Background: If you have come across my previous post you already know that I have recently been to my hometown and I met some of my old friends. One of them was Suse. I might have mentioned her here and there. I know Suse from high school. In fact from 12th standard I regarded her as my best friend from school. Neither did she reciprocate it, nor did she show negligence. It was not like I used to discuss everything of my life with her but she did know some of the great deals. In college days, we didn’t have much contact but whenever I came home from hostel we had our time. Distance, time, lack of communication seemed to have almost no effect on us. No matter after how long we meet, we are still same to each other.
This time too, we met after 1 year or so. It was raining heavily outside but I didn’t have much time to reschedule our plan. As it was time to go home, Suse told me she would accompany me from the cafe where we were sitting to the bus stop. I had to get on a bus for home and her home was in walkable distance from the cafe. As we were walking down the road, a guy was lingering behind us continuously asking us if we needed lift. Suse turned back and told him, “No thanks!” I commented in low voice “Can’t he see how romantic the walk is for us?” She replied, “I don’t care what people think of me… ”
That was definitely not what I expected her response to be. We girls do many things with ourselves that would confuse others about our sexual orientation. As a girl, I never felt sexually attracted to any girl. Nonetheless I enjoy scrolling through girls’ instagram posts. In girls’ night outs and baby sitting our drunk bestie, in discussion about boobies and vay-jay-jay we girls own a different level of connection- it’s nothing related to being lesbian. That’s why when Suse’s hand approached to find mine while we were walking I felt pretty normal. She held my hand till it was time to part away.
“I have a habit of holding hand like this. 😅”
“Cool! 😃” , I said.
Then Suse told me one of her experiences in this context. We had a common friend, Manali. I didn’t have much interaction with that girl, still she was a Facebook friend of mine. I have seen many of her posts. For their common interest in books, Suse and Manali once planned to meet in a book fair. On that day, out of her habit Suse held Manali’s hand. “What the heck! People will think us lesbians!” – Manali responded and took her hand back.
Suse didn’t say anything on that day. Later a time came when Facebook was flooded with rainbow filters for showing support to LGBTQ community. Manali too showed great enthusiasm to change her dp as everybody did, wrote big fat posts on why people should support homosexuality. Suse was asking me the question she didn’t ask Manali.
” What if people really think we are lesbian?”, she asked.
” Why would it matter? Homosexuals are as normal as us. It doesn’t mean an insult to me.”
” But the way Manali reacted that day made me think that she didn’t support it at all, which is quite opposite to what she pretends to be in social media.
I later asked Manali once if she still thought it would be shameful to be lesbian referring to that incident. She told that she had changed a lot. But I don’t think she has changed at all. In such short time.
Such double standards you see? There are so many pseudo-intellectual people who would write great words over internet to enlighten the world while in reality they themselves are miles away from their statements, engulfed in the deep darkness of ignorance”, Suse finished in a serious tone.
Our discussion just ended here as we reached bus stop by then but my mind kept on thinking about it while seeing the distant trees running backwards from the bus.
That’s all for the day. Stay well guys! Much love xo
