Another old rant, republished

I must say that one of my failings is that I just don't GET heterosexual couples... I mean, I understand why they happen, but I can't quite understand HOW. The whole dynamic just seems so awkwardto me... the whole men as people capable of emotions outside the knee-jerk caveman-survival impules just feels like a bit of a stretch to me. I know, this makes me sound quite militant, but at least I realize that I have a problem and I'm working on it. What is quite strange is that I've made friends with a couple of "hetero" (becuase can anyone ever be COMPLETELY one or the other?) teachers in my school, about my age, who are in relatively long term relationships with male individuals (2-3 years or so...long enough to be considering them permanent)and this is making me see the similarities between how they interact w/ their...others... and how I interact w/ M'Lady...and it's WEIRD! I mean, I've had plenty of straight friends...some of whom I have consider and continue to consider very close friends, and they've had boyfriends before...but, for the most part, not for such an extended period of time (at least, not while I knew them) and not duing a time when Lady M and I were viewing ourselves as a pair (Now that's an even longer, weirder story... huh CX?) so I've never really experienced this before. Ughhhhh...cognitive dissonece...! How do straight people relate? What is it, other than the anatomical puzzle, that draws straight people to one another? How do they relate (oh... I guess I asked that already... perhaps, then, that is at the heart of my quandary). I get being friends with them... male creatures make good playmates... so long as everyone remains clothed and emotionally detached. Hmmm... something to think about.

Piggy backing on that, I went to my first baby shower in a long, long time today and found myself SO amazingly out of place! The mother, a coworker/friend of mine (though who I don't really relate to as I was just saying, since she's married and a bit older than myself and... I dunno really) recently found out that the offspring was to be a girl, so everything was sickeningly pink, and I've decided that when Lady M and I have kids, even if we know the sex of the baby, we are SO not telling because I don't want to have a steady pink or blue wardrobe. If I heard, "Oh, look at how PRECIOUS that is!" one more time I think i would have vomited up some pink cheesecake. Why is it so, so important to people that we signify the sex of a baby? Don't think it's that important? Try an experiment. Borrow a baby (preferably from someone you know), dress it COMPLETELY androgynously, put it in an androgynous stroller, bring androgynoustoys and count how many people ask, "But is it a boy or a girl?" and then tell you that you should dress him/her like a boy/girl. It's amazing, truly amazing. If this isn't enough for you, repeat the same experiment with a 5 year old. That's even more fun (especially if the kid is willing to play along and not tell!)

I also found myself wondering, were the shoe on the other foot, would people be shelling out 20 bucks a pop to pay for a party for the the lesbian mom-to-be... or would people just kinda pretend they didn't notice, so that they wouldn't have to say anything? Or at least, not have to say much.