Saturday, October 2, 2010

Dear Straight World,

I don't know if you are aware of this stereotype, but within the lesbian community, people often say that there is a tendency to (quote, unquote) "U-Haul" relationships. "U-Hauling" a relationship is when you move way too fast, for example, if you were to move in together on the second date because we're so in love, oh my god! Soul mates! How did I live before I met you?
Now, as with many stereotypes (like African Americans are good at basketball or all Asians are geniuses who know Kung Fu), there is some truth to this. Evolutionarily speaking, it's in a cave woman's best interest to talk her mate into settling down. The cave baby can be safe at home supervised by the cave mom, while the cave dad is out there fighting sabre tooth tigers and bringing home the wooly mammoth bacon. While our cave men were trying to shoot sperm into anything that walked, women had to get really good at convincing them to be faithful. And thus, the blow job was created. This works out well for straight people, because they've got a nice push-and-pull thing going in the beginning during the "dating" process, until the woman eventually wins (as we always do) and they get married and stop having sex.

Now when you put two women together, on the other hand, both of your evolutionary ancestors just want to stay home and make babies (or adopt Asian ones - Kung Fu babies!). Without one person trying to pull away to go sow wild oats, things are bound to move a little bit quickly (hence the U-Haul). This creates two (equally annoying) problems:

1. Relationships tend to start at warp speed before you've had a chance to really vet each other. One OkCupid date, you blink, and all of a sudden you've got 3 cats and you're filling out adoption papers. You haven't left your bed on a Sunday in a month, your friends have given up on asking you to do things, and then all of a sudden. . . wait, what? You get anxiety from sleeping in the same bed as someone? You want to take our future children to church? Your ex-girlfriend was a witch, like for real? You don't like eggs?? I can't date someone that doesn't like eggs! What will we do at brunch!? (That last one is actually me. I hate eggs. And I also got dumped for it once. True story.)

2. People get totally freaked out when they perceive the relationship to be going too fast, because (among other things), everybody hates fitting into stereotypes. just like everybody hates turning into their mother. "I really like you a lot, but let's not 'U-Haul' this thing." If you like hanging out, then hang out! If you want a day to hang out with your friends, go hang out with your friends! If you really like each other so much, is it the worst thing in the world if you end up hanging out a lot? Sure, life balance is important, but imagining life imbalance for the sake of avoiding being a stereotype is just silly.

So I guess my point is, be careful with your heart, but that being said, cat shopping on the second date is still the new black.

2 comments:

  1. For more information on the "U-Haul syndrome," check out the following link:

    http://cherrygrrl.com/tag/lesbian-u-haul-syndrome/

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  2. I almost cried laughing, bear. This is hilarious. My life without you is just an empty vessel.

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