Not That Kind of Girl: Unfriendly

Recently, on myspace.com, I 'friended' a woman named Salty Sam. I'd met her a few times, at bars. She was the rowdy one, the one who'd make the crowd stop chattering, all look up and call her name and she'd either hi-five someone or do a little dance or some kind of exaggerated gesture. She was like Norm from Cheers, only female, tattooed, twenty years younger and way more punk. So she wasn't like Norm. There was still something Norm-like about her, a joviality, a quick wit and plenty of friends.

Adding people as 'friends' on myspace is very different from becoming friends in real life. I can't say I'm particularly gifted at either. I rarely walk up to someone and boldly offer a handshake and an introduction. I should but I don't. Or I would but I can't. Or I could but I won't. The point is that even in the real world, I tend to keep to myself. But that particular night, I was browsing myspace, I read her blog and liked how cranky she was willing to be on it. I have a bizarre fondness for online crankiness. I don't care for it in person but online, I like the ranters, the pithy twerps, the debaters and the cynics. It works for me.

The next day, I logged on to find a message from my new friend. Only she wasn't my friend and her message wasn't what I expected. She asked why on earth she would want to be friends with me and why was I so desperate to have a token dyke friend anyway.

I'm not going to lie. My feelings were hurt. Rationally, I know it's just a stupid Web site and she probably didn't mean it to sound the way it read in my inbox but I couldn't help but feel rejected and judged. I immediately apologized for making her feel tokenized and told her that I'd met her some years back through my ex and inserted a female name. I felt a strong need to justify my own queerness to her.

But the more I thought about it, the more I found the whole exchange to be unsatisfactory. Would it be so terrible to be friends with me if I were straight? Does my bedmate really factor that highly in my capacity to be an online friend? And, even if she really is only interested in being friends with other lesbians, why couldn't she take the time to make sure about me? On my myspace profile, I have 'lesbian' as my sexuality, I have mostly queer friends (though, perhaps, like me, they don't look queer enough), I blog about the gay and lesbian bookstore I work at. I don't need a 'token dyke friend' because I am a dyke. All she would have had to do was scroll down.

I'll admit I'm sensitive. I try not to be but I am. I tried to brush off our exchange and after a few days, my hurt feelings subsided and I considered the possibility that she could have been drunk at the time she sent that message or careless or maybe she was just mean. But a much more scary interpretation of events was that she was honest. Appearances count and I simply wasn't dykey enough to be accepted into the sisterhood no questions asked.

Regardless of how queer a life I lead, I'm an invisible member of the community. Even with my sweetheart on my arm, we're just as likely to be mistaken for a nice and friendly - if not somewhat conservative - straight couple. Her in her button down shirt with a tie to match and her polished boots and sweater jacket and me in my standard jeans and turtleneck ensemble don't look like a classic lesbian couple, I'm told. It's made me wonder what, exactly, a lesbian couple looks like. Were I cooler looking, perhaps I'd try a streak of hot pink in my hair or maybe wear camouflage or army boots. Or maybe there's more to it than fashion.

It's something I don't feel welcome to express to others. Talking about it is uncomfortable. People tell me I should count myself among the privileged. At least, they say, I'm not a victim of homophobia. At least, I don't receive chilly looks or snide remarks while standing in line at the bank or walking my dogs in the park. They tell me if I wanted to, I could get a job as an elementary school teacher in a ritzy part of town and no one would even bat an eye.

And that's not true for all of us.

I acknowledge my privilege, my relative freedom on the sexuality scale. The problem, however, remains. I'm not truly free until we all are. After all, when I look in the mirror, I know that reflection is (at least in part) what 'dyke' looks like.

As for Salty Sam, when she accepted me into her entourage of four hundred online friends, I was tempted to tell her I respected her initial decision but I didn't. I just wish I could have gotten into that club without my ex having to vouch for me.