An Unexpected Lez: coming of age

Ah, lezzie's they grow up so fast....

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Before I knew it my own summer of lust was ending and I was on my way home back to Virginia.

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To say that my next two years of high-school were awkward may be an understatement.

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This is preferably where I would insert a story of triumph and courage in the face of adversity.

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However, (I'm sad to say) when it came to high-school I don't really have any. It's not that I shelved every part of my summer at Sexplo (puh-leeze), but my journals from that time are a mix of boy and girl craziness.

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I was fascinated by guys and yet always found myself having to mentally prepare when it came to intimacy (see: beyond first base).

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On the other hand I also wanted to be with women,

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but I didn't want to add to my already eccentric reputation.

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Somehow I thought that if I could just make eyes long enough at the few out girls in school, maybe they would notice and lend a helping hand.

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How were they to know?

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Some attempts I made at keeping it awkwardly real:

Cutting my hair into a baby dyke cut on several occasions.
Watching every gay/lez movie I could find in search of helpful tips.
Befriending the few openly gay girls at school.
Falling for one of the tough bad asses of the group only to find out she was dating another closeted friend (insert epic heartbreak here).
Dressing like a British school boy on a regular basis.
Falling for the same straight girl all of my male friends liked.

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Reading all of the feminist lit. and listening to all of the female, tear your panties off with my guitar, music I could find.
Worrying if I was supposed to like my bestie just because I liked girls. (Note: This is a common newbie mistake, it's okay either way.)
Developing crushes on and dating femme boys.

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Somehow in the midst of all of this I just kept hoping (and not hoping) that someone might just call me out in some embarrassing undeniable way.

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Still how could they when I wasn't even fully out with myself?

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At that age I wasn't really sure if it was just a phase or maybe a fetish that I could out grow (Oh, how that Southern Baptist guilt even got to the liberal Jewish kids.).

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I assumed that since I enjoyed the company of guys that I could also enjoy having sex with them just as much as women. Right?

What?

However, my past still dogged me. So I decided to try and find a way to leave home again the following summer.

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That summer I left for a theater internship at Vassar College (gay, gay, GAY!), with participants ranging in age from 17 to around 40.

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Every person had their own dorm room (YES!). Which meant that so as long as everyone pulled their weight we were pretty much left to our own devices.

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Finally my summer of love was here and this time I was not going to screw things up.

Welcome back to the shit show.

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I wish that I could tell you that as my summer of lez love played out I became less sexually inhibited.

However, truth be told outside of serving on one LGBT Q&A panel and my first trip to P-Town, I mostly stayed on my own sexual island.

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Only my friends in the LGBT circle knew. So it seemed that I was doomed to one unrequited summer crush after another.

Making the Short List:
Promiscuous bad girl lesbian who didn't think I was into her (are you kidding me?!?).
Riot Girl Lesbian who seemed equally spooked by her own sexuality.
My documentary film professor, recently divorced in her early 40's(What can I say? I love smart older women.)

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Note: Years later when I spoke to my PBG lez crush the exchange went as follows:

PBG: Really you had a crush on me back then? I had no idea.
Me: Ummm...yeah, but I was too afraid to say anything.
PBG: Really? I totally would have hooked-up with you.
Me: Damn.

So...

By the end of the summer I really didn't know what to think. Sure I loved the ladies, but so far my track record was providing ample proof that I wasn't particularly good at snagging any of them.

Part of this was because I was so awkward.