PRINCIPLES OF LESBIAN DATING

You know how straight people have all these stories about their weeks or months dating? We don’t have those stories. Do you know why we don’t those stories? Because, as one of my most beautiful lesbian friends said so eloquently, when I asked about her dating stories, “most lesbians don’t date.” “Oh?” I asked.

She smiled that killer smile as she leaned against the stove, looking at me with dark brown eyes, tilting her head and saying, “I’ve never dated. I have become involved with every woman I’ve gone out with. And that’s true for most everyone I know. Except you.” She turned to stir the stracciatella. Italian tonight. “Seriously?” I asked. Clearly she hadn’t heard that lesbian speed dating is all the rage. That smile again. “You heard me. I don’t date. I decide if I want to get involved or not.” Okay so perhaps I am an anomaly: a lesbian who likes to date. But it’s probably truer that I am an anomaly as a woman, because straight women are the same as gay women and would rather be in a relationship than out in the dating field and that first date is to determine whether the relationship starts NOW. [WARNING: STEREOTYPE]  Visions of U-hauls hitched to the car outside the first meeting place passed behind my eyes. I’ve seen some of the L-Word episodes. I know there are American women that like to date. And a few here in Canada too. In fact, I am willing to bet that there are even lesbians who date in England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany (well, maybe not Italy) and South Africa. Yet there’s precious little in the way of guidelines or etiquette when it comes to women dating women.  Granted there is some confusion about what dating is and isn’t and what the different categories and definitions mean. I shall to clarify two key terms:

• Friends with benefits: “friends who have a sexual relationship. Neither party is considered committed to the other, and both can start dating someone else at any time with prior warning.” EEEK! Sex is easier to find than good friends. If I can’t find benefits when I need them, I am NOT going to use my friends.
• Dating: “two people who are looking to get to know one another better, without commitments or promises. Either or both parties can be dating other people.”  This is also sometimes known as casual dating. Oh, please. as a woman and a lesbian, I don’t do casual.

Dating is a minefield at the best of times, what with assumptions smacking into secret fantasies at the wine tasting, at the gallery opening, in the movie theatre, across the restaurant table. I think most people want to be good at dating, but don’t know how to be. And there really isn’t much out there that adequately prepares a woman to date a woman. So right here and right now, I am going to clear a path, and close that gap with the extremely necessary Principles of Lesbian Dating.

Principle One: Practice dating

Nothing facilitates perfection quite like practice. Just as you practice the piano, mediation, yoga and archery, practice dating. Set aside at least an evening a week, together with one day and night of the weekend for dating. That is three, or possibly two different women per week.  Do this for a minimum of one fashion season. Keep a dating diary. Record the pertinent details of your date in this diary: what worked, what didn’t what you’d do differently next time.  At the end of this time, assess whether you have truly mastered that art of dating, and if so, whether you wish to repeat your practice through the next fashion season, or chuck it all and find your wife with the next date, publish your dating diary, make multiple millions and move somewhere warm. NOTE: If you find you are dating the same woman after date one, you have fallen off the wagon and are in a relationship, which could potentially lead to marriage and children.

Principle Two: Be efficient

I found that replacing my front door with an opaque glass revolving door worked wonders for my dating life. I knew who was coming and going. A Gantt chart kept me on track in my dating practice: each line represented a different woman, the time to be allotted to the date, the activities that would be involved in that date, vital statistics, and importantly, what I wore on each date and each date venue, right down to perfume and jewelry so that I did not enter the same place twice with a different woman wearing the same thing. Can you imagine? I also had a risk management plan in the event that the date got, well, serious. I had an early warning system installed in my car that detect if the same woman was in the passenger seat more than twice. It never went off. A cleaning lady was engaged to come by twice a week. My assistant knew what calls to put through to my office and when to run interference. All of these efficiencies gave me more time to date.

Principle Three: Enjoy Yourself

You are practicing. You are prepared. So for goddess’ sake, get out there and promote happy lesbianism! Enjoy yourself. Laugh with her. Share those awkward coming out stories. Have great conversations about anything and everything under the sun: travel, words, fractals, cooking, reading, books, motorcycles, art, music, poetry, the best way to hold a hammer when both of your hands are full. Things that tickle your fancy. Be open, accessible and your genuine, authentic, happy, shiny, lesbian self. You can consider a patter in lyrical language alluding to your hidden tattoos or piercings to intrigue her and pique her interest, but no matter how much fun you think it might be do NOT, under any circumstances tell her about your dating diary. I can guarantee you there will be no fun to be had from that moment onward. At any rate, there you have it. The Principles of Lesbian Dating.  I am working on a Lesbian Dating Manifesto, to further develop the conceptual framework as outlined above. I hope to have that completed before I transmigrate to the next dimension. NOTE: Now it’s possible that in the midst of this dating idyll, you meet her. You know, HER. The ONE. And on that, no dating advice is going to help you because when you realize it, when you feel it, when it hits you, when you are sucking your heart through a straw at the sight of her, there are two choices, my friend: Jump or run! Until next time. And as my Vulcan ancestors are often wont to say, May you love long and prosper.

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