From: IO81409@MAINE.MAINE.EDU (Ailsa N.T. Murphy)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Life does funny things sometimes
Date: 29 Jul 92 02:25:06 GMT
 <1992Jul22.150841.3472@HQ.Ileaf.COM>
 <1992Jul24.221824.28920@midway.uchicago.edu>
 <1992Jul25.102736.21446@news.acns.nwu.edu> <40104@skye.dcs.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Maine System


hallo all.  i just wanted to comment that i am not not commenting
on this thread whihc i started. nto because i haven't been reading
it, but because i am sitting back and listening.  this whole
mess is too close to the center at this point for me to be able
to discourse on it much, although i am getting some thinking
donw (which is why, after askign for people to email me, i
didn't actually SEND much email...  sorry...  B(  some very
nice wimmin, some whom i have a lot in common with even, sent
mail, too; and i really DO plan to write to you all).

i'm still angry, i'm still scared.  part of the problem is that i am
very VERY out.  if i identify as bi, i'm afraid i'll look silly.
part of teh problem is that i'm afriad no one on soc.motss will
respect me anymore.  and the major part of the problem is that i
haev no friends ANYWAY.  nobody ever mentions that one of the
risks of being very VERY out is that people are afraid to be seen
with you, or just consider you over-the-top.  ("do you haev to
mention it in EVERY conversation?"  "but she just ASKED why i changed
name!  i changed it because i came out as a lesbian, dammit!")
bi people do not have a great reputation in the campus gay commnuity,
mainly because there are only two people who ideantify as bi in it,
and they are both very obnoxious.  and i hate both of them.

the point is NOT man-phobia, as i haev gotten some email suggesting.
men aren't the point in this discussion at all.  the point in the
matter, for me, is what are LESBIANS going to think.  the only
communities i care about are the lesbian and gay ones.  i can do
without a pagan community; paganism is perfectly easy to pursue by
myself.  a sexual orientation is a bit harder to do that with.  and
i feel more comfortable in gay space...

well, maybe some male-phobia.  part of my problem with bispace is
the idea of men who are attracted to wimmin.  and the fact that
all the gayspace i haev ever been in was VERY touchy-feely.  that's
fine.  i can deal with hugs from gay guys, although not the heavy
flirtation that some of the young queens i know are into.  but i
don't want to be touched by a man who is interested in wimmin unless
i know him well enough and feel safe enough with him to be manacled
naked in a vulnerable position near him.  only men i can think of
who fit that are my brother, my exhusband, and my housemate.  it's
like i think i am irresistable, the opposite in fact, but it's
not a rational reaction...

i have never been really emotionally close to a woman in my life,
outside f army basic training and my friend lori.  but that doesn't
mean i don't care.  i do.  i care desperately.  the lack of wimmin
in my life burns.  i don't want to be any more of a wierdo than i
already am!  i have too much trouble trying not to be blunt, trying
not to be overbearing, trying not to sound more educated than
everyone else in the room, trying to figure out what the hell i
am doing wrong...  do i stop wearing my pentacle?  do i lose
weight?  shoudl i learn to play softball?  being myself doesn't
seem to work, and i am lonely...  could be i subconsciously created
the attraction to that guy because i know i am accepted among computer
nerds and gamers...  maybe i just need to meet some lesbian nerds...
but there aren't any in the bangor community...

imprtant details to go along with this state of mind here.  my friend
lori graduated in may, and has moved down to portland because she
managed to find a job there.  i had a gaming group that consisted
of my housemate, my exhusband, and his girlfriend.  we also went
out to dinner and otherwise socialized with them.  lori and these
guys were my entire social circle (and the gay AA group i go to,
but do not feel part of yet).  my divorce became final on the
20th.  and friday while i was down in portland visiting my brother,
i called my housemate to see what was up and say i had gotten in OK,
and he told me that heidi had announced that she hated me and
never wanted to deal with me ever again, and that she hadn't been
able to stand me for a long long time, and that as far as she
was concerned, i have no redeeming qualities.  forced to choose
between me & her, guess who my exhusband chose?  so of all the
peopel i felt close to at the beginnign of teh summer, my housemate
is the only one left...

i can't not be butch, i can't not be a nerd (for want of a better
word, at least some of you out there know what i mean by it, i
hope).  that makes me fairly odd already.  i'm not goign to change
my religion to fit in, and pagans are pretty odd around here too.
being bisexual TOO?  goddess, what next?????

                                       -ailsa

p.s. PLEASE send any mail to ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com   i can
read soc.bi only through this account, but i HATE the mailer on
it, and i'm trying to clean out my disk...
p.p.s.  sorry if this is maudlin, whining, overly melodramatic,
whatever.  no flames, please.  i already feel like shit, and they
won't change the fact that i already posted the post.
--
It's not what you got, it's what you give           _______________
It ain't the life you want, it's the life you live. \    DYKE    /
It's not what you got, it's what you give             \ PRIDE! /
And it ain't what it's not, but what it is.             \    /
(IO81409@maine.maine.edu or wang.com!ailanth!ailsa)       \/
                                                          ^
                                                          |
                                                     (anyway)