Women should not be exposed to advertising before March
(Understand, when I say "women", I am an exception. Obviously.)

I suppose it's good that Maureen is over Carter to the point where seeing Valentine's Day-related stuff on TV and in magazines gets her upset about being single in general, as opposed to something Carter/Sam-specific. I mean, sure, I'm not supposed to mention his/her name around her, but that's relatively normal and reasonable, given the abnormal and unreasonable situation. But, hey, she's at least trying to move on, and I figure that's a good thing. Just don't set some weird February 14th deadline to have a girlfriend, because you'll just make yourself crazy until then and feel like a failure afterward. Just put yourself out there.

Oh, she intends to. But maybe I could help...

"Basically," she says, "I'd like it if you could teach me how to hook up with girls. I mean, you must be good at it - whenever you talk when you were Martin, you mention that you were sort of a nerd with a tendency toward being overweight, but, like, I don't think Maggie exactly had low standards and I've counted at least four or five other ex-girlfriends. You might not have been a player or anything, but you did all right."

I try to point out that she's got to have a better idea of what a woman wants than I do, that I tend to exaggerate when I've been drinking, and, besides, we're talking about women who were looking for men. And she says that's the problem, that she knows how to be one of them, even though it doesn't do much for her, but she doesn't have any idea how to go about being a lesbian. I replay that I don't necessarily think that it's something you learn, just something that is, you know? Just do what comes naturally.

She asks me what comes naturally for me, and I say that's different, because there's different biology and hormones and physical measurements and stuff, but I take her point that, yeah, I did pretty much have to learn how to be a girl even if my body was making it very difficult to do otherwise. But, I tried to observe regular girls and what I remembered from just normal interaction - it's not like I asked drag queens for pointers.

Yeah, she says, but I don't know any gay people. Well, okay, there's a guy at work, but he's a guy, so what's he going to know about her situation. I'm apparently the best she's got. Or, at least, she doesn't know anybody else so she'd know they're gay. She asked if she shouldn't have some sort of instinct to tell if another girl's a lesbian, too. Good Christian kids just don't learn this stuff, she says.

And, I'll grant, a lot of what she says makes sense. I still want to steer well clear of the mess this will inevitably become, though.

-Martina
- posted 4:46 PM - - (archive use only)