The Cinderella test

She ticks all of the boxes for being the girl of my dreams but she still has to pass the Cinderella test.

As a girl who likes shoes, it has always been my dream to find a girlfriend who shares my size so I would double the number of available pairs for me to wear in my wardrobe. Also, wearing someone’s shoes is an intimate experience, not only at a hygiene level (as your foot is sweating directly into the same space that another foot has sweated before), but it also has such powerful symbolic implications that for me, it might be the ultimate expression of true love. My dream girl would not only have to share my hobbies, interests and, have a similar vision of the world, but she would also need to share my shoe size. For her to be my Cinderella she needs to fit into my shoes and I need to fit into hers.

But how could I find out her shoe size without making myself look like a crazy person?

Given the fact that she is only an acquaintance and completely unaware of my emerging feelings towards her, asking her directly about her shoe size might be a bit awkward. Perhaps I should stop fantasizing about strangers in the first place, but I feel that I need some romance in my life, even if it is only in my mind and probably not even reciprocated. I want to have someone that occupies my thoughts this winter and she seems to be the perfect candidate… but I need to find out her shoe size first before I appoint her as the supreme princess of my own fantasy world.

Street Art found in Brighton. Picture taken in December 2016

“Nice shoes…” I said to her when we crossed paths.
  
"Want a fuck?” my inner voice echoed remembering a silly joke from a "pretending to be funny" and "useful as a conversation started" t-shirt that a guy was wearing the other day at a bar.

“Thanks, I got them on sale from a place in town last week” She replied smiling.

“Cool… what is your size?... I mean… not that I want to wear your shoes or anything… I mean… do you think that they might have them in my size?... I mean… I will probably not buy the same shoes as you… that will be weird, right?… Do they have them in a different colour?” My morning spray deodorant was not enough for the amount of sweat that my body was producing… I wish that the earth would crack and swallow me right now, but unfortunately, I had to face her puzzled gaze.

“I’m not sure… you could definitely go to the shop and look around” She said and discretely stepped away from me.

“I got to go… I’m late for this thing” She added.

“Sure, nice to see you” I replied with my head up high but my soul wringing inside.

…and there it goes my attempt number 1 of finding out her show size! I don’t think that it could get any weirder than that now… 

I put back on my giant headphones and kept on walking… There was only one song that could cheer me up after my completely socially awkward moment. So, I scrolled down my playlists in desperate need to find some musical comfort. As I heard the first notes of the piano melody I immediately started to feel better. Only my favourite Disney princess Elsa singing “Let it go” could relieve my emotional pain.

Lonely shoe found at Brighton Beach (2014).

Maybe I should seriously start thinking about growing up… I thought to myself while I started to plan my attempt number 2 of finding out her shoe size.

To be continued…

Let’s go to a lesbian bar on Friday…!!!

“We need to find you a girl! Let’s go to a lesbian bar on Friday!” My straight housemate said with some nuance of compassion after telling me about her magical mini-holiday with her perfect boyfriend.

Her words made me smile. Her active approach to quickly solving my lesbian spinsterhood in a one-night plan was definitely well-intended, but perhaps slightly simplistic. It was coming from her naïve “straight” vision of the world. A place where a girl can just walk into a bar on a Friday night with the right attitude and skirt length and find a competent romantic companion. However, the ‘hunting ritual’ among ‘women who like women’ seems to work in a slightly different way than in the rest of the male-dominated universe… or at least that is what a decade of experience as a lesbian woman has taught me.

“It doesn’t work that way… I can’t just walk into a bar and find a girl…” I replied to her mildly ambitious but very desirable Friday night plan.

“Why not?” She innocently asked.

 “Because…. ” As I started to reply, I realized that I didn’t know the answer to that question…. Why meeting someone as a lesbian woman seems to be such an impossible mission…? 

I interpreted her question as a challenge to my psychological barriers and not as if perhaps she considered the possibility that, after all of this time single, it had never occurred to me to go to a bar before.

