The Days of Fried Chicken and Deviled Eggs. I use this term to describe that beginning courtship phase when people do sweet things to woo you. It is in reference to an actual girl who wooed me by making me amazing meals involving both of those things. Several weeks later, she stopped the wooing without explanation. I kept hanging on, waiting for The Days of Fried Chicken and Deviled Eggs to resume. What I didn’t realize was that she was showing me another aspect of her personality, though I was having a hard time adjusting to this new version of her when I liked the TDOFC&DE version so much more than the one that was ignoring me.

It is my belief that the Days of Fried Chicken and Deviled Eggs should never cease–a relationship needs to involve a certain amount of continuous courtship. Courtship does not require a great deal of energy, just a little thoughtfulness. (Check out the FemmeCast episode on courtship for some great ideas and guidance.)

“It is really difficult to do, but I need to move on. Now that The Days of Fried Chicken and Deviled Eggs have ended I am not being treated very well, and I deserve to be cherished. My feelings for her are strong, but my feelings for me are stronger.”

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As much as I laud the benefits of intimacies long distance–I love to travel, laycations are decadent adventures and can be cheap, not as much chance of ex/friend overlap makes it cleaner–the truth is I really haven’t given dating in New York the same kind of dedication and ardor I do my other pursuits. I am always so skittish about friend overlap and just busy with my three careers and friends that finding time to go on blind dates with people seems daunting.

In the interest of truly dedicating myself to the pursuit of a casual local sweetheart or two to give me an occasional distraction without requiring a plane trip and a dog sitter,* I have decided to create a blog series out of going on cruising escapades. I am also really interested in broadening my horizons–I think that is the best way to see what the New York queer scene has to offer. Plus, constantly stepping outside of your comfort zone is one of The Success Principles and I have recently begun following the advice of the tall tan man.**

My first step out into Bevin’s Untapped Cruising Territory was the Go Magazine Nightlife Awards.

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The format we took was to have a pot luck brunch, a no latecomers policy, and opened it to Self-identified Femmes and Femme Questioning folks. I highly recommend doing this in your town! We got some new people who hadn’t been to a Femme Family event before and it was really a heartwarming and great way to meet people and learn about ourselves and our identities.

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I also have news for you–Femme does not automatically equal high maintenance.** Most of the powerhouse Femmes I know are, in fact, pretty self-sustaining. The most high maintenance thing about going out with us is scheduling dates!

Dating situations have been broken off with me and many friends before because the person “Just doesn’t date Femmes”. Often this is accompanied by an explanation that Femme is high maintenance and they don’t have those kinds of resources to date a Femme.

Historically I’ve always accepted that, too. You can’t do anything about someone’s preference for or against Femmes. And I am certainly not going to argue myself into someone’s bed–I don’t chase once I get “No”. I gave that up many years ago. The “Yes, no, yes, no” game is something straight girls are taught to play and I don’t do that.

But frankly, “I don’t date Femmes” is a flimsy excuse and used far too often as something to hide behind when the true reason is something different.

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Take it from someone whose routine trip to the GYN turned into a kerfuffle of mis[fat]diagnosis–when a doctor is supposed to be treating you for something and launches into the fat talk you can politely tell them “I am not here to discuss my weight with you. I am here to discuss my bits, my HIV status and whether I am at risk for cancers.” I like to have a mantra to prepare ahead of time.

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Thanksgiving is a really hard time of year for me. It is one of those holidays that puts into sharp relief how very single I am. I am happy with my life, I am making my life into the kind of life I want to be living and am extremely grateful that I’m not in an unhappy, unsatisfying and sad lesbian foot warming* kind of relationship.

However, when you were in a relationship (or 2 back to back relationships, in my case) where you were creating a family… Thanksgiving is just one of those family holidays where you feel extra weird when your day to day family doesn’t involve other people.

Just like Bad Fat Days, which happen to all fat activists and body loving fat people, being Single in Sharp Relief can be jarring even for the most ardently happy single person. But we already have all the coping mechanisms we need to get through it, just like Bad Fat Days.

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In celebration of my singlehood, I’ve decided to share with you, gentle readers, some of my deepest Secret Single Behaviors. There was an episode of Sex and the City that talks about Secret Single Behaviors–those things that you do when you’re alone, because you’re single and you can get away with it.

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Laycation: A Laycation is a vacation or staycation (where you don’t leave your town or home) with a lover where the intent or the result is that you do it the whole time. A vacation to get laid. Or a “we’re so broke we can’t do anything and we’re long distance so we’re just going to lay around and do it when she comes to town” sort of adventure. I love the idea of a Laycation, especially considering how in the queer community often our lovers need to be imported from other places to keep things fresh and ethical.

“Sorry to miss your party, my long distance romance Shawna is only in town for three days–we’re going to be on laycation the whole time.”

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Half the reasons I’ve missed out on getting ass in my lifetime is by not articulating my desire. Insecurity, fear of rejection, fear of being made fun of… the list is endless. It’s hard to put yourself out there in a racist, homophobic, misogynist, binary gendered, anti-erotic, fatphobic, ableist, etc… society when you’re at one or many of those intersections of marginalized identities. Plainly stated, I’ve been a fat girl my whole life, shit from middle school runs deep and it’s hard to bounce back from significant early rejection.

Out of that insecurity can come a bevy of reasons to psych yourself out of propositioning someone.

After that moment I incorporated “Nobody ever died of awkward” into my regular on stage repetoire.

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‘ve had a hard time articulating a way in which I can turn my latest rage into productivity. In the absence of some flowery prose, I will tell you what is giving me the rage lately:

People who don’t know how to break things off with someone properly and/or who cannot gracefully turn down a date.

First, I will give you a list of real life examples from my life and my friends lives in the last couple of months to illustrate why my rage is at a boil.

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