I wrote this on September the 26th, but lost access to my journal until now, so here it is!
Wow! I just enjoyed my first night out, ever.
I don’t know if it’s me that’s changed, or it’s the people I was with, but for the first time ever at a designated ’social,’ I wasn’t standing awkwardly in the corner wondering how I could most diplomatically make my very premature exit.
Sure, I’m not a big talker by nature, but I listened in and laughed along to most people’s conversations. A lady I’d never met before, Deb, made a particular effort to talk to me, which was great. She told me lots of stories, and shared her theories on life with me!
I also love the way when we’re all together, we’re a group, and everyone looks out for each other. A random, drunk lady was talking to me for ages, and Catherine must have noticed from across the bar, so she came up and put her arm around me and excused me from the situation. Even from day one, the first day I showed up for training with them, when we went to the bar afterwards and a man wouldn’t stop chatting to me, so she substituted herself in my place to get me out of it.
In my old football club, I kind of felt a bit outcasted. Everyone was very nice, but it was quite clear that if you were a lesbian, you were instantly taken ‘under their wing’ and given extra opportunities to be included in the club. In fact, one girl who joined the same time as me, and was always straight, conveniently converted to lesbianism just before her final year, just in time for the club captain elections – which she and her girlfriend subsequently jointly won.
While I can’t say sexuality is a complete non-issue with my new football team, I certainly don’t feel excluded to anywhere near the same degree. Things will come up – for example, when five of us were waiting for a cab, a naked man drew the curtains in his window. We’d been waiting so long and were getting bored, so Catherine suggested knocking on his door and asking him to do it again, for our entertainment. Deb pointed out “… but we’re all lesbians!”, followed by an awkward silence before somebody chipped in, “well, we’re not ALL lesbians.” Deb then apologised to me and said “I assume that comment was directed towards you,” and I agreed “I assume so, yes.” What exactly marks me out as a non-lesbian, I’m not entirely sure, and sometimes I wish they would just think I was a lesbian so no one had to feel awkward.
Another example was when Tash was rather tipsy, and she began berating her old team for making fun of her for being a lesbian (they were all straight, apparently). She said she found a group of straight girls to be really nasty, and loved hanging out with groups like ours, who were so much friendlier. I could see a few people around her felt a little awkward, trying to get her to stop, or making weak attempts to argue in the defence of straight people, possibly for my benefit. But I don’t have any loyalty to straight women! And I certainly don’t take anything said against them, personally! It’s just such a shame that there’s something about the way I look or act that screams “I’M STRAIGHT,” and this even has to be an issue at all.
So anyway, we started the night off at a czech bar and restaurant. I foolishly bought a round of beers for the five of us who wanted one, without thinking about the consequences (… if you buy five people a beer, then five people are going to buy you a beer back!). When most people had arrived (half the people were an hour late for some reason), we finally ordered. I’d not gone with any high expectations for the food, and luckily filled myself up on soup before I left my house, because it was definitely nothing special. I had a chicken breast with four boiled potatoes, and that’s literally what it was. There was no special sauce of any kind (except the melted pool of butter at the bottom of the plate). Most of the girls are vegetarians, so all seemed to get some kind of cheese-dominated meal, including entire slabs of cheese battered and fried.
