I carried with me the freshness of riding the L train from Brooklyn to Manhattan alone, the nerves from the unfamiliar responsibility that came with starting a more senior job after barely graduating and moving across the country, the uncertainty that came with the transition phase of staying with my parents in New York as my bed shipped to my studio apartment in Philadelphia, the fondness from a long-delayed catch-up over cauliflower pizza with an old college friend, and the closure that came from journaling for three hours in a coffee shop with a friend of a friend as she studied for her bar exam. Unfiltered, honest journaling honestly helped me accept it in a way nothing else had: anyone I had ever loved before was all the way back in California, a place I could no longer call my home, and I was never meant to be with them anyway – now that I had my degree under my belt, I needed to live my own life, feel new feelings that I so desperately wanted to feel after watching so many queer TikToks. As someone who gets a crush about once every two years only after age twenty-two, I knew I wasn’t going to find love so easily, but at least I could find a good story. Some tea to spill to entertain my friends. Something to giggle about.
I’d always dreamed of being like one of those gay femme girls in Zara Barrie’s stories; the glittery excursions in New York lesbian bars enticed me with their sharp contrast to the lonely, spread-out city of Los Angeles, where not a single lesbian bar survives, and the only gay coffee shop shut down during the pandemic. And here I was, heading to the famous Cubbyhole, about to meet a queer stranger from Hinge who had invited me out for drinks, and with my red polka-dotted dress, gold hoop earrings, and hot pink lipstick, I felt like I was finally crossing something off my bucket list.
When the clock crept closer to eight o’ clock, the cauliflower crust seemed to weigh heavier in the pit of my stomach, and I dreaded leaving the comforting, familiar energy of an old friend to meet a stranger. “Well, I can make you really uncomfortable to convince you to leave,” she offered as I confided this sentiment in her, but it was a three-minute walk from the restaurant and I had zero expectations – I hadn’t even styled my hair, leaving it in its natural, wavy form.
That dread was soon drowned out by the easy-flowing conversations, with an inexplicable familiarity as if she were already a friend or a friend of a friend, as we discovered never-ending fractals of common interests, career goals, favorite media, and opinions, abandoning Cubbyhole to walk to a dessert shop, exclaiming “men are trash” in response to the waiter asking her if she was single as I was returning from the restroom. As we parted with a hug and jumped onto the L train in opposite directions, mine heading to Brooklyn and hers to Jersey, I texted my friends that I felt like I had at least made a potential new friend, daresay we had chemistry, but it was too early to tell, until I received that text confirming that she had a nice time, apologized for the awkward goodbye (I hadn’t noticed) and she wanted to tell me that my eyes were gorgeous. The next day, as I finally moved into my apartment in Philly, she double texted following up about the podcast we’d discussed, Normal Gossip, saying she had caught up on all the episodes I’d cited as my favorites, and thus began over a month of regular correspondence, with increasingly lengthy, increasingly emotionally vulnerable text paragraphs, pulling out of the depths of my brain stories about my childhood, my mother, my tense and painful relationship with my close family friends, things that I had never told any of my friends because no one had ever asked with such patience and deep interest before. I didn’t want to put too much pressure on the connection, but it was impossible not to place this one on a high pedestal over the others, and I had spent so many months, years, not feeling anything and emotionally shielding my deepest layers from friends out of fear of falling for people who might not even be into women. I decided to knowingly assume the risk, canceling all my dates with people who had actually labeled our meetings as “dates” in exchange for the thrill of the uncertainty of these “hangouts” and emotionally charged texts and music and poetry exchanges.
I shared with her my poem about feeling like a moth among butterflies, both due to my body image issues as well as my internalized homophobia and trauma and how intertwined those things were, and she shared with me a similar poem about feeling like a weed among flowers, and how it made her feel alone. Feeling alone was something I was deeply familiar with, and I marveled at my luck of finding someone who was stirring in me the feelings I had been longing for but were so rare for me. I felt a thrill of anticipation of the potential of connecting with someone who could understand all these broken parts of me and still choose to accept me, because those feelings weren’t foreign to her.
The text paragraphs became a part of my new routine in Philadelphia, walking across the river to campus with headphones in my ears listening to her music recommendations and spending my evenings walking around the local square park, grinning ear to ear at her name on my phone screen when her texts came in and listening to nostalgic favorites as I mulled over what she had said and considered my responses. The adrenaline of our almost canceled plans because my car got towed, her moving around her lab schedule to accommodate seeing me, her specific compliments about my coordinated outfit and the way my hair framed my face, the walk through the blaring sun, followed by sudden, pouring rain, followed by sun again and the subsequent rainbow that appeared in our frame of vision as we walked back through the lawns to her apartment that seemed a confirmation of her interest and the universe’s acknowledgement of the specialness of this connection. I thought of her as I made the decision to drive an hour to the YMCA in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, as it was the only one nearby that had a synchronized swimming program, inspired by her commitment to her analogous niche interest, pole dancing, and consulted her before making my own decision about whether to pursue it longer term. I thought about my excitement as I drove through the beautiful windy roads paved through gleaming greenery that was unheard of in California. The leaves seemed to shine in the summer light with a beauty I would have never noticed if I weren’t so intoxicated with dopamine spikes, and all the time I had spent in Los Angeles, driving through the true-to-stereotype horrendous traffic to awkward queer events and boring dates, trying to force feelings that weren’t there and trying not to feel resentment for my friends who were getting married to their best friends…it all suddenly felt worth it, because maybe I didn’t have to feel the pain of that loneliness anymore. Maybe it was the rareness of a connection like this that made it so special.
