Lesbian Dating 101

Writing this because someone should tell you to watch out.

I think starting off with a confession of mine will help you build trust. Here goes nothing. I have never had a girlfriend. I wish I could say that I was shocked, but I’m actually not that shocked and I don’t feel embarrassed. I don’t feel rushed and a lot of the people who would have been contender were demons enjoying an interlude from hell. That said, I am still qualified to give you dating advice because sometimes it isn’t all about the girlfriendship. The most important part of lesbian dating is not dating.

If you’re a lesbian you know that I’m right. From what I have seen, a lot of Gen Z lesbians find themselves in the in between, if not favor it, in many aspects of life. I mean, I know a lot of androgynous lesbians. Many of us have a goldilocks complex and want something that is just right and for me that lies in the in between. We’ve all heard about the nine month lesbian situationship that ruins your life or had that nine month situationship…

Situationships aren’t good. If they were, we wouldn’t have created a new word for it. We would just say “dating” or something. But sometimes, it truly is a situation and as a result situationship. My newest take is that you don’t always have to confess your feelings and sometimes you shouldn’t. Deny your feelings and preserve the friendship. Situtationships thrive on the “will they? won’t they?” and “do they? don’t they?” of an in-between spaces.

I, Saturn Abigail, have been impatient before. I have jumped the gun before, but I want to learn to favor the in-between. In romance, I usually find myself in a cycle of wanting wanting wanting. I’m a lesbian. It’s my right. However, when you want more than what is there you can’t cherish what is. You might me saying “Saturn, if I could cherish what was there, why would I be wanting?” That is exactly my point. When you slow down and try to cherish what is there you can realize that you don’t even want that bitch. (Can I say bitch?)

Theoretically (I haven’t tried this), when you’re in a situationship, you could ask yourself? Do I even want to be here? There’s not that many lesbians and if you have a type there is even less, but we are conditioned to think that love is scarce and it only comes once and we only have one soulmate. When we believe things like that, or even worse that we deserve tough love or anything less than what you want, it makes it so incredibly easy to hold on to a bad lover.

My big wish is that people stop being with people who treat them bad because we aren’t being mindful. We deserve so much better. So here’s tip number one: try making a list. If you’re seeing someone new or thinking about it, make a list of the characteristics you want a partner to have and start comparing. If I know anything about lesbians its that we are so judgmental, so put that judgment to use and see if you are wasting your own time.

The bounds of your imagination are limitless so go with that limitlessness. You can even imagine how you want to feel and come back to that. When someone, a situtationship, makes you cry for the first time, you could be mindful enough to think to yourself, “Oh, I don’t even want to be with someone who makes me cry.” or “This person, making me cry, is crazy.” That one thought can save you from months of pain. And if you don’t know what you want, at least figure out what you don’t want.

Trigger warning: abusive relationships

People have an idea that its easy to date women and there’s no drama but it does not matter what gender someone is, they can still abuse you and it is so incredibly important for people to know that. Abuse is all about power, so it’s important to understand what dynamics are explicitly or implicitly at play.

Right now, you should Google signs of an abusive relationship. Seriously, you should. I’m going to talk about my own experience but it was very textbook abuse, so learn something from this!

Putting Your Partner Down Is Not a Joke

I do not take this lightly, at all. I believe this is called negging. Its a way for someone to slowly chip away at your confidence and take away your power. Soon, you begin to question, if they’re right and you begin to take their word for it. You think that they have a better grip on reality than you do. Maybe they tell you that they are more grounded than you are. If you’re going to be in an equal partnership, you need to be able to trust yourself and trust your perspective.

It’s so common for relationships to be all consuming and many of us were always raised to agree with the people you respect as a sign of respect. For me, disagreeing is a sign of a respect. When I disagree with someone, it’s because I trust them and myself. They know how to think and so do I.

In The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz, he talks about how loving someone is not wanting to change someone. I internalized this in a way that reminds me not to enter relationships already disliking something or wanting to change something about a potential partner. When someone is part of my life, I want to honor their experience and for me that looks like not pressuring someone to change.

I just believe that the people in our lives should be treating us with love and respect and that is not compatible with abuse.

Gaslighting—Hello, Come On!

I hate gaslighting, so so much, especially as a person with borderline personality disorder. During my abusive relationship—it still feels odd to call it abuse and a relationship, but you know lesbians—I was in the process of getting diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and trying out new medications. I’m also Black in America. EVERYONE IS TRYING TO GASLIGHT ME. I do mean everyone.

The people won’t tell you this, but I will. Racism can happen in your romantic relationships and it is not okay. Getting “angry-black-womaned” in your own relationship is ridiculous. In matters of race, it normalized to downplay it because no one is ever being sincere or doing anything on purpose. To that I say, if we aren’t sincere and on-purpose, then we are nothing. I never want to encounter a person who is insincere and who doesn’t think that it is a big issue.

My hot take is that you should be able to experience the full range of human emotions. Sure, you don’t always have to bring another person into it, but I do not want to live in a box where I only get two emotions. The National Domestic Violence Hotline calls it “trivializing.” In my abusive relationship, what I heard the most was “You’re making a big deal of everything.” Something’s are a big deal. Also, to speak to the lesbian in-between, because someone does not need to be your girlfriend to abuse you. Ask yourself, would your good friend, your best friend, say something like that to you? How would you react?

A lot of people, myself included, are accustomed to accepting worse from romantic partners than friends because we are trained to prioritize romantic relationships because they are allegedly scarce and are supposed to serve us better and a relationship is obviously our one true callings as human beings. But if a romantic relationship is going to be my one true calling which it won’t, I would want to to be with someone who takes my feelings seriously.

So instead of advising you to love yourself because I think you already do, I’m advising you to take yourself seriously and in turn other people will too. It is okay to want something and it’s okay to admit it.

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