Tough Love

by Tarte Tatin

One of the hardest things I find about being a lesbian and a feminist – that’s right, a FEMINIST (eek) – is having to hurt other women. I’ve spent many a night comforting my straight girlfriends in club toilets as they bawl their eyes out over some ‘bastard’ and I rattle out the same old hollow clichés: ‘He’s not worth it!’ ‘You’re too good for him!’ ‘Men are wankers!’ Then, as their inky mascara runs down their face and onto my shoulder, they wail: ‘I wish I was a lesbian like you, it would be so much easier!’

Whoa! Stop right there.

Yes, women generally have more empathy than men. We are also less likely than men to get a random girl pregnant down the local boozer. But we are more than capable of being that ‘bastard’. Of course, we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to men, and no doubt we all like to think we’re more emotionally sophisticated than men. But in the past I have been that ‘bastard’ simply because I didn’t love someone back. I’ve also been that ‘bastard’ because knowing exactly how a girl feels can make the situation even worse – and I’ve tried to protect them by hiding the truth. That’s the curse of empathy. And, predictably, on many occasions women have been that ‘bastard’ to me.

Girls can be nasty. Worse than that, girls know exactly how to be nasty. How many girls have you seen bitching on the scene? How many lesbians do you know who cheat relentlessly on their partners? How many times have you been manipulated by a woman? A few years ago, to demonstrate all this to one of my straight friends who was losing faith in men, I took her to a lesbian club. She expected a sea of peaceful, free loving, tree hugging beauties. Instead she was greeted by two brawling women covered in blood and being prized apart by bouncers. They were having a ‘lovers tiff’. This by no means reflects the full spectrum of lesbianism (NB the club was in Sheffield) but it strikes me that women should really know better than to behave like that. Women have, after all, suffered an eternity of suppression and abuse from men. The term ‘sisterhood’ seems inappropriate in this context, but how about a little more effort to be nice to each other?

Over the past decade I’ve had to accept the fact that as an active lesbian it’s almost impossible to avoid hurting women (emotionally… I’m not a wife beater!) In our lives many of us will break a couple of hearts and, in turn, have our hearts broken.

So, if you have to break someone’s heart what can you do to try and be just a little nicer? Here are some tips:

• Always meet her in person – avoiding her will make her angry and a text dump is just pathetic

• Communicate clearly – phrases like ‘you’re too good for me’ or ‘it’s not you it’s me’ are lame and confusing

• Be honest – OK maybe ‘your face repulses me’ is going too far but a little honesty is always a good thing

• Keep it clean – as tempting as it might be to go back for seconds after a few drinks at the weekend…don’t! It will only mess with her head

If you do all of the above then you can sleep soundly knowing that you did the right thing.  But I’m afraid in some cases, there’s just nothing you can do to stop you being a bastard.