You Actually Will Meet The Love of Your Life At Pride
Written by Leah (Bunny) Overstreet
Hear ye hear ye! I speak from the extraordinarily high horse of someone a year into lesbian love!
My boygirlfriend and I’s romance launched at full force during the final week of June, in between all of the tomfoolery and shenanigans that make Pride so special. We have since spent the past year smothering each other with the kind of obnoxious ooshy gooshy love that can only be achieved by two Cancers with Leo venuses: celebrating every single month of being together (even as a“ joke” when we were“ casually” seeing each other), showering each other in handmade gifts, dancing to every slow song, and frequently crying because of how overwhelmed with love we are. I’m here to tell you our tale with the hope of inspiring you all to get your asses outside this month so that you can meet the next love of your life.
‘Twas a lesbian wet T-shirt contest at The Sultan Room where all the baddies were breasting boobily in the name of top surgery fundraising.
I had arrived with my friend with whom I’d spent the beginning of the summer catching dating allegations with. I quickly spotted a tatted up gender-fuck that I’d met two months prior while hanging with friends at a local bar. This was after a long day of shopping for the perfect Total-Drama-Island-esque booty shorts—naturally. The tatted up gender-fuck was scary hot with a fuck-ass nonbinary hair cut, platform flip flops, and the teensiest black denim booty shorts. As they like to tell it, I“ catcalled” them by telling them“ I looooove your shorts, they are the perfect length!” Luckily for me, G was and is the sweetest and friendliest person alive, so they immediately started gabbing with me and even collected my Instagram.
A photo of G and I at the Wet T-shirt contest
Flash forward to Pride week, moments before wet T-shirt madness: I spot the very same person I’d been heavily flirting at via Instagram DM. We immediately launched into jovial conversation about their brand new tat: DYKE emblazoned right above their crotch. Hoping to remind them that I meant business, I joked that I’d“ love to trace the letters with my tongue.” Very subtle, I know. Unfortunately for me, their friends had spent the past few months convincing them that I actually wasn’t flirting with them over Instagram and even insisted at the time that my joke about tonguing their nethers“ probably didn’t mean anything.” Lesbians. We are helpless.
With my shameless flirting written off as friendly banter, we went on with our nights, flirting with other people and getting hosed down. G had a three way kiss with a bootilicious Greek baddie, I rode my bestie’s face in nothing but my g-string and won the whole contest, and that same Greek baddie told me that I was a poem and that I should meet her at the beach the next day. Me being me, I was already planning on spending the whole day—which was going to be the hottest day of the summer so far at 101 degrees—at Jacob Riis Beach (aka the horniest, queerest topless beach on the New York Rockaways).
The next day my friends and I were at Riis bright and early to set up camp with our band of heavily pierced buds. It was on our way to the water that I was surprised and delighted to run into G. Little did I know, they’d actually gone out of their way to be there just because they knew I would be. Immediate banter. Batting eyelashes. Nervous butterflies. Somehow we get to joking about something that leads one of us (I can’t remember who) to say“ I guess we just have to kiss about it then.” Next thing I know we are going back and forth like“ oh yeah,”“ maybe we should,” and“ well if you insist,” inching closer and closer with each daring word until—someone shouts my name running up to grab me by the shoulder. Tension cut. Moment gone. AAAAARRRRGGGH.
My friend’s ex from an entirely different country is somehow on the beach and everyone is freaking out. I’m freaking out with them. I’m devastated to have missed out on that kiss. Nevertheless I fill G in on the drama and they are appropriately gagged. We chat a bit more and, before parting ways, they make me promise to come get them next time I go into the water so we can“ play mermaids.” Like duh! And I do and we splash all day long, each wondering if the vibe is friendly or flirty. Just in case we don’t get to seal the deal on the beach I invite them to another wet T-shirt contest I’m going to that same night and they eagerly agree to meet me there. Thank fuck.
With our nighttime plans secured, the pressure to make out in the water was less all consuming, but the tension was still there, swimming around us. We did not break that tension until the last possible moment, as we were saying goodbye and I looked up at them from an overly long hug. The kiss was sweet, long awaited, and flavored by the Oreos I’d been eating. We promised to see each other that night and we did. In fact, we saw each other at some point (mostly planned but sometimes purely accidental) every single day of Pride week. It began as“ casual” fun but by our birthdays two weeks later and two days apart, we’d begun to feel something far more magical for each other. They spent my birthday with my friends and I at the beach and even recreated my favorite scene from The L Word (Ivan Acock singing Leonard Cohen’s“ I’m Your Man” to Kit Porter) at my birthday karaoke. At this point we’d officially reached smitten status and within weeks I had to disband the roster I’d acquired that very same Pride week in the name of head over heels monogamous love.
Every day with them since has been full of endless joy and laughter. I’ve never loved anyone like I love them and they feel the same. We feel so incredibly lucky and grateful that we were at the right place(s) at the right time to run into each other and begin our obnoxiously obsessive love. Like most Dykes in love, we hope to move in together and get married in a few years (it’s a miracle we haven’t Uhauled already) and while I know it’s naïve to claim we will definitely be together forever, I can say that I have at the very least met one of the grandest loves of my entire life, and I hope it lasts.
I’m sharing this story partly to brag (lol) but mainly to encourage you to get out there this weekend and FLIRT! Make out with strangers, say yes to spontaneous plans, and put yourself out there. I am a chronically outside Lesbian who felt like I knew every Dyke there was to know in my city and yet, prior to this I had never encountered G. I think this is partially because they hadn’t been out in Lesbian nightlife as much and Pride was one of the few occasions that really got them out in the mix. A lot of your future girlfriends and wives are not at the club…except for this time of year. A lot of them are doing Sapphic craft circles or keeping to the people they already know and if there was ever a time to encounter someone new it is NOW. So go forth and be gay and maybe, just maybe, you will fall in love!
“A lot of your future girlfriends and wives are not at the club…except for this time of year. A lot of them are doing Sapphic craft circles or keeping to the people they already know and if there was ever a time to encounter someone new it is NOW.”
