Of the Queerly Straight
by Connie Tu
I’ve been through a lot of first impressions after twenty-one years. Generally, they go, “I noticed your hair, since it’s so red”, or “I thought you were the quiet studious type”, or “You looked like you would punch someone if they looked at you funny.”
I guess all three are true, depending on who you ask.
But no one has ever said, “I looked at you and thought, ‘yeah, she’s queer’.” Which I’m not shocked about. Even after realizing it’s not normal to like more than one gender, when I was in high school, I haven’t changed for it. I still went to school, did my exams, panicked about university, made it to university, and got a coffee addiction.
I think I’m starting to see change now though, as the guy I really like tells me, “So… would you go out with me?” and my first thought is not entirely hell yeah, it’s also shit, you’re a guy, I’m a girl. What does that add up to?
“... Let me follow you up on that.”
---
Janice has been my best friend since middle school. In part because she looked at my hair, at my obvious not-whiteness, and said,
“Wow, that’s cool.”
And thirteen-year-old me thought, Wow, I could kiss her, like right now.
So here we are, eight years later, her at Waterloo and me at McMaster, as I have a mental breakdown during our weekly Skype call.
“Let me get this straight,” says her slightly blurry image, pointing at me with a hot pink pen. “You confessed to George, George said yes, and you said no.”
“I didn’t say no— I just didn’t say yes.”
Janice waves her hand at me. “Same difference. But you said not yes because of… what?”
I flick the annoying strand of hair that didn’t end up in my bun over my shoulder. “Okay, so you know I’m not straight, right?”
Janice nods. “Pretty sure I was there when you Googled the term, saying, “Janice, I think I’m not normal.””
“But that’s the thing,” I continue. “He’s a dude, I’m a girl. We get together. What do you think that looks like?”
Janice toys around with her pen as she contemplates this, a hot pink blur in the corner of the screen.
“Guy and girl… would look like… you would look like you’re straight.”
I snap my fingers.
Janice frowns. She looks as though she’s run into a really difficult physics question. “Is. That all?”
---
“Shit, straight person,” I grumble.
Janice looks at me blankly.
---
It’s a day after the Skype call, two days after George, and I still haven’t come up with an answer for either of them.
I wonder, as I aggressively bite into my bok choy, if dating is easier for mono-romantics. You can only comfortably date a person if they’re the gender you like.
“Hey.”
I look up and find someone who is in my sociology class, but I only know that because they sit in front of me, and I stare at that same blue scrunchie every Tuesday. “Hi?”
They cross their arms. I say ‘they’, but they probably use ‘she/her’.
“George asked you out on Saturday, didn’t he?”
I chew as I ponder two things—why do they know me, and how the hell did they find me? I swallow a bite of food. “Yeah, he did.”
They look like a ticking time bomb, and my replies are either the trigger or the wire cutters. “And you like, turned him down?”
Why does everyone think I turned him down? “Did he tell you that?” I ask, instead of answering. George and I have the same circle of friends, (all of them currently in a lecture) and this person isn’t one of them.
They huff. “He talked about it to his friends in stats. He’s quiet. They’re not.”
Ah, so you’re that kind of person. I still don’t know what to say, but I also can’t stay silent. I swallow the bok choy and awkwardly tug my braid, “Oh.”
There’s the trigger.
“So when are you going to own up and tell him you’re like, gay?”
And there’s the bomb.
My mind goes blank, but I’m not sure which part of that is the impact. The part where it sounds like an insult, or the part where it’s not true? I turn on my seat. “Um… what?”
“You go to the PCC, don’t you?” Blue Scrunchie asks. And I do. The Pride Community Centre. Do they just watch my every action? “So you’re gay.”
I’m almost impressed. Usually I have to tell people I’m not straight first. I cough and fumble around, wondering who it is I’m defending now. “You don’t have to be gay to be LGBTQ. There’s a reason why there are that many letters.”
It appears as though this is news to them. I pull out my phone, so I can get a credible source to back me up, when they say, “Hang on, so do you like, want to date him or not? Because—”
Oh, I figured this only happens in movies, so you just want less competition. “Well, yeah,” I exclaim, except even in my indignance it sounds weak. “I just need to, you know, work some things out.”
“... So you’re having a what, reverse sexuality crisis?” Blue Scrunchie asks.
I swallow tightly. I want to yell ‘I’m sorry you don’t understand who I am. I’m sorry I have to explain this part about myself, and I’m sorry you will never have to explain why you’re straight.’
