When I heard about the age-old tale of “U-hauling,” I laughed it off. The thought that someone would be interested in me enough that they would go out of their way to spend time with me was unfathomable. I had to get on my knees for a text back when I was living in The Straight World™. However, after a little bit of sexual exploration, a little lesbian lightbulb went off in my head.
Suddenly, all the feelings for girls that I had suppressed in the past came rushing back to me. I remembered that I couldn’t figure out why I reaaaally wanting to be friends with a few of the pretty girls in my freshman year dorm. I remembered worrying in high school that if I hugged my friends for too long, then they’d suddenly out me. I remembered in third grade, I kissed my best friend on the playground to prove to onlookers that two girls kissing was no big deal. I was so excited that I figured out why I had so much trouble with love; I was looking for it in the wrong places. Namely, places with men. I felt so free. I wanted to shout it from the top of a mountain. But since there aren’t many mountains on the barrier islands of New Jersey, I tweeted it instead.
Immediately after, I was showered with pride and support from my friends and family. Then it was time to Tinder.
I switched my settings from men to women. The first girl popped up, and I got a tingle of excitement. The pussy-bilities were endless. I was obsessed. I spent hours just swiping right on women from all walks of life and points on the Kinsey Scale, and swiping left on all of the couples who were looking for a threesome. I chatted with the coolest and prettiest girls that I never had the courage to talk to before. But after a while, so as not to over-exert myself, I gave my thumb a break.
I had just figured out this new aspect of my life, and there was no need to rush. I didn’t need to get locked down immediately.
Then one morning, I woke up to a single notification from Tinder and a single notification from Bumble. They were both the same girl. I remembered her from my delirium of swiping. Her smile was so bright and so genuine. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I sent her a message, and days later, I was sitting across from her, infatuated with the pronounced dimple on her left cheek.
As soon as our first date was over, I was dying to see her again. I had a feeling she wanted to see me too. She quickly became a part of my daily routine, and soon after, my nightly routine. After 3 or 4 sleepovers, she presented me with a toothbrush for her apartment, a gesture I found thoughtful and harmless at the time. Little did I know I was on way to U-haul territory.
Our respective friends immediately labeled us as a package deal and wouldn’t invite one of us without the other. We went food shopping together to pick out what we were going to make for dinner that week. There was not a moment that I didn’t think of her and not a day that I didn’t see her.
Here I was, fresh meat, immediately plucked off of the silver platter that I was presenting myself on and thrusted into a long-term relationship. The horror! The humanity! The hopeless romance! I barely even untangled my top knot from a ceiling kite in Cubbyhole before I fell head over heels for a near stranger. She said all the right things. She listened to my elaborate stories and theories. She complimented me constantly. She remembered things that I liked and surprised me with them. She wrote, filmed, starred in, and edited a parody of my favorite TV show to ask me to be her girlfriend. Like some sort of sociopath. Really, who pays that much attention to somebody’s needs and interests? She enticed me with her charm and trapped me with her selfless hospitality. Even though I had been warned about this lez phenomenon, I got obsessed with her.
How could I have let this happen? It was embarrassingly recent that I was parading as a straight girl and whining over some bearded bouncer who had a girlfriend and was treating me like shit, and now I am daydreaming about what wedding dresses would compliment our personal styles. I am spending hours on Lesbi-mom blogs trying to figure out what our kids will call me because this is my one-way ticket out of Labortown, and I am not going to be anyone’s biological mama. I’m not just allowing it to continue, I’m feeding into the madness. I look into my girlfriend’s eyes who I have known for less than a year, and I feel like I am home for the first time.
And that is absolutely BANANAS. What kind of crazy do I have to be to take all of my eggs and dump them in one single, albeit beautiful, basket after just meeting? Apparently the exact brand of crazy that I am. I’m leaving more and more things at her apartment, much to the chagrin of her roommate, I’m sure. We “joke” that we should just move in together already, but if I were given a lease with both of our names on it, I would sign the shit out of it.
My lease is up in a few months. And if I have to pay one more GD parking ticket for parking overnight outside of her apartment, I’m going to be homeless anyway. I’d love to double my wardrobe. We spend everyday together anyway. I’m trying to resist the stereotype but damnit, it’s hard.
If any of you fellow baby dykes are experiencing the urge to merge (and I know you are), don’t panic. Finding someone who meshes with you so well that you want to hug her until your souls become one is a beautiful feeling. It’s hard to resist the temptation of figuring out how to spend every waking and sleeping moment together, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can have all of those wonderful times together AND have a separate home to go and do all the gross shit you’ve been putting off doing in front of your betrothed. Plus, you’re still figuring each other out: what makes you tick, what makes you tingle. You’ll still get to be together even if you don’t live together. Just give it a couple years. At least one. A solid 10 months could suffice.
If I make it to the summer without a joint bank account, it’s going to be a miracle.
What Do You Think?