H-san
Thanks for the interest, Glassjaw. I've been kind of blue lately, so romantic escapades and fleeting crushes have been far from my mind, but let's see...
I think I've mentioned that my best friend is (or was) a young Japanese lesbian. You may be wondering if by "or was" I mean "was my best friend" or "was a lesbian." Actually, it could be both.
H-san was--and may still be--my best friend. We first met when she was still in high school, but didn't become close friends until about three years ago. She's now 22 (or was it 23?). Our friendship began with her coming out.
Without going into details that would reveal my line of work
exhausted, H-san is an extremely gifted artist. Three years ago, a friend (an American lesbian) was looking for lesbian-themed works from Japanese artists, and I thought of H-san. Something H-san had done earlier had set off my (fairly reliable) gaydar, so I casually asked H-san if she would be interested in submitting something. She raised her eyebrows, and after a pause said, "Yes." Later, she came to my office on the pretence of discussing the project. I could tell there was more on her mind, so I very casually asked, "So what's your sexual orientation?" :evillaugh: Trying to sound very detached and indifferent, she responded, "I think I'm bisexual." Uh-huh. Bisexual.:virtuous: No offense to any self-identified bisexuals, but about 80% of the people I've known over the past quarter century who once identified themselves as "bisexual" eventually turned out to be either homosexual and heterosexual. True bisexuality is rare (though recent studies show it is more common in women than men). So anyway, I'm chatting with H-san, and she begins to tell me about crushes she had had since childhood--all on other girls. Finally I asked,
"Have you ever been in love with a man?"
She replied "No."
"Have you ever been sexually attracted to a man?"
"No."
"Have you ever been in love with a woman?"
"Oh, yes."
"Have you ever been sexually attracted to a woman?"
"All the time."
:sigh:
I laughed and said, "We don't call that bisexuality; we call it homosexuality."
Now you might think that most people confronted that way would become defensive and say, "No, really! I'm bisexual!" But she just said "Sou ka..." ("Really?") She accepted it just like that. That is what she came to my office to hear. She had been waiting--probably for years--for someone to tell her, "You're gay, and that's fine." She eventually came out to her closest friends and one younger sister (although that "sister" is transgendered and is now her "brother" :evillaugh, but for months, I was the only one who knew, and we became very close friends.
I am not intimately familiar with the queer scene in Japan (which is still largely closeted), but I have many queer friends, and I've been a dues paying member of both the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays, so I was the closest thing to a mentor she had.
Around this same time, I made the very difficult decision to leave my wife, so H-san was an incredible source of support for me. We were like strangely matched Siamese twins for two years, practically living together.
On my first birthday after H-san's "coming out," she handed me a letter and said, "Don't read it till you get home." I assumed she was saying that out of shyness. She's usually a very reserved person in public (except when she's drunk--then she hangs all over the girls and kicks the boys :XD. So I waited till I got on the train and opened the letter there. It was a very short letter.
:defeat: Imagine the reaction of the people nearby when this gaijin, on reading this slip of paper (see the scan below), began to cry right there on the train.
H-san used to sleep over at my apartment several times a week. I think it was partly because she felt comfortable with me, but I know it was also because it was a very hard time in my life, and she worried about me. We would sleep in the same bed, and often, when I was thinking dark thoughts in the darkness of the room, I would say "Te" ("Hand") She would say, "Shou ga nai na" ("Oh, brother"), and put her small hand in mine. But I knew it was as comforting to her as it was to me. And we both slept like babies.
Remember when I mentioned the young woman who, while drunk, very abruptly gave me a hicky before I could stop her? She was a very perceptive, very interesting woman in her late twenties. She had (and still has) a boyfriend, but H-san and I knew that she had an intense, secret crush on another young woman (who had no clue at all, and would probably have freaked out if she knew). This woman--N-san--and I were not terribly close, but we understood each other very well, and the few conversations we had were dense with meaning. I still remember them all quite clearly.
