“Same old shit, different day.” – Red, The Shawshank Redemption

Lesbians like to quit the lesbian scene. I’m not talking about really quitting the scene, like getting married, packing up all of your belongings, grabbing your cats, your wifey and your kids and holing up in suburbia. That’s another post for another day.

At some point in a young lesbian’s stint in the lesbian scene, she steps back and realizes that the scene is completely absurd and is nothing more than a beer-soaked version of Waiting for Godot. With a newfound sense of purpose, she declares her desire to be emancipated from the scene.

Maybe she had too many nights where exes appeared out of nowhere and cornered her. Maybe she was tired of the in-fighting in her entourage. Maybe it was the Barnard student who decided she could fly but lost her battle with gravity and landed on our heroine’s shoulder, causing a bruise the size of an orange and a beer spill that would have been immortalized in the Guinness Book of World Records had anyone been sober enough to document it. Or maybe she was just tired of drinking the pathetic beer selection at the bar.

“Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of shit-smelling foulness I can’t even imagine…” – Red, The Shawshank Redemption

“That’s it. I’m SO over this!” she shouts.

To the ex: “Take a look at this face. Pull out your cell phone camera and take a picture of it, because this is the last time you will see it. EVAR!”

To the ever-squabbling Crispy and BabyDyke: “Y’all aren’t even dating. You can at least sleep with each other to justify all that drama!”

To the Barnard student sprawled on the ground: “Put down that book about ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ and open a goddamn physics book! You know what is compulsory? GRAVITY, bitch.”

To the bartender: “I’m going home to drink a six pack of something that doesn’t taste like goat piss. BUH BYE!”

Then she hooks her hands into her pockets and walks out in triumph.

Her friends are not convinced.

“Yeah, you’ll be back.”

For a couple of weeks, she goes underground. She ignores phone calls, text messages, and e-mails from her entourage until the din subsides. Then one day, silence. She has achieved invisibility and is therefore free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, she is free at last.

“Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” – Michael Corleone, Godfather III

But then one day, she receives an offer she can’t refuse. No, not a request for a “favor” by the mythical Lesbian Mafia, which would result in death (or even worse, ostracism and being subjected to Mean Girls-esque head games) should she fail to comply. Rather, said offer is tainted by the even more insidious mix of societal pressure and guilt. A friend e-mails her, telling her that a newly-out lesbian needs someone to talk to and someone to accompany her to a lesbian bar. Can she really let this naif navigate the jungle alone? Or perhaps her best friend is throwing a birthday party at the old hangout. Can she really be so selfish not to make an appearance? *

“I wish I knew how to quit you.” – Jack Twist, Brokeback Mountain

So she returns. No one is surprised. And life goes on.

And on.

* Or, the biggest lesbian site in the world offered her the job of covering the biggest lesbian scene in the world. Could she really turn down all those free drinks?