After work I am so upset I have no choice but to get shitfaced. I am too scared of rejection to go back to Chez Pierre. So in a moment of extreme desperation, I go to Riverside’s only gay bar, the Purple Parrot, which is always filled with fat gay men with gray hair and beer bellies. I am that desperate. On the walk I pray that I will find a newly bicurious woman who stumbled in by accident.

The bar is dark and mostly empty, with string lights that illuminate purple parrot figurines that hang from the ceiling. A few fat men linger at the bar. I almost walk out, but then I see a girl sitting alone and feel a glimmer of hope. I walk over. I hang my purse on the hook under the bar and sit right next to her. A lot of my female friends, gay and straight, tell me they have trouble approaching people. I’ve never had that issue, which gives me a leg up. I have a harder time keeping people, stopping them from leaving me.

“What are you drinking?” I ask the girl. She turns her head toward me timidly. I can tell she was waiting for someone to talk to her. The cat is in the bag.

“Vodka cranberry,” she says. “Kind of basic, I know.”

God, another millennial. Oh well. At least she probably hasn’t been pregnant before. Her body looks much better than mine, at least what I can see of it under her pink tank dress. This is the great lesbian conundrum. At the same time you’re lusting over a body, you’re also comparing it with your own, hoping it’s not as good. And either way, you lose.

“You know,” I say, inching a bit closer to her, “I don’t mind basic.”

She giggles. “Me neither.” Her lips are full and a little dry. The apples of her cheeks glint under the tea lights.

“I don’t get why it’s an insult,” I say. “Isn’t basic, like, classic? Like Chuck Taylors.”

She removes a foot from under the bar to reveal a black high-top Converse.

“Basic,” I say. “And fabulous.”

“Exactly,” she says. “I’m Naomi.”

It’s a very cool name.

By our third drink, Naomi and I are sitting close and tight in a booth in the back, the rest of the bar completely irrelevant to us. I’m reminded of the night at Jay’s Bar and feel grateful that Steph isn’t here to ruin it. I’m glad I came here alone. Lesbians are not to be trusted. I am not to be trusted.