No... No... I like GUYS.. really

Last year I went to visit my parents in Oregon where I grew up. While I was there I came upon an old journal I had kept for a school class in 3rd or 4th grade. I got a good laugh reading through it and found one entry particularly funny. I talked about the drama of being in grade school. The biggest drama for me was that I liked to play sports and I always wanted to play with the guys. I must have been upset about them not letting me play on the good team or something because I was venting about how mad they made me and I had written, "I hate boys, they are so stupid." This seemed particularly funny because, well at times I still think the same thing. "Boys are so stupid, why don't they just get their act together and marry me already?" Anyway once I found this journal entry that I found so funny and fitting, I read it to my sister and my parents. They had fun razzing me about the fact that maybe if I liked guys it would be easier for me to find a date and get married. "Ha ha, very funny" but since they are my family I didn't really care and I knew they were just teasing. After all I did volunteer the information to them. I think we all just found it amusing that 20 years later nothing had really changed.

Well, that afternoon my sister, mom and I went to Albertson's where I had worked as a high school student for a few years. Pretty much everyone I worked with has moved on and stopped working there and found something better to do with their life. However, there is one lady who will probably work there until the day she dies. Every time my mom goes through her checkout line she asks about me and wants to know how I'm doing. So we saw LeeAnn and decided to go through her checkout line and talk to her for a sec. She was really excited to see me because my visits home are pretty rare and my visits to Albertson's are even rarer. (I like that word, rarer... it just is fun to say) anyway... she asked me all about what I'm doing and then she asks the question that I would much rather avoid but that always comes up. "So are you dating anyone special?" Of course she is going to ask me that. I'm not even considered normal in the non-Mormon world still not being married at 29. So I have to tell her no, I'm not dating anyone special and that I'm one of those weird Mormon Nuns by default. I would like to be married but well, I guess it's just the negative energy I put off. LOL. Anyway of course I didn't say any of that stuff because that would make me a freak so I just smile and say no, there's no one.

Then to my horror.... my mom pipes in and says "we just found out the problem, SHE DOESN'T LIKE GUYS." It felt like she was saying it in slow motion and that I was on the sidelines trying to stop her from making a really stupid move but there was nothing I could do and it was too late. She had said it and there was no going back. OK mind you this is in Oregon where there are a lot of people who take a different route in who they choose to date if you know what I mean. So when she said that referring to my journal entry thinking it's just cute and funny that I used to hate guys, it came out as if she was helping me come out of the closet or something. Both my sister and I who understood what that must sound like gave my mom the most horrified look and then I looked at LeeAnn and said frantically "No, no, I like guys really, it's not like that. See there was a journal I wrote in when I was 9 or 10 where I said I hated guys because they were mean to me, that's what she was implying, I like guys, really, I like GUYS." But by then it was too late and there was no turning back. I think LeeAnn was astute enough to know that my mom was just out of it and didn't know what she was implying so I think I'm safe as far as people in my hometown thinking I'm gay but HELLO!!!!, of all the things to say and all the ways it could sound.... My mom just didn't get it.

Needless to say, as we walked out of the store I told my mom that I didn't appreciate what had just transpired and that it's fine to joke around and tease about that stuff at home where we know the situation and context but that was not cool to say it to someone who probably thinks I'm a weirdo anyway because of the Mormon Nun thing.