38. whoa. that was stupid. [for those i've repelled with awkwardness.]

i don't pick up on signals.

whenever i privately fantasize about pseudo-romantic rendezvouses [haha the plural for rendezvous makes me laugh], i fancy myself the pursuer; but in real-life situations, whenever i decide to take a plunge into the murky depths of Romance and Lesbian Night-Clubs, i'm the wall-flower, praying to Jeebus that someone will pick up on the fact that i'm too terrified to make the first move.

Big Spoon dreams with Little Spoon attitude.

actually, not even Little Spoon attitude.

just Inexcusable Idiocy.

i have that special curse, sometimes gift, where months - years, even - after the fact, i can remember the smallest details of situations gone wrong.

maybe it's because i'm constantly blaming myself for my inability to "connect," and i feel the need to dissect events that haunt me with hopes of improving myself, guarding myself against future failures.

or maybe it's just because i'm well aware of the fact that God seems to have purposely and purposefully armed me with a talent for carrying out almost cinematically ridiculous acts for the entertainment of others, and i'd feel guilty if my hilarious pain wasn't offered up for someone else's joy.

anywho.

after reading a number of drunken journal entries (that are far too embarrassing to put up here, even for me), as well as bitterly looking back through a slightly more socially aware microscope, i've decided to address certain happenstances and apologize to those who have fallen victim to my debilitating social-ineptness.

and to help those of you who find yourselves in similar circumstances.

1. one night, i was in bed with someone i was actually beginning to like.

like, like-like.

meaning that i didn't know what the fuck to do about it. granted, we were, as i said, already in bed together, and, as such, you'd think that any awkward tension was obliterated; however, being that i was just waking up from a drunken stupor and was therefore once again aware of my own inhibitions, we were back at square one.

so when she started to shiver, while on her side, facing away from me, my first thought wasn't, Oh! She wants to cuddle! Thank God! as it should've been, because lord knows i would've jumped at the chance.

instead, i felt guilty that she was so cold even though she was already under the covers.

so as quietly as i could, i went and found another blanket and covered her with it.

genuinely thinking that this was the most thoughtful and correct course of action.

...yeah.

2. not too long after #1, in the same evening, that is [yes, i know, poor whoeversheis], i went to the bathroom, convinced she was still asleep. when i returned, she was almost entirely on my side of the bed.

i figured she just moved in her sleep, so i did my best to un-awkwardly maneuver myself so that i was at least partially on the mattress, still worried i might disturb her.

but she wasn't even completely asleep, and when she stirred a bit i hesitated before asking, as politely as possible, "Um...would you mind, like...moving over a little bit?"

and i discovered just a second later that there was no polite way to ask that.

and i realized several months later that it might have been another one of those signs.

3. the next morning ["Holy shit, Vickie, seriously?!"], when we were in front of her building, there was a brief, tense moment of silence. suddenly, she lunged at me with a kiss. i was so taken aback i only managed to summon enough consciousness to nervously laugh and say, "Okay. See you later!"

walking away, i was already slowly dying inside.

4. moving on to another unlucky lady:

out of the blue, she asked me out.

surprised and sincerely interested - being that this was the first time anyone had been forward enough to do so - i consented.

the date went well. very well.

but when i realized that i might actually really like her, in true Vickie form i retreated to my inner fortress and shut down.

so, at the end of the night, when i was dropping her off and she asked, so directly, if i wanted to kiss her, i was overcome with two thoughts: the first, Oh my God. She already knows me well enough to be this direct. I feel so exposed.; and the second, Uhhhhhhh...

unfortunately, the second thought found its way out, filled the air with unnecessary tension, and i convinced myself that i fucked things up and there was no way in hell she was still into me.

so no, we didn't kiss.

and yes, i do use, "Uhhh..." as a legitimate form of communication.

5. "I like you, Vickie."

"Aww. I like you, too!"

"Oh, man. 'Cos last year, when I told my friends about it, I finally decided to make a move on you at the next USC party, but you had just officially gotten with someone else."

beat.

"Oh! You meant that like!"