I wasn’t in love, because I barely knew her, and I wasn’t thinking that far into the future, but she was the first one in a long time to make my heart feel anything, to remind me that I wasn’t broken by my past and that I could still feel deeply. I didn’t find love, but I found the willingness to confront the part of me that wants what doesn’t want me – well, at least not in the same way. She might have wanted me, but not in the way that I wanted her, not as someone to connect to, to share with, to face our pain together and uplift each other through the other parts of life that were hard. She was also in pain, but she didn’t want connection. She wanted control. She wanted to see if she could claim me as another prize in her collection of trophies that made her feel chosen.
She was comfortable in her own skin and body in a way that I could only dream of, comfortable expressing herself through pole dancing – she knew she was attractive, and she wasn’t afraid to express it through her art, her body like a paintbrush and the pole like a canvas. I admired that part about her, but it was more the sentimental texts and poetry that had sparked my interest. There was a shift in our correspondence after she’d sent me some music that she acknowledged was different from the sentimental R&B singer-songwriter favorites that we shared – it had, well, more of a sexually charged vibe. She told me she was curious to know what I would think of this music because it was different. What followed was a question about a book on asexuality she had seen on my Goodreads. She asked how I identified, and I answered honestly, that I identified as on the asexual spectrum, as demisexual, as someone who needed to develop an emotional connection before feeling sexual attraction and preferred to take things slow. My admittance was followed by a two-day silence, a weekend where I tried to distract myself with excursions to the Hindu temple and a uniquely excellent Italian restaurant with new friends in Philly but ended up oversharing my anxiety with them. “If it’s meant to be, he’ll respond,” they tried to soothe me, though their assumption about my sexuality only made me feel more alone. Her late response, a first for our previously steady correspondence, confirmed what I had a nagging suspicion of – she wasn’t the person I was hoping for. She was not ready for the type of connection I wanted. She was still exploring her sexuality, trying to regain control and reclaim her power from past wounds. She was enticed by the idea of having multiple intimate connections while remaining single and free from the possession of any one person. I expressed support for her journey and made a vow to myself to seek the connection I was craving from sources that were more compatible with me.
Our last hangout, initiated by her, accepted by me after two weak attempts to postpone, accepted against the advice of my caring, wiser and more experienced friends, took place in my neighborhood in Philly. Boundaries reconstituted, we met as friends, without the usual greeting and parting hugs, brought takeout mac and cheese flights up to the rooftop of my apartment with a view of the beautiful Philadelphia skyline before hanging out in my studio on the floor next to my bed with my dog, my flashing rainbow fairy lights, and fruity kombucha in wine glasses. To hammer in the boundary of us being friends, I brought to the conversation my dates with other people, overblown, as I knew that I had ended all these connections after the first date due to the lack of a click. During our subsequent excursion to a rooftop bar in the gayborhood of Philly, the drinks were flowing, and we gossiped and giggled as friends – until a pang hit me as she described the many other people she was connecting with in a way that I know never would have affected me with someone who was truly just a friend. I blamed my silence on the alcohol as she opened her Hinge in front of me and asked my opinion on the profiles of women who had liked her, claiming that sometimes she just engaged with people she didn’t care for because she liked the attention. “Like, please tell me I’m pretty,” the drunken admittance pierced me, as I wondered if that’s how she felt when I told her that I noticed the way she had chosen a perfect shade of red eyeshadow that matched her hanging red earrings, or admitted that I’d always been attracted to women with dark eyes (she had dark eyes), in contrast to my own lighter ones, because they felt so deep and mysterious.
Was she looking at me with pity, with smugness in capturing the romantic affection that my heart reserved for so few individuals? Was she aware of the feelings she was stirring in me as she asked, before we parted, “by the way, since we were talking about Hinge back in the bar, I’m curious, are you seeing anyone right now? Wow, I’m turning red.” When I asked her why she wanted to know, she clarified that her curiosity was just for the gossip. Suddenly, I remembered how she’d told me that the flashing rainbow fairy lights in my bedroom were too overstimulating, the same fairy lights that had soothed me through my most stressful moments. How when we discussed my favorite episode of the podcast Normal Gossip, the one about the queer women’s kickball league, we’d identified with characters on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. While I related most to the protagonist, Lucy, because of her feelings of frustration in finding a connection in the small world of queer women, and her unrequited crush on her teammate, Rory (though through the twists and turns of the plot, they ultimately end up together) – well, she had never envisioned herself as Rory, but rather she identified with Mel. Mel, the only girl on the team who was an ultra femme, the one who everyone wanted because she was hot. The one who Rory and her girlfriend Jada opened their relationship for, the one they both fell for – but to Mel, their connection was just casual.