“Because… there isn’t a lesbian bar in Brighton!” I finally said after some hesitation.

“What? There is not a Lesbian bar in Brighton? Are you kidding me!?! In Brighton!!! The gay capital of the UK!! There is not a lesbian bar?” She heatedly said with her cheery Canadian accent.

“I know, right?! There was one a few years ago, but it closed down”. I said while the memory of the only time that I went to the small lesbian bar in town with a date popped up into my mind. 

I remember the intimidating feeling of being in a poorly illuminated basement that had a pool table in the middle and a couple drinking booths on the side. There were also some small intimate rooms with beads curtains that were only a few watts away to be considered dark rooms. The bar was almost empty and the few other customers that night were mature butchy lesbians whose gaze immediately penetrated us from the minute we entered the bar as if they had never seen two young lesbian women before. I guess that the closing down of lesbian nightclubs around the world might confirm that women, as opposed to men, don’t go out with the ultimate and only intention of pulling.

“But where do lesbian women meet then?” My housemate asked me as if all lesbians living in Brighton would form part of the same society that regularly meets up as train enthusiasts do. 

“Well… there is a theater bar that generally gathers queer women…, perhaps we could go there.” I said feeling already the excitement of our “exploring the lesbian nightlife” Friday plan.

The week ended and we found ourselves in the unofficial female queer bar in town with few other friends as planned. This time, the Friday night gathering had diverted its way into the lesbian territory. The singles always drive the night and tonight was “my night”.

As we looked around the bar crowd, deducting the “taken”, the “perhaps too old” or “maybe too young” and, subtracting all gay men, the search count of possible mating partners for the evening produced 1 only possible match: the bartender!

Brighton Street Art. Picture taken in August 2016.

Unfortunately, we had already online-matched before and went on a date a couple of years ago…  Once again the lesbian pool in Brighton had confirmed its small size! 

“Should I give bartender-girl another try? After all… I’m kind of short of ankle shocks” I commented to my friends.

“Ankle shocks?” My Scottish-feminist friend asked baffled. 

“Yeah… She left a pair of ankle shocks in my room and… I washed them and I´ve been using them since” I replied a bit embarrassed.

“That’s legit!” She answered comforting my shame for wearing online-date’s left-over clothes.

“But I had to clean a nasty bathroom to get them…” I continued in my attempt to bring some suspense into the story that I was about to narrate. (Read the full date story post: “Brighton Beach + Seagulls + Alcohol”).

The night was coming to an end and not many interactions outside my group of friends were done. My team's mission of finding a girl on a Friday night failed this time.

“I might have miscalculated my skirt length tonight,” I said to my housemate on the way home.

“I’m sorry that we could not find you a girl tonight Boo!” My housemate replied resigned.

“It’s Ok… Who needs a girl when you have good friends to go out on a Friday night anyway…” I said and clumsily side-hugged her in an attempt to communicate my “drunken love for the world” as well as keep my balance.

“I guess that being a lesbian is tough…” She said expressing her recent understanding of the gap between her experience in dating as a straight woman and my experience of dating as a lesbian one.

“Well… if it wasn’t that difficult, I wouldn’t have anything to write about!” I said.

My beloved Brighton from the sky. Picture taken in August 2016

A final taste of heaven...

After meeting up with the girl of my dreams one Friday night but screwing up my chances with her not once, but twice in a row in a very comical and socially awkward way (read previous posts to catch up with the story: Chatting up in the queue of the toilets, Chatting up from the distance and, How to ruin a second chance with a girl: a narrated guide), I had little expectations about getting a third chance with dreadlocks girl. I was ready to accept that “what starts off with the wrong foot will most likely end in a stumble” so I decided to move on and carry on with my life.

