{"id":249546,"date":"2013-10-21T13:33:22","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T13:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2013\/10\/21\/the-girls-are-never-supposed-to-end-up\/"},"modified":"2013-10-21T13:33:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-21T13:33:22","slug":"the-girls-are-never-supposed-to-end-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2013\/10\/21\/the-girls-are-never-supposed-to-end-up\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The girls are never supposed to end up together.[[MORE]] I watched that movie with Ellen Page and Alia Shawkat, the roller-skating movie, the one where Ellen and Alia are best friends, each other\u2019s only comforts in their podunk town. They need each other, and they hug, and they dance, and they tell each other I Love You, and Ellen meets a skinny boy who plays in a band. It doesn\u2019t even work out with the boy, but that\u2019s almost tangential. The girl was never a real option.
\nI think that\u2019s why it\u2019s really difficult for girls. For me. We follow narratives and our fingertips trace the contours of the stories we love and we long to escape within the confines of our own lives. Meet your boyfriend in the pouring rain and yank down his mask and kiss him upside down. Run with your boyfriend to the front of the ferry and throw your arms out to the side and scream, \u201cI\u2019m king of the world!\u201d If you are a girl in love with a boy, your possibilities are infinite.
\nIf there is a special girl in your life, you love her as a friend. You love her as a friend, but she becomes less important to you as you grow, and you leave her behind for a boy. She might even stand next to you when you marry the boy, and she might catch the bouquet of flowers that you throw to her. You\u2019re giving her permission to move on, move away from you. It\u2019s a ceremony of separation.
\nBut if you should fall in love with a girl – and loving and falling in love are two very distinct things – the first kiss is the end. You\u2019ve all seen the movie. Or the television show. Or the after-school special, or you\u2019ve read the book that was banned from your school\u2019s library for containing Sexual Content. The point of your story is not to fall in love. The point of your story is to struggle. Your story begins with a lie and climaxes in a truth and ends with a kiss. In the movie of your life, forty-five minutes are devoted to you figuring out how to say that you want to kiss girls, and another half-hour is devoted to people\u2019s objections, and maybe the last fifteen minutes is you kissing the girl. Maybe you don\u2019t even get to kiss the girl. Maybe she tells you that she\u2019s flattered, but she doesn\u2019t bat for your team.
\nThe critics swoon; it\u2019s realistic, they say, so realistic, to depict the struggle of the modern teen, the heartbreak of irresolvable incompatibility. Isn\u2019t that always what celebrities cite in their divorces? \u201cIrreconciliable differences.\u201d
\nAnd so you\u2019re lying on the floor of your bathroom, your knees curled to your chest, or you\u2019re on your sofa with a pint of ice cream, or you\u2019re in bed watching your favourite sad movie on Netflix, and the collective weight of all that you consume settles on your shoulders, leans in, and whispers, \u201cYou were never meant to fall in love.\u201d
\nYou were never meant to fall in love. Your story ends in tears or it ends in death. Jack Twist was bludgeoned to death with a tire iron and Ennis Del Mar was left alone in his closet to dance with an empty shirt. Alby Grant found Dale Tomasson swinging by a noose in the apartment that had been their safehouse, their respite, and he sank to his knees and cradled Dale\u2019s bare feet and he cried. The Motion Picture Association of America axed Lana Tisdel and Brandon Teena\u2019s sex scenes, but they didn\u2019t have a problem with the extended shot of Lana cradling Brandon\u2019s corpse in her fragile arms and falling asleep next to his body.
\nLove and intimacy are ours only in death, or so it would seem.
\nI don\u2019t want to die. Isn\u2019t that a very human experience? Not wanting to die? When does anyone who looks like me get to grow old and raise grandchildren and hold her wife\u2019s hand as the skin wrinkles, turns translucent?
\nSometimes my father asks me if I\u2019ll ever date a man. Sometimes he doesn\u2019t ask. \u201cYou are attracted to men, and you dream about falling in love with men,\u201d he says, as if he can will his imaginary daughter into existence merely by speaking about her. Or maybe he is just looking out for my safety.
\nHe\u2019s seen the movies, too.
\nHe loves me.
\nHe doesn\u2019t want me to die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

if this is heaven: <\/a><\/p>\n

Oh, my God, this is beautiful, and now I\u2019m nearly crying. This. ALL OF THIS OMG.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The narrative.<\/p>\n

Fuck the narrative. As I told the crowd at UF, THE NARRATIVE IS A LIE.<\/p>\n

(via shiraglassman<\/a>)<\/p>\n

why representation is important<\/p>\n

(via toastfucks<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The girls are never supposed to end up together.[[MORE]] I watched that movie with Ellen Page and Alia Shawkat, the roller-skating movie, the one where Ellen and Alia are best friends, each other\u2019s only comforts in their podunk town. They need each other, and they hug, and they dance, and they tell each other I … <\/p>\n

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