"What are you doing?" she gasps, one hand raised, with the urgent tone of someone stopping a child from jumping onto a live railway track. I freeze, with equal pressure, believing that there must be a spider on me or something. "You're using body lotion on your face," she tells me, relieved that she has saved me from what might have been my final, fatal mistake. Who cares I struggle to suppress, disappointed that this is happening yet again.
Unfortunately this is an interaction all too familiar. Apparently, some part of my first impression communicates a type of femininity on which I failed to deliver later. My skin care routine doesn't make any sense, or my bra needs to be resized, or my office supplies aren't from the same cute, gold-plated Target collection. Why does anyone need a gold-plated stapler? Are you assembling memos for the Prince of Bhutan? Whomever I'm dating cannot believe I've been getting along by myself, writing notes on scraps of deli paper and subsisting on a daily make-up routine of a little mascara. You know, like a caveman. So they'll sigh and take me by the hand to Victoria's Secret or Bare Minerals or some other awful cesspool of American beauty standards. I keep my nail beds so fucking nice for you, I'd protest in my own resentful head. My bras and panties would all match by the following month. And then from that point I've become another pet project of someone who was taught in high school that worth comes entirely from your ability to apply powders, colors, and fabrics to your loathsome form.
And inevitably, somewhere between the 3rd and 4th date, the imminent question. It's appears without fail. It doesn't matter that we're going out to a dive-bar with queers that are far more, shall we say rustic, than the one I'm forcing her to deal with. "Could I...," she starts tentatively, her eyes lighting up with possibility, "...please do your make-up tonight?" I feel like a little brother in a cartoon family, being made to play dress up with my older sister and her high school friends. A make-over dummy on a teenage sleepover, my ruddy, Irish face smeared with lipstick and embarrassment. There is no bigger turn-off. Trust me, I've explored many.
It's here that I get... rebellious. We're going to meet your parents? Excellent, I just bought new Nike high-tops. A lunch date in the park? The old trucker snapback I found on the street last night will do perfectly. I'm proposing marriage? I'm not shaving my legs for that. It's petty, I know, but nothing makes a girlfriend less comfortable than insisting on being the master of my own appearance. That and having a "formal-wear t-shirt". Don't worry, the relationship only gets healthier from there.
Of course with all of this comes the sneaking suspicion on my part that I was never attractive to these girls in the first place - that my minimalism and simple appearance was not, as they thought, a conscious choice to dismantle the patriarchy, but just a cry for help from a girl trying to be a woman. That from the beginning, I was an ugly house in a nice neighborhood, and with a new coat of paint and some landscaping, I would become datable. And thank God they found me when they did. They might as well date a man - it would be more of a delicious challenge to change him into something acceptable - if not for the undeniable upgrade that lesbian sex affords them. Ah, my only redeeming quality.
Don't get me wrong - I approach relationships with the same "let me get my hands on this train-wreck" sentiment. I'm no more innocent than these well-meaning straight-passing women, although, my adjustments are more geared towards the topic of professionalism or grammar. No one will send a subpar email as long as I'm dating them. I'm as fun at parties as I sound. I believe everyone has a streak of fixer-upper special projects coordinator, but this urge is compounded exponentially when the relationship consists of two women. Each of us is desperately trying to pin the other down into the person we'd both like to be and date simultaneously.
I imagine a fantasy conversation that they have in their own minds, mistaking them for memories of actual reality. "Huh," I'd say in their delusion, "If only I had someone to teach me in which contexts to use a bronzer, and in which contexts to use a peach blush!" The nine elapsed minutes it took me to do enough research to even write that line should be indicative of how little I know about these things. They'd swoop in, rescuing me from my ignorance, whipping out various-sized brushes from their elastic tool-belt, the cosmetic equivalent of every Avengers hero combined.
When I was in the second grade, our class was taught what was referred to as a "game" but was really a way to force the memorization of multiplication tables. The tottering students would make their way through the 5's and the 6's and the 7's, memorizing math facts of one table each week until winning an ice cream party following the 12's.
"Are we allowed to do two tables in one week?" I sniffled, already planning my strategy, forever the social calculator. I wasn't particularly attached to multiplication, or ice cream for that matter. Come on, Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip? Whatever. But the rush of sucking up to an authority figure was the real reward.
"Well," my plump teacher said, cooing at my adorable naivety, "Of course you're allowed, it's just against the rules." I stood for a moment, dumbfounded that another person could interpret words differently than me. Didn't those mean the same thing...? How can something be allowed in a game and against the rules at the same time? What did she mean? Was she envisioning me engaging in this activity without respect for any rule? I pictured myself screaming in high-pitched impish delight as I careened through the room, filling out multiplication worksheets in a state of rogue chaos, shoving the other children out of the way to claim my sweet prize. "Well," my weary teacher would remark, "It's against the rules but it's still allowed." Never had my theory of mind been challenged in such a consequential way.
Since that day, I've been paranoid about my communication with others - walking on proverbial eggshells through every conversation, making absolutely sure that I'm being understood correctly. So if some accidental part of me betrayed the pleading need for a make-over from the woman I'm sleeping with, I'd be grudgingly unsurprised. Figures. I'll take completely responsibility for the misunderstanding.
As a lesbian, I already spend most of my time feeling disconnected to the skills and knowledge that straight women somehow came by naturally. But the kicker is that I couldn't care less about this shit. As a lesbian who just refuses to fall in love with anyone who isn't quintessentially, culturally, traditionally female, I'm aware I'm almost setting myself up for the self-conscious discomfort. I come for sex with almost frustrating equity and stay for the outfit tips. As unsolicited as they are, I appreciate them. By the way, I missed the ice cream party. I only made it to the 9's. That's the real tragedy.