Nevertheless, despite the many online dates and the few other flirtations around, I was not able to find any girl that matched dreadlocks girl. She was not only the type of person that I would want as a partner, a humble and caring social worker, but she was physically perfect in my eyes. Just a note to my readers, she was perhaps not objectively incredibly attractive, a few of my friends commented that they did not think that she was pretty, but beauty is subjective and to me, she was a goddess. She had the kind of face that I could stare at for an eternity and a strange halo that appeared around her figure every time I looked at her. In my quest to find love around the city, I could not seem to find anyone that replicated that effect on me.

Perhaps we just want to have what we can’t, and my platonic obsession with dreadlocks girl was only a reflection of my self-sabotaging mind. When it comes to love, being unhappy was my comfort zone. All of my past attempts at romantic relationships took place in the suffering area where rejection, non-reciprocation and disappointment were my best friends. My brain probably kept feeding into the idea that dreadlocks girl was perfect just because I could not have her and I was very aware of that paradox.

In any case, during the next two years of my life, I saw her a few times in clubs and bars around the scene. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to approach her and beg for a third chance as she always seemed to be in the company of the same girl (and judging by the way that they interacted I figured that they were a “long term-thing”). Nevertheless, we never stopped greeting each other every time we crossed paths and we even hold short conversations in the bathroom and club queues (for a change) a few times.

Girls 4 Pride. Street Art found in Brighton. Picture taken in August 2016.

But one night, just after I decided to move back to my beloved Brighton I got a third chance to make amends with her.

It was about 3 a.m. and I was leaving the club on my own after a very emotional farewell when I heard someone calling me from the smoking area:

“Hey Cassanova… !!!” Dreadlocks girl said trying to grab my attention as I was walking by with my head down trying to leave the club unnoticed.

“Hey! Where are you going???” She insisted. I was not in the mood for a chat with her that night after having such an emotional and wonderful night with my friends, but I finally turned around.

“I’m going home!” I said sharply and continued walking avoiding any type of eye contact with her so she would not notice my watery eyes.

“Are you OK?” She asked putting down her cigarette and stepping outside the smoking area following my steps.

“Yeah…. I’m just… I’m moving away next week for work and I’m not sure now that I’ve made the right decision  and…” I started to reply but stopped as soon as I noticed that my voice got emotional and I felt a tear running down my cheek.

“Hey, do you want to talk about it?” She said while passing her arm around me in a very comforting way. I was unsure of why she would even care in the first place, but her warm gesture and trustworthy gaze made me stay and ventilate all of my emotions right there outside the club.

I told her about my dilemma between pursuing my dream career (doing a PhD and becoming an academic) or staying in the city and working in an unbearable marketing job but being surrounded by my amazing friends and family. She was very understanding. Perhaps due to her professional training as a social worker and her undergraduate degree in psychology, she was able to offer me some interesting perspectives about my life-changing decision. She told me that she had to make that same choice once and that she went for achieving her dreams (in her case it was to help the world by becoming an awesome, very caring and, ultimately a very cool social worker). She said that my friends and family would always be there for me, but that my chances of doing what I wanted were likely to come only once.

“If you miss your train now, you might never get a second ticket…” She said while holding her hand on my shoulder.

“That’s very true… I missed my chances with you and I never got to another one” I replied.

WHAT? Did those words just come out of my mouth? 

I guess that as I was leaving for good the week after, I had nothing to lose and my brain just decided to start shooting out the truth.

“Yeah… you messed up a bit back then…” She replied smiling. It was still incomprehensible to me why she was taking her time in the first place to console me after all of my screws up. Her kindness made her even more desirable to me.

“Can I kiss you?” I suddenly said.

WHAT???? I am going nuts???? Did I just ask her permission for a kiss??? Well... at least I’m not a kiss attacker like the conservative-right-wing chick that ruined my second chance with her I guess…

Street Art piece found in Brighton. Picture taken in August 2016.

 An intense and long silence followed my words.

I interpreted her non-responsiveness and intense gaze as a positive sign so, I prepared myself to kiss her.

