How do you meet people, your cohort of familiars? I know they say, get intentional about it, treat it like a job. Turn up for everything, eventually something will stick. I don’t do social media and I do feel like I have shot myself in the foot with that but I just can’t, it’s a lot. And I don’t mind that other people do. I just can’t. But reaching out is a must and you have to endure the interwebricolonisation in its many forms.    Navigating Meetups now at my age because I knew I needed people, a resource, the support of like-minded individuals, even for basic decisions I knew I needed to make to affect change in my life. I had no support network. I had been living inside myself for far too long and enduring a kind of nonsense that was eating me alive until I hardly recognised myself. I had been concerned with other people’s comfort levels over my own to skin crawling proportions. I felt like a hypocrite, a fraud. I had betrayed myself for what? I never felt heard, seen, understood or respected and everything would always be seen from the point of view of the loudest voice in the room and that, was never mine. But Meetups has a level of problems all of its own for me. Initially, I joined a women’s bi group, not because I’m bi, I am not, I am definitely not, but because I thought that would be more acceptable given my circumstance. But I was uncomfortable because I thought people would question my motives. I didn’t really want to explain myself and my situation and the groups events seemed to be mainly dining or drinking. I am socially awkward, quiet, a non-smoking teetotaler and not a foody to boot. I sound boring, I know. I cook, people say I am good at it, I have even hosted dinner parties. I just don’t enjoy eating out or large crowds or noisy places. I always found it hard crossing the threshold of a pub, especially if I didn’t know anyone on the other side of the door. To cut a long story short I couldn’t bring myself to attend. I did join a different group, a lesbian one. I have been on a few outings but haven’t really made any meaningful connections. I am a bit wary of some of the people I have met and pleasantly surprised by others. Anyone who knows anyone, has made connections via the more socially accepted bar meet-ups which are rather regular so they regularly see each other. I tried one and endured it for as long as I could, tried to talk to different people but in the end, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Hard to hear, hard to think for me. There are a lot of acquaintances and unless you are completely living a certain lifestyle, you feel that you don’t really belong.   I guess, I never really disconnected from the feeling of sleeping with one eye open. I have always been hyper-aware or wary maybe. Scared of being found out, invasion of the body snatches (thanks a bunch Donald Sutherland, may he rest in peace. God! I love that movie) And I am still trying…

The truth that dawns on us or we have lived with for years, whilst understanding the politics of societal norms. A man’s world and the emotional blackmail that makes us…  Honestly our situation is considered implausible, dystopian sci fi is not a relatively new genre, we live it. The brainwash makes us believe we are wrong and we try to keep the peace. Protect our image, our families, reputations. “Die inside slowly if you must, but smile, keep smiling”, Hell's finishing school for ladies who must. Too timid, too rigid, too accommodating. It reads like fiction, doesn’t it?   And if you come out, you stand in the face of people who believe, you must have been lying all this time. Poor him-in-doors, wronged, even if there is no other person in the picture. But you enter into a relationship with a man you loved and thought you could live with and everything that comes with life, came (and you didn’t. Well, it’s true!) and then duty and duties, which should never have been a thing and it doesn’t end. Like a bad dream, a reoccurring bad dream and you know what they say about those.  And why didn’t he care so much or notice that you weren’t in the same place, why did he insist on the duties, he must have found them rubbish. Why wasn’t there room for you both to grow and change. The school of life is never out. We live with our secret selves so heavily in check, lying to the world around us, convincingly behind a timid smile, waiting till we are alone to breath. Not wanting to shatter a seemingly stable environment. Not wanting to be found out still, and always, amen! And when the unavoidable inevitable “take it for the team” (what team?) happens, you both sit in the pit of your stomach, arms wrapped around your respective knees staring at each other. Not a word spoken. It’s not good. We can’t remain insensitive indefinitely to a drive for comfort of the soul and the body, for the truth of us. The inside you, like a companion and your conscience and a weirdly better version of yourself all at the same time, holds up a mirror. It is the truth of what you believe and what you are. It shouts “Tits!” (What?) When you are wearing the wrong bra and you’ve got to run. Urging you to hold those bad boys down so you can run. It’s got your back, it’s on your side. Listen to the bloody woman, will you! It’s not that easy to make the decisions you may need to keep living your life the way you are or to leave one existence for another or to reinvent yourself or take over the world. Maybe we can overcome a few of the imbalances on the way. You need the resource of community. I think we all realise that it makes a palpable difference. And we could be that, I think. Thanks to Alli & Melisa and team for this great platform.