Attack of the Angry Lesbian

I really was minding my own business. 

In fact she was the one that ambushed our table. 

I didn't even know the girl. 

But she totally interrupted girls night. 

And somehow, in spite of the over abundance of estrogen, misogyny served as our beer chasers. 

At first she was really funny. 

That kind of loud, abrasive drunk. 

No filter. 

No volume other than DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND? I MEAN, AM I RIGHT?

Some people speak in all caps when they talk. 

They make good stage actors.

Like, in outdoor parks.

Or stadiums. 

Without microphones. 

'What about you, sexy. What's your name?' The Angry Lesbian interrupted my reverie as I wondered why we'd picked this bar after The Observatory closed. 

I was out with two of my closest friends. 

And I love the intimacy that small gatherings bring. 

I'm a social butterfly, I can enjoy a party as much as any fellow diva.

But having these two unknown women crash my evening and turn my deep conversations of three to a chaotic noise vortex of five had jarred my evening. 

I thought they were going to stay for a drink and go on with their night. 

No.

Apparently we were their night. 

'What's your name?' She asked again, when the pause I took to take a breath was too long for her. 

"Teresa," I placated her. 

'And do you have kids, Teresa?'

"NO," I said, a little too emphatically.

'Do you have a boyfriend?'

"No," I replied with much more calm.

'Why NOT?' Her voice screeched. 

I made eye contact with my friend, Charmaine. She was the reason the Angry Lesbian had joined our table because the other girl accompanying her had known my friend, Charmaine through an old lover. 

Ohmygodcanwepleasegetthehelloutofhere, My eyes pleaded at Charmaine.

But she somehow didn't get the message.  

It was pretty dark in the bar. 

It was also hard to hear girl eye code when you'd had a lot of fucking whiskey.

My other girlfriend, Ann, was so polite, she just took in the whole event like a quiet observer, forgetting that she was in the middle of the ring right there with us. 

I felt alone. 

The Angry Lesbian fortunately was drunk enough to leave me be and continue on about her first wife and her newly second wife and how they didn't have sex on their honeymoon and how babies put such a strain on relationships. And right then I thought I might be able to relate to her other than the fact that my drunk karaoke voice mirrored the volume of her drunk speaking voice. 

But she suddenly turned into a middle aged white republican man. 

And I was proven most violently that I was mistaken.

'Well you better get him to marry you because otherwise what's the POINT?' She was pressuring her friend. 'What is the point of even being with him if you're not going to get married?'

My jaw fell open. 

I willed it to shut but my shock wouldn't allow it to budge. 

'And you need to have kids. Every woman should have kids. What's the point if you're not going to have kids?' She continued heckling her date for the evening, who apparently had been dating her boyfriend longer than the Angry Lesbian deemed appropriate. 

And then I couldn't be silent anymore. 

"Why does she need to get married?" I interrupted. "You just told us you didn't even have sex on your honeymoon. Maybe she wants to keep having sex."

Charmaine and Ann shot me looks of surprise and anticipated fear from poking the Angry Lesbian bear. 

But I had no fear. 

"And you just said having kids puts a huge strain on a relationship, why would you wish that on your friend? What kind of feminist pressures her friends into making the same mistakes she has?"

To my surprise the Angry Lesbian wasn't affected by any of my words but just went on rattling about "the point" of our lives as women and how we all better hurry up and find boyfriends so we could get married and have babies. 

I couldn't understand why I was so insanely angry but I made Ann move so I could get up from the booth and get out of there. 

How could a woman, a gay woman, who I'd think would understand more than any of us how maddening it is to not be accepted by society when you don't fit into some cookie cutter mold, how could SHE dare to not accept the choices we each made?

I don't want kids. 

At ALL.

And I don't know if I'll ever get married. 

And according to this expert on life, it's better to be divorced than to be single because at least then you're doing what you're "supposed to."

So......what?

We can all be miserable like you, doing the things we ought to, being the people the world decides we are, not feeling satisfied, not having sex, not getting our needs met, not being who we really WANT to be?

If any woman wants kids or wants marriage then they should pursue that with every fiber in their soul. 

But if they don't, they shouldn't be made to feel guilty for being DIFFERENT.

What the fuck decade are we living in?

And in Southeast Portlandia?!!

You've got to be fucking kidding me. 

So I guess I realized that night what's really important to me. 

A little fucking acceptance. 

I'm not a cookie cutter mold. 

And I thought that's what made me wonderful. 

But it took an Angry Lesbian to remind me that most of the world doesn't see it that way. 

And I cannot-

And I will not-

Allow A N Y O N E

To change who I am. 

This is my life. 

And I want to choose what's a part of it.