I Was Almost Outed By My Shirt

My ex-husband has never been much for paying child support. So as a single mom, I have lived on a shoestring budget pretty consistently. I never take my kids out to dinner at a restaurant. We'll occasionally pick up pizza or cheap burgers. But sitting in a restaurant with a server and a real menu? Never.

But once a year my mom takes me and my kids to PF Chang's for my birthday. And it's a big deal. When your kids don't get to eat at restaurants regularly, eating out is a special occasion. It's something we all look forward to.

It's also one of the few times I pay much attention to how I'm dressed. I work from home — in my closet believe it or not. I converted it into a very small office. So the only time I pay much attention to what I wear is when I go out.

But since I realized that I am in fact, a lesbian, my taste in clothes has changed. So I struggle to figure out what to wear. I'm still trying to understand what makes me feel good. What clothes make me feel like ME.

When I was getting ready for my birthday dinner, I had two outfits picked out. One had kind of a 70's vibe with bell-bottom pants and a t-shirt. The other was a pair of brown pants that taper at the ankle with a (technically) men's button-down shirt.

I tried both outfits on for my oldest daughter and we both reached the same conclusion. The brown pants and button down were the way to go.

While I liked the way this outfit looked (and how it felt), it screamed LESBIAN! But I decided long ago that even though I haven't come out to my deeply religious mother, I'm not going to change the way I dress to try to keep her in the dark. If she figures it out, so be it.

Inevitably when we have dinner with my mom, she sits by me. And in a restaurant, that works fine. She and I chat about mostly innocuous stuff while my kids talk and laugh and fully enjoy their restaurant experience.

But as we're opening our fortune cookies, my mom turns to look at me. I could tell she was noticing my shirt.

She noticed I was wearing a men's shirt. She didn’t say it. But I know she knew. 

When I was a kid my mom used to sew most of my clothes. She was really good at it. And once I remember her teaching me how to tell the difference between a men's and women's button-down shirt.

Women are always right and men are leftover.

If you're wearing a women's shirt, the buttons are sewn to the left hand side of the shirt and the right hand side has the button holes. So when you button your shirt, the right side goes over the left (women are always right). And on a men's shirt, the left hand side goes over the right (and men are left-over).

On my shirt, the left hand side went over the right.

I don’t know what sort of mental math happened when my mom noticed my shirt. Sometimes I think that just for a microsecond my mom might have considered the possibility that I'm a lesbian. But since that’s her worst fear, I think she wanted some reassurance.

She looked at me and said, "That's a cute shirt…. Do you ever date?"

It can't possibly be an accident that she asked those two questions in quick succession. She paused in between, but not for long. Here's my theory... She saw the men's shirt and the short hair and the Birkenstocks and the lack of makeup and thought (maybe even subconsciously) "could my daughter be a lesbian?"

Then, overcome by shock and horror, she wanted to reassure herself that it just wasn't possible. She felt the need to be put at ease. She didn't want to come out and ask the questions directly. But maybe if she could ask me something that could help her figure it out, it would make her feel better.

"Do you date?"

Yes, sometimes.

She looked relieved. I imagine she thought, “Well good… As long as she’s dating, I know she can’t possibly be gay.”

Do you suppose it will ever occur to her that my dates might actually be with women?