Singled Out: The Lesbian in Search of a Play Group

NEWSFLASH: my super sexy therapistthinks I have a problem.
Me? I have "A" problem? Do I break the news to her now or later? Hello! I wouldn't be lying on her couch every week if my life was just only about one problem.

And I'm paying her to hear that? Well, yes for that and also for her eye-candy company - which, in and of itself, is also a whole different kind of problem. But lady-please--tell me something new!

According to my super sexy therapist's professional opinion I spend too much of my free time alone. And by free time she primarily narrowed it down to strictly encompass weekends. She brilliantly came to that wicked grand conclusion all by herself after religiously hearing for these past couple of years the same exact answers to her same exact questions.

SST:     "What did you do this weekend Mona?"
M:     "Nothing much."
SST:     "Who did you hang out with?"
M:     "Nobody."

Granted not all my weekends are what I call "Mona's weekend" - aka "alone again, naturally." Sometimes because of the Hollywood nature of my fabulous profession, I do have to attend social functions which evidently would temporarily remove me from my cocoon.  

Being a consummate problem solver, Miss Freud had to nip it in the bud decreeing that I need to find myself a group of friends to hang out with. Excuse me? What grade is she in? Really, sending me back to high-school is all she could come up with as the remedy? Fantastic!

With my luck, after a brief stint as a member of the popular kids' clique, followed by an abbreviated miscast detour in nerdy land, I would most certifiably end up sitting on the margin with the high-school rejects.
 
Admittedly, I'm not a group person. Not only do I have major control issues, and, unless I am the chief of the gang, I don't necessarily complacently abide by other leaders' rules. I also get bored easily. I was tempted to suggest that being a Gemini there's already two of me and don't two constitute a group? But I knew my super sexy therapist was too witty to buy my crap so I settled for the more stoic answer: "I don't do well in groups."

"Why is that?" she, of course, had to ask. This is where I shamefully reminded her that I once joined a twelve-step program called Smokers' Anonymous for the free food and the free coffee. Not to mention, the gratis opportunity to anonymously display my martyr skills to a group of individuals blessed - like me - with an addictive personality. True, the main difference was that these addicts were actually doing something drastic about it, whereas I was just drastically bitching. Of course, I would then go back to my car and instantly light up in a post-sex cigarette satisfaction kind of way.

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(continued)

But because I decided I was no longer an asshole and I desperately wanted to please my super sexy therapist, I agreed to give it a try. So I left her office and went on my solitary merry way with the 30-day goal to find myself a group to belong to.

Frankly, I had no idea how I was going to proceed but I figured I'd start where I felt at home because as they say, home is where the heart is and where the heart is so is pity and empathy - and no "home" didn't mean my apartment but my LGBT community. The method was what was causing me a minor problem. As much I as believe that honesty is the best policy, I knew I couldn't just randomly show up and blatantly beg: "Hi my name is Mona. Will you be my friends?"

No ma'am! My approach was more subtle. I was just bombarding them with phone calls to find out when the group would next reconvene. I'm not at all insinuating that I imposed myself within the group but rather that I made sure they didn't conveniently forget about me.

So once I was officially in, I then just wanted out.
I found myself stuck in a marriage with a handful of melodramatic lesbians who spent an ungodly amount of time hanging on to each other in a very socially ostracizing fashion and were constantly bitching about everything and nothing - mainly nothing that had anything to do with me. What was I expecting? Oh, I don't know maybe talk about what's going on in the world and zoom in once in a very often while on my own little needy planet - I swear I'm an entertaining topic of conversation. So I filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable egos - that was my excuse and I was sticking with it.

Since I was back to square one and still determined, for spite, to impress my super sexy therapist I recycled my energy to target a new demographic segment: Hello Straight Ville!

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Despite the fact that the # 1 most attractive feature of this conventional colony  was the fact that I wouldn't be crucified for using the "how to give directions" expression "going straight" as opposed to "going forward," I was also naively convinced that things would naturally be more, well, straight forward. Not so much! 

Jump cut to 72 baby-sitting hours later, after attempting to buddy up closer with (wannabe) Sex and The City meets The Stepford Wives meets Desperate Housewives, I was temptingly contemplating transmuting from Mary Poppins to Merry 'Pill" Popping. I just couldn't bring myself to go through one more verbal bitching tirade of them lashing out, in unison, on their men for their total (or partial) lack of sensitivity, sensibility, care, love, attention and respect.

They should really make it a law for every straight woman to read the book He's Just Not that into You. That would save us all - they included - a lot of time and a lot of unnecessary excruciating headaches. I'll skip the part about the "just shoot me" girly girl yapping away - something about anti-aging creams, nail care, makeup, hair and beauty products (yawn!).  

Needless to say, I pressed the eject button on my own self and prematurely aborted the entire "can I join your group" overly ambitious enterprise. Indeed, after a month of bouncing my ass back and forth like a dodge ball between groups, troupes, clans, cliques and gangs, I dodged the bullet (no pun intended).

Let's face it, walking around in social circles with unfitted imposed Miss Congeniality shoes and being in a constant massacring mood is not a killer mix. Ironically, I was more of a friendly occasional socialite when observing my "Mona's weekend" ethos - and definitely less of a menace to society.

My problem is not that I don't have any friends. Frankly, and not to brag, I know a lot of people which is really the real problem. I know so many people who know that I know a lot of people that they automatically assume I am always with people. Consequently, off business hours, my phone hardly rings. Now I might sound as though I am suggesting you take out your boxes of Kleenex and cry me a river. But I promise you I'm not. This is not a pity-party invitation, it's just an observation.

Clearly, the problem is that there's no problem - only a slight public misconception.
Obviously, I don't have a problem joining a group; I just have a problem staying in a group.
Somehow the notion of "belonging" to a well defined and delineated committee seems rather isolating - and so not me!

Now, if you'll excuse me. But that was a bit too much social activity.
I need to slow down and re-group.

Read more of Mona's Singled Out.