Well, one night, after a get-together at my apartment, I gave N-san a ride back to her apartment (where her boyfriend was waiting) on my bicycle. She sat behind me, put her arms around me, and laid her head against my back. N-san is a very attractive woman. :exhausted: And as we rode, she said, out of the blue, "You're in love with H-san, aren't you?"
:coldsweat:
For a minute, I said nothing. And then I finally responded, "I suppose so, yes." :frozen:
N-san had seen what no one else had, and what I had tried to hide from myself for more than a year.
I was in love with H-san. :...:
Damn.
Damn, damn, damn.
You may remember that the first girl I ever seriously loved turned out to be a lesbian. Well, I was not going to get my heart broken like that again. No way. No sir.
:defeat:
If H-san ever suspected my feelings, she never showed it. H-san is in many ways a very simple person. She can't lie, she doesn't play mind games, and she has no interest in manipulating people, although she sometimes says hurtful things to the people closest to her (like me), usually because she is in a self-loathing mood and feels she doesn't deserve love from others. (Does that make sense?) She's a generaly quiet person, but I always knew when she was coming to my apartment, because I would hear her stomping up the stairs, CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP. She would try the door first--CLACK! CLACK!--(You'd think she'd know I kept it locked all the time) and then she would fumble for her key (Yeah, she had her own key to my apartment), loudly open the door, and say in her low, somewhat deep voice, "Ossu!" ("Yo!"). She'd take off her boots, come into the kitchen/dining room, walk over to the stove (where her own ashtray waited), turn on the fan, and light up a clove cigarette.
It was always so easy to see what was on her mind. If something good had happened that day, she'd have a sly smile, just waiting for me to ask. If something bad had happened, or she was just depressed (which was often), she would slump down on the floor and hold her head in her hands. When that happened, I would walk over, kneel down, and hold her head, saying nothing. She would say, "I'm okay. I'm okay. Really."
Then we would talk. I'd make curry rice, and we'd watch Star Trek Deep Space Nine together over dinner. And then maybe we'd go to sleep, holding hands.
(To be continued...)
Edit: Images deleted
Thanks for the interest, Glassjaw. I've been kind of blue lately, so romantic escapades and fleeting crushes have been far from my mind, but let's see...
I think I've mentioned that my best friend is (or was) a young Japanese lesbian. You may be wondering if by "or was" I mean "was my best friend" or "was a lesbian." Actually, it could be both.
H-san was--and may still be--my best friend. We first met when she was still in high school, but didn't become close friends until about three years ago. She's now 22 (or was it 23?). Our friendship began with her coming out.
Without going into details that would reveal my line of work
exhausted, H-san is an extremely gifted artist. Three years ago, a friend (an American lesbian) was looking for lesbian-themed works from Japanese artists, and I thought of H-san. Something H-san had done earlier had set off my (fairly reliable) gaydar, so I casually asked H-san if she would be interested in submitting something. She raised her eyebrows, and after a pause said, "Yes." Later, she came to my office on the pretence of discussing the project. I could tell there was more on her mind, so I very casually asked, "So what's your sexual orientation?" :evillaugh: Trying to sound very detached and indifferent, she responded, "I think I'm bisexual." Uh-huh. Bisexual.:virtuous: No offense to any self-identified bisexuals, but about 80% of the people I've known over the past quarter century who once identified themselves as "bisexual" eventually turned out to be either homosexual and heterosexual. True bisexuality is rare (though recent studies show it is more common in women than men). So anyway, I'm chatting with H-san, and she begins to tell me about crushes she had had since childhood--all on other girls. Finally I asked, "Have you ever been in love with a man?"
She replied "No."
"Have you ever been sexually attracted to a man?"
"No."
"Have you ever been in love with a woman?"
"Oh, yes."
"Have you ever been sexually attracted to a woman?"
"All the time."
:sigh:
I laughed and said, "We don't call that bisexuality; we call it homosexuality."