6. when a girl invited me over to her place for a night of SNL, i figured she just wanted to be friends.

i had only very recently Come Out, so i was desperate for comrades.

and when she inched so close to me on the couch, to the point where she was practically sitting on one of my arms, i wondered if that was just how lesbians bonded.

7. Text: I'm stuck in traffic - I could really use some entertainment ;P

My reply: Oh...that's unfortunate. I'm sorry. :/ LA traffic sucks.

8. "Oh, man, I really wanna dance right now!"

"Go for it - I can't really dance."

---

and this is just a small sampling, mind you. i have 3 journals worth of bitter introspection and regret.

it always amazes me just how wonderfully and relentlessly i fuck things up.

if you have been on the receiving end of my clueless anti-whims, please know how deeply sorry i am.

talking to people on a one-on-one basis has never been easy for me; that middleground, between acknowledging that i can be too guarded only to discover, in an effort to remedy that flaw, that i'm also susceptible to word vomit, is yet to be charted.

try as i might to prevent myself from putting up my walls, keeping a wary eye on myself more than on the situation at hand, i tend to grasp for any possible thought to keep things going. and more often than not, all i find is that no matter what, being myself around people who interest me is tough; i either don't open up enough, or i try to be so exposed that the words that fly out of my mouth, like shrapnel over a promising conversation, are false.

so, again, i'm sorry to those i may have hurt or deterred.

i can honestly say that it's not you, it's me.

33. hot damn i'm stupid.

I wouldn’t call myself a cuddle connoisseur.

Addict, yes, but my limited experiences don’t match up to those of my well handled utensil contemporaries.

But don’t worry: this isn’t going to be a too-long self-deprecating piece overridden with annoying insertions and lacking in embarrassingly silly and valuable learning-tidbits.

If anything, I’m proud of the progress I’ve managed to make over the past few years since my very first Spooning experience.

[Which was, I’ll say now, one of the most terrifying but enlightening experiences of my life.]

When I was in the process of sailing to the island of Lesbos, armed only with Birkenstocks and flannel - or the superficial knowledge of the lesbian being - sex was the last thing on my mind.

Raised in the clutches of a South Korean and a Dominican Army Colonel, who taught my sisters and me that handholding counts as a base and hugging leads to sex, zero attention was paid to the goings-on of my south of the border interests.

At the beginning of my sophomore year of college, the only thing I was concerned with was making my very first batch of gay friends.

So when a fellow, however more-experienced lesbian invited me over to her place to watch SNL instead of going partying with the other gays I met at one of my first-ever LGBT meetings, I didn’t take it to mean anything more than, “Yay! I have a new lesbian friend!”

When we got to her place, she switched the TV on, offered me a glass of wine, and told me to make myself at home on her 4-person couch.

Hospitable, I thought.

She sat at one end and I absentmindedly found myself at the exact opposite end.

As the show wore on, though, I noticed that the gap between us started shrinking.

Well, I guess that WAS an oddly huge space.

And when it got to the point where she was practically sitting on my right arm, and I awkwardly gripped onto the armrest with my left, I wondered if this was just how lesbians bonded.

After the show ended we talked a bit, but at 2am I felt that I’d intruded too long.
“Well, it’s getting pretty late...I should probably get out of your hair.”

“No, it’s too late for you to try to get home,” she said sweetly, “but you can sleep here.”

I hesitated before privately applauding her generosity.

She disappeared into her bedroom, and, assuming I was supposed to sleep on her couch, I made myself comfortable.

But, seconds later, she returned.

“No, no, you can sleep in my room.”

I hesitated again, an unfamiliar tingling going down my spine.

I ignored it.

...She probably has a futon.

And then it occurred to me that I might be sleeping in very close quarters to someone else for the first time.

Please, for the love of God, have a futon.

I followed her into her bedroom, which was devoid of futon; just a red sportscar bed, with high walls to prevent escape.

...Falling off.

I didn’t sleep that night, especially with her body pressed into my back.

Instead, I laid rigidly on my side, my nose touching the bed’s wall.

After, my friends abused me for my cluelessness and urged me to, “Go for it.”

Given that this was the very first time someone of the same-sex was showing interest in me, I was a little eager to see where it went.

The more Spooner and I talked, the more I appreciated her patience and intentions.