“Uh. Sorry, I have a lecture now,” is what comes out instead.
They cross their arms. “But wait, what are you?”
“I’m a fucking human,” I mutter, as I toss my tupperware into my bag, thankful they probably didn’t understand that either.
---
Ring. Ring.
“Hey.”
“George, say if I took you up on that date today, would you have time tonight?”
“Yeah! I mean, of course. So where do you want to meet?”
“You know what,? Good question.”
Laughter. “Hm. How about by the lake? Looks romantic, and it’s free.”
“Heh – how about five?”
“That works.”
---
I spend way too much time on my hair, only to leave it down. He comes to my apartment, hands tucked into his jeans, looking like a true bashful gentleman, and neither of us has any clue what to do with our hands.
It’s been going well.
We’re talking like normal, fighting over the box of Timbits between us, sitting on a bench near the lake, and it’s great. We’re like a normal couple.
If only there wasn’t that flashing sign in the front of my mind.
“So,” he says, swatting at a mosquito, (because it’s late March, and we’re next to a lake). “What’s on your mind.”
“My sociology paper.”
He flicks my nose gently and I laugh. “I know that, because I also have that paper, but that’s not it.”
I finish my Timbit. “What, you can read my mind?”
“Well, you tend to talk a lot even when you’re eating.”
I look down at the now-empty box. “Fuck, you’re good.”
He snorts. “You do realize, even if I’m only half-Chinese, I understand Mandarin, right?”
“Well shit.”
He laughs. “But seriously. There’s something bothering you. I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he quickly adds. “But you know, you can talk to me. I’m here for you.”
I drum my fingers on the bench. Do I tell him? This great, wonderful man, who much like Janice and the classmate from five hours ago, doesn’t get what it’s like to be able to like more than one gender, as much as I don’t get how they can’t?
But he’s also the man who I’m eating Timbits with as we get eaten alive by insects. Who has never once made any comments about my sexuality, other than to join me as I talked about attractive women. Who took my not-rejection with more grace than I showed five hours ago. And who, in the best-case scenario, I might end up kissing in the hour.
He deserves to hear this.
“So, you know I’m not straight, right?”
He gets this look on his face. “Yeah, but if you’re worried I’m going to ask if you want like, a threesome—”
“I know you won’t ask that!”
“Oh, okay.”
“... Unless you have something to—”
“Nope. Not even going there. Also, you’re stalling.”
I tuck a knee up to my chin, and stare out.
“Just, like, pretend you’re in high school English again. Say you’ve got someone who’s got their life together. They’re happy, they’re passing school. What’re your first thoughts about them?”
“They…had a good childhood? Strong foundation? Supportive family, probably.”
I nod. “But what you don’t know is that they aren’t living with their biological parents. They’re actually adopted and have two gay moms.”
Some of the street lamps turn on with a quiet hiss as the night approaches. I chew on the inside of my cheek. “Didn’t think of that?”
“... No,” he admits, almost sheepish. “Not really.”
I nod. “But that’s the thing. You wouldn’t ask them, ‘Hey, what’s your family unit’, because no one feels like they need to ask that. Looks normal, therefore, ‘normal’. Sure, maybe because it’s a little sketchy to ask in the first place, but you also don’t assume nothing.”
George leans forward with me. “So you’re worried by dating me - a guy - you’re going to be seen as ‘straight’. Because you won’t look like otherwise.”
Hearing that from him doesn’t exactly lighten me, but I unfurl myself and tilt my head back. My hair tumbles down and I wish I’d tied it up. “Yeah, basically.”
A group of people walk before us, chattering aimlessly. And within them, is Blue Scrunchie. I resist the urge to duck my head back down into the empty box of Timbits. Our eyes meet.
“I really do like you,” I assure him quietly. “And honestly, this isn’t even about you. This is just me not knowing what I want.”
He starts playing with my hair, and I feel him making a somewhat sloppy braid with part of it. “So, you do want to date me.”
I nod.
“You’re also still pan, right?”
I frown. “I mean, yeah, I can’t stop.”
“Then maybe that’s enough,” he says idly.
Blue Scrunchie is long past us now, and I turn back to him. He finishes with his braid, and it plops down on my shoulder. It’s not the prettiest, but if I really wanted to, I could always undo it and let him try again. There’s a lot that can be done with it.
“Fiona Wang, would you like to be my pansexual girlfriend?”
I let that mull over in my mind, and smile.
“Yeah, I think I can do both.”
The lamp near us flickers on, and the warm yellow light casts over us.