Gaydar, Got It?

Remember that scene from the L Word where Shane, Alice and Helena are running around with gaydar guns, seeing if they can figure out Jenny’s orientation? Since then, I’ve always wished I had one of them. I have always, always have crushes on straight women. Always. And I haven’t got gaydar. So, hoping to disprove that theory I took The Gaydar Test. And scored 40%. Which one might think isn’t all that bad, but most of the people on that test were obviously gay. You don’t need gaydar to know that. My ten year old cousin would know.

But to illustrate my problem I’ll give you some stats: I’ve had crushes on seven girls so far, and every one of them’s turned out to be straight. Tragedy. What’s worse- the women that are obviously gay aren’t my type. I don’t mean to stereotype people, but one’s entitled to have a ‘type’, aren’t they? I studied in a college where I met over nine hundred people, out of whom roughly four hundred odd were women. Someone must’ve been gay. After all, WHO studies say that one out of every ten people is gay. Taking into account that we’re not a progressive, western nation lets accept a figure of 5%, which still meant there should’ve been twenty sapphically inclined women. And I couldn’t identify even one. Except me.

Now I’m in Bangalore which is supposed to be one of India’s gayest cities. And I see straight women everywhere I go. So unless we have some Planet kind of place here, my gaydar isn’t going to get any better.

Yes, I know about the tell tale signs- the short hair (and while I fight to prove this wrong, I’m an example), the clothes and the mannerisms. Beyond that I’m clueless. Kiran Bedi is all that, but she’s straight. And married. So I could follow the “signs” and still be stumped. Because I don’t know how to identify a gay women. A friend of a friend looked at a photograph of me and said that she got a “vibe”. I wish she’d tell me what this “vibe” is, so I could identify it when I see it.

So you see, I could be sitting next to a lesbian every day and wouldn’t know it. Do you have Gaydar, dear Gaysis?