You are having a lovely microbrew with one of your straight friends when she begins to tell you about her relationship troubles. She tells you that her boyfriend/husband doesn’t do anything around the house. He doesn’t cook. He doesn’t clean. She asks if it would kill him to wash a dish now and then and, though you know it’s rhetorical, you answer “no” anyway because she’s staring at you.

You look down at your beer and shake your head in disbelief which she sees as a cue to pour out the specifics. He shaves and leaves little hairs all over the sink for her to clean up. He leaves his stinky gym clothes on the bedroom floor and simply steps over them to get into bed. He has a penchant for late night bowls of cereal but never takes the bowls to the kitchen when he is done. The milk dries in the bottom of the bowl, for god’s sake! It dries and it’s hard to get out and who has to get it out? I’ll save you from another rhetorical question – she does. She has to scrub out the milk.

Just when you think the list of his transgressions is going to go on forever, she delivers the show stopping line, “I wish that I was a lesbian because this would never happen.” The “this” varies from time to time and can be any number of generic relationship issues. Whatever the issue, she delivers the line, sighs deeply and looks at you with awe because you are the ambassador to the Lesbian Utopia of Relationships.

You see, in the Lesbian Utopia of Relationships, the birds sing sweeter songs and the sky is always filled with rainbows. No matter what the problem, lesbians don’t have to deal with it because they are both women. This means that lesbians share domestic chores equally without fail. No one ever gets stuck doing the dishes night after night and there is likely a schedule for toilet cleaning so that no one has to suffer through that ordeal more than is fair. Also, you might not know this but all lesbians are neat and tidy. They never leave their gym clothes on the floor and probably strip right into the laundry chute to avoid any offensive clothing piles. They abhor dried milk in the bottoms of bowls. They probably don’t even eat cereal because they are that worried about the possibility of leaving dried milk in the bottom of a bowl.

All lesbians are courteous and thoughtful too. They spend most of their mental energy thinking of new ways to show consideration to their partners. They offer to let their partners pass through doors first but, because they each do this, they stand there in front of the door smiling at each other and eventually chuckle as they hold hands and walk through together. They offer to do extra work around the house but are never allowed to because of all of The Equality.

If lesbians have children, all child care duties are split equally between the two parents. They alternate diaper duty on a strict schedule so that no one parent has to deal with the odiferous assault more than the other. Each partner is always offering to take care of the children by herself so that the other one can have time to herself. Since all women love talking, lesbians never have any awkward silences that can be misinterpreted or blown out of proportion. No, they talk easily all the time and any disagreements are solved in a calm and loving manner. Besides, all lesbians love talking about their feelings so communication a breeze. It is peace and love 24/7 in the Lesbian Utopia of Relationships.

Now, we know this is not true. We know that we have all of the same issues in our relationships as straight women do in theirs (penis specific issues excepted). So, what do we do? Do we allow our straight friends to hold onto these stereotypes because it’s nice to be seen as a more highly evolved being or do we tell them the truth? After all, ten percent is not enough. Recruit, recruit, recruit!