She was kind, knowledgeable, encouraging, and understanding.
I confessed things I’d never shared before, and found myself in the new position of wanting and being able to pursue a completely open and sincere relationship with someone, even in non-romantic terms.

Finally, a connection.

We hung out a couple more times, holding hands, me continuing to spout out awkward sappy lines and thoughts.

It was a nice, strange feeling, all those firsts.

Sharing firsts, hugging firsts, handholding firsts, flirting firsts.

Later, when she asked me what I was going to be up to over the weekend, I blurted out the fact that my roommates were all going out of town and I was probably just going to have quiet nights-in with some movies and food.

She said she wanted to keep me company and I, being slightly more savvy by this point, conceded.

When she arrived, I gave her my obscenely full binder of movies and told her that she could choose.

I didn’t expect her to pick the raciest movie in my collection, Y Tu Mama Tambien (which, if you haven’t seen it, is about 85% porn (but, of course, I only own it for its artistic value)).

But she did.

I put the movie on, we ate, and eventually we found ourselves on the couch.

It was my first intentionally-cuddling experience.

She laid across my lap, and the fact that this was physically the closest I’d ever been to someone didn’t escape me.

I relished it.

Though I still had no idea what I was doing.

My hand was around her waist at the beginning of the film, but as the minutes trickled by I noticed that, somehow, my hand was mysteriously finding its way further up her body.

And my heart was up in my throat.

I tested it, concentrating on my hand to make sure that I wasn’t the one responsible.

Sure enough, I was positive that it wasn’t me.

And I was positive that it wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

And, sure enough, I was very much aware that the latest part of the body that I was touching wasn’t flat like the rest.

Like some X-rated Ouiji board, my hand found its way to a new revelation: real-life second base.

I panicked.

My hand was as stiff as my back had been on our very first night together.

And it stayed that way all the way through the end of the credits.

Finally, we got up and moved, commented on how late it was, and agreed to get to bed.

Wait, MY bed?! I thought to myself, trying hard [and probably failing] at keeping my face neutral.

We went into my bedroom, and, unlike Spoon Mishap #1, I was very much aware of the event’s significance.

She climbed onto my too-high bed and I clumsily followed suit.

She laid down, fully relaxed, and I tried my best to do the same.

She was on her side, facing me, while I concentrated very deeply on the various cracks in my ceiling.

My heart rate accelerated; I could feel it fighting its way through my chest.

I couldn’t help thinking that she was quietly watching me.

So close.

This is it, a small voice told me.

Wait, what is “it?” a more urgent and anxious voice asked.

Desperate, I wracked my brains for the few potentially telling clues I picked up during the past few weeks.

Nothing came to me.

I decided to attempt to subtly watch Spooner for hints; maybe she knew what this was all about.

It was an impossible task, I discovered, as I slowly craned my neck as carefully as possible, trying to get a glimpse of her.

She caught me, though, and I knew it.

Tensed even more.

I thought I sensed her smiling.

I tried to breathe.

The jig was up; I surrendered and strained a smile at my own awkwardness before facing her.

A long pause.

This IS it.

“Here,” she whispered, placing a gentle hand on the back of my neck, pulling me towards her.

Closer.

Oh, God, I thought, and, Please don’t let me be bad at this.

I’m pretty sure I was, but I couldn’t have really cared less.

In a lot of ways, I was more preoccupied with the fact that it was happening, period.

Here it was: a testament to the progress I made in Coming Out of both my shell and the Closet.

Close.

I’m still very much an idiot when it comes to all matters of of showing affection; I’m either too timid to show the truth or I’m overzealous and end up mucking things up.

And now Spooner’s off to greener pastures, I’m sure, and I’m still navigating through this mess that is my timidness.

But I’m closer, I think, to figuring things out: laughing at my poor choices and learning from them.

At least, that’s what I’m starting to tell myself.

Every time I stay true to my cluelessness and muck things up.

