in the dark you can't see my cans
This story certainly won't score me in any points in the "unquestionably feminine" category but here goes.

1987, the summer I turned 18, I was sitting on a golf course drinking and smoking weed with a bunch of other kids, some of whom went to other high schools and I didn't know very well. The fact that it was so dark and visibility was so limited was actually comforting to me, it endowed everyone with a sort of "invisibility".

Earlier in the day, I had gotten a root perm, a technique that allowed my New Jersey girl hair to reach unprecedented voluminous heights. A girl started talking to me, we made suburban teenager small talk. This consisted of, in New Jersey in the summer of 1987 of the benefits of hair product, the awesomeness of Bon Jovi and of course how drunk we were both getting.
And then.....she asked me if I wanted to take a walk. How odd. Girls don't take walks with other girls....Oh. Oooooooooh. Oh I see. Now, today as a woman of the world, I would relish this sapphic invitation. Back then though, I assumed she thought I was a dude. A dude who agreed with her that Jon Bon Jovi was "oh my god, so fucking hot". It's also possible she mistook me for a heavy metal lesbian. I'll never know.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time I was mistaken for a boy or man, and not the last, but thankfully, it was the ONLY time it happened in the dark.
(persnickety I Am The Seaward, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:55, Reply)