I had been dating a biracial woman, with a young daughter for a few weeks, maybe a month.
Miss Thing wanted a relationship, I didn’t. It was awkward. I have to say the cultural divide was, although interesting, difficult to transverse. She was hot and very sure of herself. And sure about what she wanted. Which I guess was me, at least in the moment.
I met her daughter and we each stayed over at the other’s apartment one time. Her front window looked directly into the apartment of an old partner, a very abusive ex with whom I had a long-term relationship in my mid-20s. I couldn’t deal on various levels. Miss Thing was not appreciative that she had invested time, energy and emotion in me and then I wasn’t interested in an exclusive relationship.
In fact, I was committed to casual dating and casual sex. And, in that vein, I went out with another woman, a playwright and performer whose play Miss Thing and I had attended. Actually the playwright and I had had a date way back in September—pre-hysterectomy—and because of my surgery—and other things and other women, it kinda fell to the ground. But, the playwright is extremely nice and kept in touch, invited me and my guest to her play. We went. And I went back to see her other performances.
I finally asked the playwright out on a date in late December. We had kinda been hanging out semi-professionally, so I just emailed her to say I wanted a non-professional meeting, an actual “date” date. She was enthusiastic about it and into a casual dating and sex situation, too. We met for dinner at a vegetarian joint in the West Village and she told me a funny story about the “Make Out Date.”
The Make Out Date is a potential solution, if you will, for the fear and loathing of lesbian hook ups: The Make Out Date is a euphemism that seems to make the NSA hookup more palatable. This idea involves the scenario where one woman meets another with the intention, if there is chemistry, to make out with no pressure to “take it below the waist” though that is a “plus” in the equation. The playwright had had previous make out dates with women squeamish about actually committing to casual sex. I thought this was interesting, the squeamish-nish about No Strings Attached sex. I took the playwright home two nights in a row!
And as much as making hooking up more “palatable” to more lesbians makes me extremely queasy because it smells of more mainstream bullshit, begging and pleading, I am all for it if it gets dykes off their couches and into the arms (and pussies) of other lesbians. And in particular if it improves and builds on sexual curiosity, improvement in both sexual knowledge and technique along with a shift in worldview about the place of casual sex in the lesbian community.
After dinner, I took the playwright back to my apartment on a Make Out Date. She went home in a car service after sex. And again, the same thing the next night: hot sex, but casual and leaving at 2 a.m.
For now, I’m causally dating the playwright—regularly. Each our own friends are asking when one of us is going to back the U-Haul up to the other’s apartment. But in the New York where real estate is premium and we both have rent-stabilized situations in Brooklyn, that ain’t gonna happen any time soon, even if we go exclusive and commit to something.