Now you might think that most people confronted that way would become defensive and say, "No, really! I'm bisexual!" But she just said "Sou ka..." ("Really?") She accepted it just like that. That is what she came to my office to hear. She had been waiting--probably for years--for someone to tell her, "You're gay, and that's fine." She eventually came out to her closest friends and one younger sister (although that "sister" is transgendered and is now her "brother" :evillaugh
, but for months, I was the only one who knew, and we became very close friends.I am not intimately familiar with the queer scene in Japan (which is still largely closeted), but I have many queer friends, and I've been a dues paying member of both the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays, so I was the closest thing to a mentor she had.
Around this same time, I made the very difficult decision to leave my wife, so H-san was an incredible source of support for me. We were like strangely matched Siamese twins for two years, practically living together.
On my first birthday after H-san's "coming out," she handed me a letter and said, "Don't read it till you get home." I assumed she was saying that out of shyness. She's usually a very reserved person in public (except when she's drunk--then she hangs all over the girls and kicks the boys :XD
. So I waited till I got on the train and opened the letter there. It was a very short letter.:defeat: Imagine the reaction of the people nearby when this gaijin, on reading this slip of paper (see the scan below), began to cry right there on the train.
H-san used to sleep over at my apartment several times a week. I think it was partly because she felt comfortable with me, but I know it was also because it was a very hard time in my life, and she worried about me. We would sleep in the same bed, and often, when I was thinking dark thoughts in the darkness of the room, I would say "Te" ("Hand") She would say, "Shou ga nai na" ("Oh, brother"), and put her small hand in mine. But I knew it was as comforting to her as it was to me. And we both slept like babies.
Remember when I mentioned the young woman who, while drunk, very abruptly gave me a hicky before I could stop her? She was a very perceptive, very interesting woman in her late twenties. She had (and still has) a boyfriend, but H-san and I knew that she had an intense, secret crush on another young woman (who had no clue at all, and would probably have freaked out if she knew). This woman--N-san--and I were not terribly close, but we understood each other very well, and the few conversations we had were dense with meaning. I still remember them all quite clearly.
Well, one night, after a get-together at my apartment, I gave N-san a ride back to her apartment (where her boyfriend was waiting) on my bicycle. She sat behind me, put her arms around me, and laid her head against my back. N-san is a very attractive woman. :exhausted: And as we rode, she said, out of the blue, "You're in love with H-san, aren't you?"
:coldsweat:
For a minute, I said nothing. And then I finally responded, "I suppose so, yes." :frozen:
N-san had seen what no one else had, and what I had tried to hide from myself for more than a year.
I was in love with H-san. :...:
Damn.
Damn, damn, damn.
You may remember that the first girl I ever seriously loved turned out to be a lesbian. Well, I was not going to get my heart broken like that again. No way. No sir.
:defeat:
If H-san ever suspected my feelings, she never showed it. H-san is in many ways a very simple person. She can't lie, she doesn't play mind games, and she has no interest in manipulating people, although she sometimes says hurtful things to the people closest to her (like me), usually because she is in a self-loathing mood and feels she doesn't deserve love from others. (Does that make sense?) She's a generaly quiet person, but I always knew when she was coming to my apartment, because I would hear her stomping up the stairs, CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP. She would try the door first--CLACK! CLACK!--(You'd think she'd know I kept it locked all the time) and then she would fumble for her key (Yeah, she had her own key to my apartment), loudly open the door, and say in her low, somewhat deep voice, "Ossu!" ("Yo!"). She'd take off her boots, come into the kitchen/dining room, walk over to the stove (where her own ashtray waited), turn on the fan, and light up a clove cigarette.
It was always so easy to see what was on her mind. If something good had happened that day, she'd have a sly smile, just waiting for me to ask. If something bad had happened, or she was just depressed (which was often), she would slump down on the floor and hold her head in her hands. When that happened, I would walk over, kneel down, and hold her head, saying nothing. She would say, "I'm okay. I'm okay. Really."
Then we would talk. I'd make curry rice, and we'd watch Star Trek Deep Space Nine together over dinner. And then maybe we'd go to sleep, holding hands.
(To be continued...)
Edit: Images deleted