“I….” She started to reply as I was launching myself towards her lips.

I kissed her and she kissed me back. It was a perfect kiss, not too long, not too shot, and just about the right amount of tongue and emotional investment. I got to a taste of heaven for about a minute or so.

I looked at her deeply again and smiled.

“I… I got a girlfriend” She dubiously said and looked away.

“That’s all right… I’m moving away for good next week anyway… I assumed a while ago that we were not going to happen but I just wanted to kiss you before leaving…” I said very confidently. I was amazed at my brave behaviour and calm response. I guess that the few gin & tonics that I consumed that night might have helped.

She stared at me for a minute in silence not really knowing what to say next. I could see in her eyes that she might have felt something special after that kiss and that perhaps, she was now wondering about what we could have been, just as I did every time that I bumped into her over the past two years. 

At that moment, I saw a cab approaching in the distance and jumped towards the road.

“I… I’m going to take that cab… If I miss the chance to get a ride now, I might not get another one…” I said winking my eye and rushing to make a sign for the driver to stop.

I knew that finding an available taxi in that neighbourhood at that particular time was rare. So, I decided to put in place dreadlocks girl’s own recommendation about taking the opportunities when they were in front of me. I needed to look forward to the future now so I jumped into the cab with my head high and waved goodbye.

Dreadlocks girl did not turn out to be “my one”, but at least I got a taste of heaven and I will keep that moment in my memory forever.

The End.

PS: Despite the surrealism of the story, this is a true story and it happened as it has been narrated!

How to ruin a second chance with a girl: a narrated guide!

They say that there is never a second chance to give a first impression. But, after being granted a second shot by dreadlocks girl, I was feeling confident that I could change the misconstrued womanizer image she had of me after my unfortunate texting mistake (read past posts: Chatting up in the queue for the toilets & Chatting up from the distance). However, despite of the fact that we regained contact, I didn’t manage to arrange a face-to-face encounter with her to redeem my faux pass until…
 

One Friday night, I was going out for a drink with some friends, when I bumped into dreadlocks girl in the queue at a lesbian bar. She was standing in front of the bar in the smoking area with a few other people. When she saw that my friends and I joined the queue, she came straight to us.

“Hello Casanova…” She said to me.

“Hey!” I responded shortly hiding my excitement and expressing little emotion about her greetings. I was surprised by her sudden flattery as, after weeks of unsuccessful attempts from my side to grab her attention by text, I was ready to give up on my wooing.

“I haven’t seen you in a while, you look very cute tonight” She continued.

Why she is so suddenly so into me? I am dreaming? Have I changed my deodorant brand or something? She is probably very drunk…

“You know… I think that you should get me that drink tonight” She said touching her dreadlocks.

After a few seconds of paralyzing silence, and a couple of nudges from my friend that helped my brain to land back into the situation, I finally reacted:

 “Sure! I’ll be happy to get you a drink, are you coming in?” I said walking forward in the quickly advancing queue.

“Yeah! I’m going to finish this up and I and my friends will be inside in a sec” She said lifting up her cigarette and pointing at her small group of friends that were standing on the side.

“Cool… what can I get you?” I said showing my ID to the bouncer at the same time.

“A beer will be nice. Thanks!” She said smiling and playing again with one of her front dreadlocks.

“See you inside” I said from the door.

My friends rapidly scattered between the bathroom queue and the dancing floor as soon as we got in, so I decided to make my way to the bar and order two beers. After wandering around with the drinks in my hands through the packed dance floor, I got worried about being missed by dreadlocks girl, so I made my way back to the safe and well-illuminated bar where I could also have a better view of the door.

I can’t believe that she approached me tonight! She was so direct and confident! What would she want from me… (apart from a free drink)? I’m confused…

I waited at the bar for a while, pretending to move along with the music, but she was not showing up.

It isn’t the right song for her to come through the crowd anyway… I kept on thinking as if her appearance had to match the reunion epic moment from a romantic Hollywood movie.