::Sigh::

32. Coming Out means you go through a second phase of adolescence. or my parents are just overcompensating.

before i Came Out, i seldom said a word about crushes.

or myself.

nobody - my parents, in particular - knew a thing about my taste in...anything.

i kept to myself, opted to impersonate my mother rather than offer up my own thoughts and feelings.

as such - that is, after shipping off to college and the island of Lesbos - after practicing trial-and-error for as long as i have (emphasis on the error), i'm realizing that these feelings of uncertainty and dumbassness and self-absorption in the context of relationships and self must be akin to those my hetero peers mucked around in several years ago.

after you Come Out of the Closet you Dive Blindly Into a Dark, Complicated, Terrifying Bedroom.

and, well, world, i guess.

if i was the kind to tap into that level of sappiness.

which i'm not.

aloud.

anywho.

my understanding of Involved Parenthood of Hetero Teenagers is that mom and dad are so nosy they can't help but say and do embarrassing things in the pursuit of buried, angsty feelings and preferences.

at least, that's how it goes in movies.

with the parents constantly making assumptions and causing their spawn to blush or throw unnecessarily emotional fits.

being that my parents were under the impression that they managed to raise three of the most a-sexual, pure young women imaginable, none of the Toro girls faced much interrogation growing up.

it was only when one of my sisters accidentally let some key piece of information slip that my parents became curious.

for me, that curiosity or concern for my love life didn't come about until i Came Out, and my parents were suddenly aware of the fact that, contrary to 18 some odd years of denial and silence, i actually DID have some kind of "drive."

so those cringeworthy conversations came about.

but instead of being completely agonizing, looking back i'm pretty sure it was all hilarious.

1. just months after i Came Out, my dad and i were at Borders partaking in some Daddy-Daughter Bonding Time [as he called it].

at one point, he called me over to the calendar rack - a crazy look in his eye.

"Pssst, Vickie! Hey, Vickie!"

"...Yes?"

"Come over here!"

"What is it?"

he pointed.

right at a Sports Illustrated calendar.

i blushed.

"Oh...um...great, dad. Awesome."

"You know what I JUST realized?" he asked, in one of those non-whispers-that-was-supposed-to-be-a-whisper.

"What?"

"When I say things about women, you could be thinking the SAME THING."

afterward, when i tried to change the conversation, my dad was determined to uncover my taste in women.

and was excited to find that i was, in fact, my father's daughter.

i was nauseous.

2. at Bath and Body Works, during yet another Daddy-Daughter outing, my dad caught me looking through some scents.

"Whacha got there?"

"Hm? I dunno. Nothing. Just looking."

he grabbed another bottle of the same scent and sprayed it.

sniffed it.

"Hm...Maybe not that one."

"Okay."

"'Cos you know, women like scents. If you wanna get girls, you have to have your own scent. So make it a really good one."

i stared.

"Here! This one's pretty good. I'll go pay for it."

3. my mother doesn't like too many people.

actually, for the longest time, i wasn't even sure if she liked me all that much.

but i digress.

one day, my oldest sister brought her boyfriend over for the holidays.

after, while my mom and i were in a car together, i asked her what she thought of him.

"Eh, I don't like him."

"Really?" i asked, "He's so nice, though! And Olivia likes him a lot."

"I know. But ugh. Beside, I'm yoh mommy. I'm gonna hate any boy you bring home."

"Ha! Well, that's lucky for me!"

at the red light, she stopped, looked me square in the eye.

"Girls, too."

and i knew that she was finally okay with my gayness.

4. i was lamenting the fact that i was single and clueless and hopeless.

my mother's words of comfort were a little uncouth.

"You know, iss actually kinda lucky you're a lesbian."

"...Why?"

"Women tend to like awkward, nerdy people better. Eben the pretty ones. Look at me and yoh daddy."

5. i told my dad that i'd drunkenly gotten a girl's number, but that i wasn't sure about giving her a call.

he was pumped that i shared this with him.

"Ha! You and I ARE alike!" he exclaimed, "When I was your age, and I'd get home from some party, I'd find girls' phone numbers IN MY CLOTHES. It was crazy, but I didn't know what it meant. My friends were like, 'Man, you should totally call her.' And I'd be like, '...Why?' It was hopeless. Ha! It's nice at least ONE of you girls took after me. Nice for me, not for you."

6. my mom told me she was a little surprised by my first girlfriend.

because she had always hoped i wouldn't pick someone like my mother.

i didn't see the resemblance til after that conversation.

and then it was all i saw.

