Singled Out: The Reluctant Lesbian Cougar

I knew there was a good reason why since New Year's Eve I have been living like a hermit - and quite a self-reliant one, I might add - and it has everything to do with the fact that getting all dolled-up has become too much of an industrious enterprise. Isn't it simpler to just blow off my friends instead of going through the headache of having to spend an insurmountable amount of time figuring out what to wear?

Because we ladies all know that while our closets never run short of clothes we inexplicably never seem to have anything to put on. And even if we miraculous do, then expect something to inevitably go wrong. It's either about the clothes that don't fit, are uncomfortable, don't match our taste du jour, or are about our delightful, self-deprecating mood - we feel bloated, unattractive, ugly, fat, and/or all of the above. Yet, in my case, I keep going through the ritual every time thinking this time might be different, which of course it never is.

The whole preparation bonanza is definitely more of an adventure than the actual experience of being out.  I'm just saying! Because while I get ready with the psychological expectation that something imminently extraordinary is about to happen to me in the social world, the truth is that absolutely nothing ever happens. At this stage, the only extraordinary thing that is really enfolding is that my derriere is out partaking in this cultural thing called the social life instead of being at home vegetating on my couch, reading a good book or watching some mindless reality TV.

So what if I am temporarily anti-social? What am I really missing out on out there?
One thing for sure is that were I to increase the frequency of my social outings, I'd be missing out on some very important, intellectually challenging programming such as The Biggest Loser, Celebrity Apprentice and Top Chef.

I will have you know that I can be more comfortable and just as cute and fashionably glamorous at home. Don't get me wrong, I have the money and I can certainly find the time but I just don't want to. I've been meticulously practicing what my friend Edward calls the "visualization" technique. It's like a time machine apparatus that allows me via one mental thought to project myself in the very near future. I am then able to vividly visualize myself in the social setting that I predictably foresee happening and if I don't like what I see - and most times, I don't - I simply turn down the invitation and offer no lame excuses or further explanations. Why justify myself, right?

Let's tell it like it is, the older I get the more difficult it becomes to not only live with myself but even more so with THE others. I'm certainly not as tolerant as I used to be back when I was twenty-something and could easily put up with just about anyone and adjust to almost any environments. Now, evidently, at almost thirty eight years old, it's a whole new scenario because not only have my priorities drastically changed but so have my standards.

Indeed, I have raised the bar - perhaps unreasonably too high? But honestly, I find it much more rewarding to be behind my own self-fabricated bars then, well ... at the bar - if you catch my drift! My life - because mind you, I do have one! - has hands-down, for the best, become a monument to all things work related.

I've fabulously managed in my busy productive daily routine to work myself in my own schedule. Yep, I'm working on myself!  I'm working up quite an insatiable appetite for work; I never get too worked up; I'm always at work; I know how things work; I have things in the works; I know how to work it; I make it work; I put in work on quality family time; I workout, and not only work off my invisible extra pounds but as well my debts. I'm surely working my way up and while I might seem to be a piece of work, it's been working out for me!

With that in mind, I will not apologize for being super selective when it comes to social solicitations from the outside world because more often than not, even when I take all the necessary precautions to avoid a potential disaster, I am brutally reminded that I am absolutely not immune to it. A couple of weeks ago, I foolishly agreed to grace my intimate group of wild nightclubbing lesbians with my precious presence. We all met at the usual West Hollywood Thursday Ladies' Night hang for what was originally billed as a casual rendezvous.  

more on next page...

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(continued)

It would be too much work to recount in details the whole blah blah blah of my voyage into the night and for the sake of cutting to the chase I will jump to the annoying part.
When I took a break from the brouhaha of the crowd and stepped outside on the patio to light up a nicotine stick, I was almost immediately accosted by some teenaged-looking lesbian who found it terribly irresistible to aggressively hit on me. Any normal person would have probably been flattered, but I, instead, was highly aggravated. She maneuvered to corner me against the wall, got me stuck between the trash and one of the outdoor tables, and proceeded to deliver a flurry of absurd pick-up lines that left me royally unimpressed.

Sorry but the cougar zeitgeist has totally lost its cachet for me. I've certainly been there, done that and the one thing I know now I don't want is someone whose birth year is anywhere near, within or after the 80s. Seriously, how can I move forward if I'm a decade behind?

But it surely didn't seem to bother miss thing who I guess was looking for her Mrs. Robinson. While she was totally under the influence of the "oh wow" intoxication, I had more of an "oh No" expression written all over my face. Yet she didn't get the hint. Instead she proceeded to demand that I buy her drink - why? I asked myself, because I was the older one? I would have probably considered it had she been less of a juvenile mess and had she not made the ultimate blasphemous mistake of identifying me as French Canadian instead of French.  

In the big scheme of things, this little episode was certainly humorously entertaining but I usually prefer to watch reality shows as opposed to live them. That's the very reason why I choose to stay home - I don't waste my time and my energy, not to mention my money. Believe it or not this nightly expedition cost me an exorbitant $15 for just a diet coke and the valet parking. I would have been better off driving to Ralphs! At least I would have parked for free and would have gotten ten times the quantity of soda for the same price. I'm not being cheap but in times of economic recession I have to be frugal with my per diem.

More than a motto, staying home has become my philosophy. Maybe it's a biological symptom that innately comes with age, or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I made it one of my 2009 resolutions to willing choose quality over quantity. Either way, I think I'm finally growing up ... or is it getting old?