Tune after tune I kept on slowly drinking my beer but she was still not coming in.

Being alone in a social crowd always makes me uncomfortable. As I was drinking slowly, the feeling of being a stood-up loser started to emerge.

Was this some kind of revenge? Did she want to teach me a lesson or something?

Graffiti of dripping hearts found in Brighton (signed by Maleska). Picture taken August 2016.

 As I was finishing my beer, holding dreadlocks girl’s beer untouched one in my other hand, a tall blond girl approached me.

“It looks as if you have been stood up” She said looking at my two drinks and my very likely miserable facial expression.

“Yeah, thanks… I noticed that” I responded. Her words were the confirmation of my deepest fears: dreadlocks girl was just playing with me! I’m just a joke! I’m the looser girl that has been stood up tonight!

“It’s a pity because you are very cute!” She continued.

Her chatting up strategy consisting of making me feel vulnerable and lifting me up after with some praising seemed strange to me, but at least it lead her to grab my attention.

“Pretty girls should not be allowed to walk alone in a bar like these… there are many vultures around that might take advantage of an innocent girl like you” the Blond girl said while slowly approaching her way to me like a scavenger.

Her old-school straight-men-like compliments, although secretly appreciated, were not sinking very well with my current stomach knot.

“Thanks, but I’m not in the mood” I curtly responded.

But the blonde girl kept insisting, so I surrendered and engaged in a friendly conversation for a few minutes with her. I accepted the fact that, after probably more than an hour of waiting, dreadlocks girl was not going to show up and so, an innocent self-esteem booster talk with a stranger couldn’t not harm.

After a few seconds, I could see that the blonde girl and I were not a match. She was studying at the police academy to become a detective and talked and moved as straight a man that had grown up in the XIX century. But somehow, I found her strangely amusing.

“I support the right-wing you know…” She said at some point in an attempt to express the fact that she was a hetero-normative traditional lesbian by displaying her political interests.

“I think that I should find my friends…” I said moving my arm in the direction of the dance floor. I had no interest in chatting about politics with some blonde right-wing chick after being stood up by my dreadlocks dream girl, so I initiated my escape plan.

At that moment, and out of the blue, the tall blond Tory (republican) launched herself towards me landing with her lips on my lips. I froze for a few seconds before I pushed her away. The drink that I was holding for dreadlocks girl got spilt all over her white shirt with the manoeuvre.

“What are you doing?” I said pushing her away. I was utterly disoriented as I was not expecting a kissing attack from the old fashion future police agent.

“I thought that we were getting along, I’m sorry, I…!” She replied while shaking the beer off herself.

“I…. I’m sorry about the beer…” I said while passing her some napkins that I grabbed from the bar.

“I probably should go now…” I said pushing my way through the crowd.

Plaster sculpture framed of different pussies displayed in Brighton. Picture taken in January 2013.

When I found my friends on the dance floor, I tapped one of them on the shoulder.

“I think that I’m going to go home… dreadlocks girl hasn’t shown up and I’m not feeling good and…” I started to feel very vulnerable. On one side, I was feeling played by dreadlocks girl and, on the other, I felt harassed by the conservative kissing attacker.

“What are you talking about? She was on her way to the bar but you were making out with that tall chick… so she turned around and left” My friend said.

“WHAT?  Are you serious? How can this happen?” I could not believe what my friend was describing.

The idea of my life following a Hollywood movie plot had come true in a very much unexpected way.

“What brand of deodorant you are wearing tonight? You seem to be on fire!” My friend commented.

I explained to my friend the no consented kiss at the bar and she rushed me to go outside to see if I could catch dreadlocks girl at the door. When I went outside she was gone. I tried to call her but she didn’t pick up. I send her a message explaining again another misunderstanding, but as expected, I got no answer….

However, I knew that sooner or later, we would bump into each other and I was ready to beg her for a third chance…

To be continued...