All posts tagged: LGBTQ

100. Hostile environment

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A year ago I fell out with a friend. She was a good friend. An old friend. Someone I’d known since I was a gawky 11 year-old with a mono brow and scuffed shoes. We met for lunch and she told me some wonderful news – she was pregnant. Then she said something odd. “I’m really worried, what if she’s not normal?” “What do you mean?” I said, bemused. “What if she’s…like, a goth?” I spluttered into my water. “I think you’ll live!” “But what if she’s not a good girl?” And then the penny dropped. Because the truth spiking her words that she didn’t have the courage to say was, what if she’s gay? For her budding blue blood family, some people being gay was okay – just not her daughter. I calmly finished my drink and walked out of her life, leaving 20 years of friendship with the tip on the table. Looking back, I wish I’d tried to talk to her. Not just for the sake of our friendship – but for …

99. The lady vanishes

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I have to break up with the Thai. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. She’s everything I remembered and more. She’s still generous and loyal to the people she loves. She still makes me laugh even when I’m not in the mood. She still finds solace in music, trip-hopping across London is search of the most sublime beats. She still asks for coffee in the mornings and pisses me off by not drinking it. She still gets horny in the evenings. And in the mornings. And sometimes in the middle of the night. She still has the most beautiful lips I’ve ever kissed. She’s still got skin so soft it’s like sleeping in clouds of silk. My gossamer girl.

98. Mum’s the word

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Recently, my life has filled with babies. Everyone I know seems to be popping one out or thinking about popping one out or worrying about whether they can pop one out or not. My friendship group gets 1 then 2 then 6 in a flurry of bonking. Dinner becomes drinks. Drinks becomes brunch. Brunch becomes can you just hold him for a sec whilst I run to the loo and the next thing you know he’s smeared egg in your hair and shoved your phone down his trousers. For a long time I felt strangely numb to the prospect of motherhood. I wasn’t at all sure if I wanted one of these loud, demanding micro humans. They seemed like muggers except instead of nicking your wallet or your phone they wanted your life. Stick ‘em up punk – gimme everything you’ve got for the next 50 years. Children are so time-consuming. When they’re young they need you constantly. Life is one long parade of burping and changing and jiggling and cooing and pooing, like Groundhog …

97. The language of love

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I have a friend who’s been seeing someone for a long time. They’re a fantastic match: epicurean, cultured and refined, but not at all pretentious. If they were a night out they’d be an evening at the opera followed by a deep fried Mars bar. They work hard, travel and enjoy a luxurious, instagrammable lifestyle. Life’s a beach – or, in their case, a museum, a spa or a secluded treehouse in the heart of the Lake District. And yet, a couple of months ago he told her he loved her and she didn’t reciprocate. “I just don’t know,” she said, “sometimes I’m so happy but then…I have doubts. How do you know?” When I asked her about it recently she replied, “we don’t talk about it,” which I took as my cue to stick a Mars bar in it. Our conversation made me reflect on how you know you really love someone. How do you sort the wheat from the chaff, the yays from the nays, the ‘One’ from the still wondering? The Oxford …

95. Very important Posse

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I’ve invited the Thai for lunch with my friends. I don’t often introduce the people I’m seeing to my friends. It’s not that I’m sniffy or pompous about these things. It’s that I rarely date anyone where I can see a possible future and so don’t want to insinuate a closeness I don’t feel. When I eventually introduced Blue Eyes to my friends it felt like more obligatory than celebratory – the grudging culmination of 6 months of rocky dating. I’m also protective of my friendship group. I’ve worked hard to cultivate it, collecting my friends over the years like beloved bric-a-brac. Some I found myself, others I borrowed and others I stole, stuffing them in my pocket and legging it before anyone noticed. Ha! They’re mine now, suckers!

91. The truth is out there

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There are few things more nebulous or slippery in this world than the truth. Two people might experience the exact same thing, yet somehow one can see a pond and the other an ocean. Whether the truth is a pond or an ocean doesn’t matter. When there’s no one to vouch for you, every truth is just a story you hope others will believe. Sometimes we misuse truth. We abuse it. We rip it to sheds and sew it up differently, then hide the needle and thread so no one knows what we’ve done: Look what you did we cry, pointing at this new thing whilst the other person stumbles and stalls and tries to remember.

90. Baser instinct

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Waking up with the older woman, there’s a sourness in the air. I feel vaguely disgruntled that I’ve come all this way and paid all this money and given myself to someone for nothing. If I had a bed post, I’d carve her notch lightly – just a shadow in the wood, a whisper, something you could easily forget. All morning she irritates me. She makes bad coffee and sniffs constantly and it takes her so long to do her hair and make-up that we end up having breakfast at 12.30. Being hungry is a running theme for the weekend; the night before we had dinner after 10. That fact alone would be enough for me to never see her again. If I’m not going to come, I’d at least like a delicious breakfast.