slang, it sounded absurd when I said it). Jeez, an aside within an aside.

I hate the fucking arrogance of monoracial people who presume to tell me what my experience is, particularly when it's black people trying to run a goddamn "white guilt" trip on me. Save your energy, because you're not going to change me. I don't say I'm biracial to piss you off or to get ahead. I recognize that the vast majority of monoracial people are willfully ignorant. What kind of low self-esteemed sheep would I be to base my self-awareness on someone else's ignorance?

It's the old saw that the truth hurts -- apparently, the truth of who I am must hurt a lot, based on the discomfit it causes. So don't bother to write me to "enlighten" me, because I know myself better than anyone else and I base that knowledge on, you know, me, rather than what I'm told I should think, feel, say, or do. Sorry to interrupt your racism with logic and all.

Anyway, the point is, that guy and I came from entirely different backgrounds and I didn't understand him at all. He didn't notice this because he didn't let me get a word in edgewise. He tried to tell me what a "lady" did and did not do. I am not a fucking lady. I'm Erica -- nothing more, nothing less and certainly nothing as phoney as being a lady.

. . .

There is another. One who gets me in ways that continue to astound and delight. Who tells me I'm smart, sensitive, special, wonderful and beautiful all the time and makes a special point of telling me I look beautiful on the rare times we're actually in the same room.

I don't scoff at this, because I know it's not just said insincerely to get into my pants, that isn't what they want from me. Better still, coming from this person, I know that it refers to my inner beauty as well. That is a magnificent feeling -- being appreciated for everything you are.

Sometimes I think they're in my life just to give me hope of the possibilities. I'm endlessly thankful for this kindness and patience, and that the feeling's reciprocated -- but sometimes it feels like hope is the cruelest thing of all.

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