Celibacy is no joke. Mine, less so.

I lie. It’s a huge joke. Especially on Janine’s blog. But I finally cracked it. Lesbians are the way to go.

On my second (and also last) night in Melbourne, Mansha and I went to a drag king show at the Opium Den, a (lesbian?) club near Fitzroy. Or in Fitzroy. Hell, I don’t even know what the fuck Fitzroy is or if that’s really where I was; it just sounds familiar, is all. The show was most excellent, with numerous performances by women who dressed like men and lip-synched to cheesy pop songs. The only anomaly was a drag queen, whom I would have expected to be at a drag queen show, but maybe being a man who identifies as a woman gave him some leeway. But then he should have been dressed as a woman dressed as a man, if you get my drift.

In retrospect, I suspect that is exactly what happened to me. It happened as I was attempting (in vain, mostly) to get the bartender to give me a drink (no, I am not underage; yes, that hand-written, laminated booklet is a real passport; yes, I know it’s not fancy but we’re a third-world nation with a large workforce – we can afford to pay people to do the jobs you get machines to do and besides, don’t you think it adds a nice personal touch to the largely inhuman process of international travel?). A pudgy, little dyke came up to me, interrupting this fascinating but pointless exchange with the barkeep, and said, “Hey, we have the same hair.” This was not strictly true, since my hair was (and continues to be) definitely more out-of-control and most likely, far dirtier.

“Indeed we do,” I said, the very picture of charm (to say nothing of dashing good looks, sparkling wit and immense cool).

“So, are you here for the show?” she asked.

“Indeed I am,” I said (not really, but I don’t remember what I said).

“Are you having a good time?” she asked. I reassured her that I was having a smashing time and then went back to trying to order drinks.

“So…” said the pudgy little girl. I shall never know what she was about to say, because that was when I achieved a minor breakthrough with the barkeep. He finally stopped bugging me about ID and deigned to give me one of the two drinks I had asked for.

I asked for another drink and looked back at the girl, quite pleased with myself. I had my beer, and girls were coming up to me. Even if she was pudgy, not particularly appealing and, naturally, gay, they (well, one) were coming up to me. The magnitude of this cannot be stressed enough. (A related rant, one that’s begging to be written, is about the first question I get whenever I return from abroad. Namely, “Did you get any action?” Let me now, once and for all, set the record straight: NO. I did not get any action on my vacation, I never have, and most likely never will. Contrary to popular opinion, white women do not sit around their semi-detached suburban homes anxiously awaiting the next shipment of brown men with whom they can have consensual, uncommitted, animal sex.)

“Who’s that for?” she asked. I pointed out Mansha, to my right. “Oh,” she said, and then to Mansha, “Hello.”

Mansha greeted her enthusiastically and then the little girl went away.

In contemplating the events of the evening – described here with a disgraceful lack of detail thanks largely to the three beers, two Jack and cokes, half a bottle of red, one G&T, one Pimms and lemonade, two scotch, two surprise me, another beer and two glasses of champagne consumed by me the previous day – I surmised that the pudgy little muff-diver might have been hitting on me. Now, I’m the first to admit my inexperience in being hit on, mostly because no one ever does and I’m generally too oblivious to notice if they do, but I’m fairly certain that was what happened.

What worries me is why. She was clearly gay, and I wasn’t at my most manly. I was, in fact, clean-shaven (which, if you are familiar with the 16-odd strands of facial hair I refer to as a beard, shouldn’t matter very much), my hair was calm and, honestly, a bit gay, and in what I consider a masterful stroke of irony considering the venue, I was wearing a black t-shirt that said “I [heart] My Vagina”. Being brown and clad thus, coupled with being present at a bar that wouldn’t generally be on the average Indian tourist’s itinerary, leads me to believe that she either thought I was a somewhat masculine girl, a girl who identified as male or worst of all, a man who identified as female and, given that evening’s programme, decided to dress like a man.

All horribly complicated, I know, but the point is this: if I can fool one lesbian, perhaps I can fool more. And they won’t find out until it’s far too late. Muahahahaha.

Androgyny is no joke. Yet.