How had I read her so wrong? How did this fit in with the woman she showed me through her poem, the one who pictured herself as a weed among flowers, the one I thought was just like me? The one who feared that she wasn’t beautiful enough to be loved, but found peace in having more to give to others and alleviate their pain, just like I did, but with her pursuit of me, double texts when I didn’t respond, and consistent words and actions and effort to come to see me and move her schedule for me, I hardly expected her to be the one to confirm that fear for me even more deeply.
“Paheli, people who use people like that and mistreat people they’re not interested in are almost always overcompensating for a deep insecurity,” my wise friend had told me over the phone as I relayed the whole story. “Why would people who like themselves ever treat others so poorly?”
A part of me yearns to reach out to her, to try to alleviate her pain, but the other part warns me not to get too close, even as a friend, not to stick around and watch her love other women the way she never loved me, to project onto these unsuspecting women my unfair envy, my unjustified comparisons. My overthinking, childish, racing thoughts about how if only I were as pretty (read: thin) as them, maybe I would be good enough to be one she loved – even though I cognitively know that it is as impersonal as a song that stirs my deepest emotions falling on indifferent ears in my brother. It doesn’t change the inherent worth of the song one bit, and I know I won’t feel like I’m asking for too much from someone whose heart matches mine, who wants the same things as I do. And I’m now wise enough to understand that her pain was never mine to carry.
They say that grief is just love with nowhere to go. I know what I felt for her was never love, because love does not seek to possess someone who doesn’t want to be possessed. But I know it had the potential to grow into love, and since it will never happen, I grieve. I grieve for the girl who only ever wanted to feel understood and loved by someone she could also love, and how that feels so elusive while it looks easy to others. For the little girl who spent years of her adolescence suppressing who she really is because her feelings aren’t what society deems “normal.” For the girl in her early twenties who had to hold it all in and be strong for others, who blamed herself for the actions of a man. The woman who always only received the message that her feelings were too much, who doesn’t feel deserving of love because she’s never experienced it, whose own mother told her she was more beautiful when she starved and purged herself. The woman who feels shame for wanting it, even though craving love and connection is only human. We are not built to go through it all alone.
It feels lonely to realize that I can never express my grief to her because she will never understand it. To her, my grief would seem, at best, cringy, and at worst, deeply uncomfortable. I know that if I allowed it, she might still speak to me regularly, giving me just the right amount of attention and emotional validation I’ve always craved from someone I’m attracted to, making my face light up with every text the way no one else’s I’ve met since has, but I had to make the hard decision of setting a boundary for myself because I know it would be settling for less than what I want out of loneliness. Staying friends, at least so soon, is a bad idea – friends are people you should be able to express yourself to and be yourself with. Moreover, maybe I don’t want to be friends with someone where I’m unsure of their intentions with me, whether they respect me or speak about me behind my back in the same degrading way they speak about others. Maybe it’s okay to decide I don’t want that, that my own well-being comes first, while still wishing her the best and respecting her journey through her pain from afar.
My favorite song she showed me was “Keys” by Meera. It speaks of how it makes the most sense, as the sole owner of a heart, to protect it and keep it safe, but we are a reckless bunch and we decide to give it all away anyways. The irony of her sending me this song as I decided to let her into my private space, something I rarely do, against my better judgment, was not lost on me. But I don’t regret it, because that’s what I was asking for. Just a story, just some feelings. I know that the leaves were shining brightly and the music sounded magical because of me, not because of her. And if I can still feel it after the deep trauma of my past, I think my heart can survive after a more simple unrequited crush. Moreover, I never shied away from facing the rejection of this connection head-on, without trying to conceal my interest, while maintaining respect for myself, and I think that’s a signal of my new willingness to be emotionally available. What she chooses to do with the knowledge of my feelings is her business, not mine, even if that choice is seeing it as just another conquest. I made it clear that I wasn’t going to participate in any power play games. Moreover, this experience has made me feel closer to my straight friends from college, grad school and synchro, with a newfound understanding of their experiences with men. I feel like I have been through a rite of passage of womanhood. It shocks me every time I realize how our experiences aren’t always so unique.
I take solace in the fact that as much pain as I’ve felt, I’ve always made it a point to use that pain as fuel to try to heal others and not to hurt or use them. I feel sorry for people who turn cold and close their hearts, because I know that as much it can hurt, keeping a soft and open heart is what makes living feel so magical. I understand the power and strength of my softness, even if others don’t see it, and for that, I respect myself.
QueerNeuroMathGirl 