7. the usual talks about how i'm a "wonderful girl, of whom no one is deserving."

gross.

and this is all i've got for now.

17. i come from a long line of terrifying women. and i take after my dad.

long time, no talk.

but excuses are like butts, and right now mine's hidden because of its recent descent into flabby unawesomeness, so i'll spare you.

anywho.

lately, i've been learning all sorts of fun facts about my family's history.

my Dominican side has ties to the assassination of Trujillo, and my Korean grandma broke all of the rules.

ALL of the rules.

apart from successfully escaping the clutches of her North Korean captors during the Korean War, she also managed to do much of the same from her adulterous husband.

apparently, my Korean grandpa was anything but faithful to her during their marriage.

he had affairs - Jeebus knows how many - and eventually, he managed to get a woman pregnant.

pissed, my grandmother had him and his mistress arrested - because adultery was against the law in those days - which was unheard of, as it was usually men who turned their adulterous wives in, while enjoying the company of as many women as they chose.

but my grandmother had him put into prison, divorced him, and bent his entire family to her will as she was the one with the money and the power.

"When he's released," she told him and his family, "I will help support him, but only because he can't support himself."

the family had no choice but to do whatever she asked.

so she was a war survivor and a divorcee.

and, on top of everything else, a successful Black Market saleswoman.

we still don't know the details.

all we know is that she also managed to raise my mother: a woman whose nickname in high school was Barracuda.

according to our aunt, my mother was the type who actively disliked just about every boy in school, which in turn only increased her appeal and made said boys want her love all the more.

nothing changed when she graduated and took a job at the US military base near her hometown.

indeed, she had been proposed to several times, and even found herself occasionally serenaded in the Officers Club and bars and the like.

she was the shit.

and, according to her, she knew it.

the only person who didn't seem to know it was, of course, my clueless dad.

"Uh, dat's where YOU get it from," she told me, mid-story.

anywho.

apparently, my mother was confused as to why this one man just didn't seem to like her as much as all the other men she met.

What's wrong with him? she wondered, and, What's wrong with me?

she had to get to the bottom of it and make him notice her.

she tried flirting.

"But he was stupid and didn't notice."

"...I really didn't..."

"So I had to try eben hahdah."

"Yep. She did."

and so she resorted to spreading rumors about how she had a crush on Andy Toro - a rumor she hoped would reach him.

and it did.

"But I didn't really believe it," my dad interjected, "The guys would say things like, 'Hey, man, I heard Ms. Kim wants to have a tour of your tank.' And I'd be like, '...So?'"

and my mom shook her head.

"Useless."

finally, my mom took a more direct approach.

"Andy?" she asked one day, when they ran into each other, "Would you mind teaching me Englishy? My Englishy is uh berry bad."

"Huh?" was all my dad could say, clearly confused, "Um...I guess..."

and after just a couple of sessions, my dad finally came to his senses.

finally, he asked her out.

"Okay," she told him, "But I just hab to uh tell my boypriend I can't see him anymoh."

"...Boyfriend?!" my dad exclaimed.

"...Boyfriend?!!!" i exclaimed, years later.

"Uh huh," my mom went on, "Foh a while I was dating dis man wis biiig glasses, berry tall, berry white, but berry nice. He wanted to get married, but he couldn't marry me while in his kind obah job, so he quit and said we could stay in uh Korea for a few moh years so I could learn better English befoh we go to dah States."

i stared.

"Yeah. I felt so bad when I broke up wis him. I couldn't eben look him in the face when I did it. But aptahword, when we left dah restaurant, I finally looked up at him, and his glasses were so foggy, and I felt so bad, so I just reached out my hand and gabe him a handshake and said, 'Okay! Bye!' And dat was it. Huh. I wondah where he is now?'"

my dad shook his head.

"Yep. And I bet you regretted it ever since."

"...Maybe. hahahaha."

knowing this doesn't make the fact that both of my parents are sure that i take after my dad at all comforting.

"But look at it dis way," my mother tried to console me, "It's actually lucky you're a lesbian."

"...Why?"

"Girls like nerdy, awkward, shy people moh. Look at me and yoh daddy."