The Adventures of a Dutch Dyke - 1. Chapter 1 - Introduction

I grew up in this small village in The Netherlands. And by small, I mean about 8500 inhabitants. Growing up I never worried about not being able to get married, not getting a health securence or getting fired just because I was gay. I grew up thinking being gay happens only in the city's and therefor I could not be gay.

They just didn't exist in our village. Later on I would figure they do, but just not as openly and proud. 'Act normal, then you'll be crazy enough' is the saying everyone knows and lives. It might sound weird but all girls in here have long (natrual) blond hair and they rarely put it in a ponytail. That was one of the things I was different in. And knowing that, seeing a girl with short hair for the first time made me go crazy. I saw tatu, with all the things she said on tv.

Thoughts and warm feelings enterd my mind but I never let them come further then that. I didn't want to be excluded and not normal so I instantly condemned her. That was around the age of twelve and I was just going to high school. (our school system is diffrent)

My village isn't really religious. We have a beautiful church and only recently I started to appreciate our pastor for being so open-minded. He held a beautiful ceremony for a lesbian girl who passed away. Most people only go to church on religious celebrations, baptisms and funerals. Next to that, in my village and all the villages around it, people never talk about their feelings. Which off course has a lot of downsides. Drinking is a huge problem here. At the moment of writing, when you are 16 you're legally aloud to drink 'light' alcoholics drinks like beer and wine. As soon as you're 18 you can drink nearly everything but for the strongest of them all. (which are like 5) Drugs can be a problem here but as far as I know only at hardcore music part people use coke and pills. And since I never go there, I haven't seen it being used by someone. (until I went to London)

The other downside of not talking about your feelings is killing yourself. The trend is being hit by the train. Since we only have one railroadtrack and apart from a single bus, for students it's the only way to get to the city's where we study, it's really shitty if someone jumps in front of it again. Not to mention what it does to you, if you know that person.

But, back to the past. I was not knowingly closeted all five years of high school. I had a lot of moments of unwanted feelings, but I interpreted them as 'I must be in need to have a big sister'. There are only a few people who saw it on me before I did but I just ignored them. There are a few of those moments I can remember. One of them was with a friend of mine who had a sister who was also a lesbian. I was really interested in how that could happen. And that friend was the only one who questioned my new relationship with his male best friend. After telling him I was seeing his best friend made a note which goes like 'but I thought you were..well never mind'. I asked him what he meant but he didn't want to say it. It annoyed me so much I rememberd it.

Next was a women at my Saturday job. Instead of working with tulip bulbs like everyone else, I was working in a warehouse magazin. I didn't have much friends in there but there was this new girl in there, stereotype lesbian, big (as in fat, sorry if you read this and you think this is you) and really short hair. I made one friend over there, Anne and we had to clean paths together. But before we had to do that I talked to the new girl. Apparently I was either the only one, or she thought I liked her because after two minutes of cleaning she was standing next to us telling me about her gunnypigs collection. I hated those animals, but instead of telling her that, I mentioned my sister had them. At a certain point she was only talking to me and I was starting to feel uncomfortable. That feeling of that someone wants something of you more than friendship.My boss came round and told me I had to go clean in another path, I was happy but I never saw her again after that. If I’d meet her again and if she’d recognize me I want to thank her, because she had kicked the wall I carefully built around my feelings for girls.

I had lots of ups, but mostly downs with friends in High school and so after passing my exams I was going on a holiday with my parents. And thats where I met my first ‘most beautiful girl in the world.’ I never dared to speak to her so I just sort of stalked her. (aka gave her weird looks) At the end of the week we all played a football match together as stupid as it might sound I rembemerd I bumped in to her. Weeks later I was dating this perfect guy. He had everything I could wish for, he was good looking, he could cook and he was a nice kisser. But this one day we were sitting in his room and we started to kiss and it just didn’t feel right. I kept on thinking about the girl from the holiday so I broke up with him and drove home, not knowing what to do. I told my parents I wasn’t dating him anymore and went up to my room and started to cry.

I was in a fight with myself, I didn’t want to be gay. My world was shattered. I didn’t like my study so I had to quit university and the only friends I had left weren’t there for me. So I worked fulltime for the warehouse and tried to figure out what I wanted to study in six months time. That was the point where I nearly gave up life, being just 19 years old. I planned everything, wrote letters to my parents and said goodbye to everyone. But I couldn’t. There was still something inside me that wanted to live so I waited until life became better. And it did.

I went online to a forum, found a college and ended up in a class with all weirdo’s. My fulltime job became a saturday job again and I found out that one of my old classmates was gay too and she was going to work there. In the meantime I found some people I could spend my lunchbreaks with, we became friends and partied in the weekends. We planned to go on a holiday together. Everything was good.

But then the day came that I found out that two of the people at the forum turned out to be the old classmate and her girlfriend. I felt lonely again because we weren’t such good friends and I couldn’t imagine that happening. I stopped posting but made the mistake of making a photo in her presence and then using it as my profile picture. Together with another female friend of that group they forced me out of the closet. If I wouldn’t tell my parents, they would. In the meantime they told all my friends so I started thinking about suicide again.

I wrote a letter to my parents telling them I was gay and went a on a weekend with my new classmates. It was raining and I was one of the few people who brought an umbrella. An excellent idea because everyone wanted to be under my umbrella, so I met a lot of people. Including this guy who was bi-sexual and when he asked me how I was doing I just bluntly told him I just came out to my parents and that I was dead nervous about what they thought. He laughed and congratulated me with my coming out. I told him that it was the first time I ever said it out loud and he felt honoured.

After that life was oke. My parents were oke, my friends were oke and I met a few people online which I went to gay parties with. Those people stopped going at a certain point so I got back online. There I saw a status update of someone I met a few years before. She was a big fan of Dexter so we talked about it. During these three years I created this game called ‘Spot de Pot’ which littarly means ‘Search the dyke’ and had found one at my college. Which offcourse turned out to be her girlfriend. She told me I had to go and say ‘hi’ to her the next day in college. So I did. I was extremely nervous but it was one of the best things I did in my life. She was smoking with her classmates and I walked awkwardly towards her. When I was in front of her I said “Hi’. She looked at me with her eyebrows lifted, paused to make the moment even more uncomfertable for me and said ‘Hi?’ and looked at her friends. That was the moment I turned around. I wanted to run but that would look even more awkward so I just increased my pace. I looked at my supporters, two classmates who came along, lifted my shoulders and raised my hands, said something like ‘awkward’ and forced them to walk with me.

That moment she realised who I was and ran towards me shouted ‘Hey hey’. When she was in front of me she apologised and introduced herself. From that moment on we sometimes walked together from the station to college and became really good friends.