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So you’re pulling the most lesbian move of the century and getting brunch with your ex. As you know, lesbians and their exes stay friends.
Maybe it’s because we value our shared experiences, or because the community is so small, or maybe it just doesn’t make sense to have bad blood between someone you’re going to inevitably run into at IKEA. Most importantly, we aren’t like those terrible straights who put all of their value into the romantic aspect of a relationship without even considering how far relationship technology has come since the days of VH1’s Next.
We can take the people we used to fuck every night, and channel all of that energy into making small talk and drinking overpriced mimosas. We can even call them our “homoplatonic date-mate.” The possibilities are endless! And the reason it works is because homosexuality is inherently good in all instances. We the homoplatonic are much too evolved to have hard feelings about the past, or any feelings at all for that matter, which is why we would absolutely never pull any shady antics during platonic brunch with our date mate.
You wouldn’t even THINK about dwelling on the fact that she lied to your face about that camping trip with her personal trainer, or the fact that she still has your best harness that was custom fit to accommodate your hemorrhoid issue. And to prove how mature and evolved we are, we at AfterEllen have created this handy guide to getting brunch with your ex. As they say in the Golden Girls theme: thank you for being a platonic date-mate. 1. Make up a cooler girlfriend. It isn’t that you want to impress her or anything. That is absolutely not the aim here. It’s just that she is so smug about her new girlfriend and for the benefit of the community (the lesbian one), she needs to be taken down a peg.
Her new girlfriend is pretty much you if instead of a struggling standup comedian, you were someone who “paid taxes” and “didn’t urinate in public.” As intimidating as that sounds, it doesn’t matter because your new girlfriend, Shane McRubyRose…Stein, is a force to be reckoned with.
You met her at Dinah Shore weekend. You were by the pool and got tired of running in slow motion and needed an emergency beverage. She surfs over to you and pulls an ice cold capri sun out of her sports bra-kini and winks at you. Ever since then the two of you have been hanging out at her mansion/skate park listening to ska music and eating Pizza. Don’t forget to mention that her two best friends are Tegan and Sara, and they met you and want you to join their band. They’re even going to rename it Tegan & Sara & Brenda (or whatever your name is). This is what you tell your ex, as you shove another forkful of eggs Benedict in your mouth. 2. Schedule an emergency Nothing brings people together like a good tragedy. Scheduling an emergency opens up many possibilities for you to win favor with your ex. If you can prove that you can keep calm under pressure, she might realize that you are no longer the type of woman who needs to be picked up from furry conventions drunk and dressed up like the hunter from Jumanji because you “just wanted to feel powerful for once.”
A good emergency should be something that highlights one of your skills that she took for granted, for example, smoking weed constantly or eating entire sleeves of Chips Ahoy cookies in a single session (these habits are probably unrelated).
The best way to do this is to pay your friend to throw on a ski mask and rob the restaurant, only to be stopped by a conveniently timed fart, smoke cloud, or whatever else used to result in you sleeping on the sofa. The possibilities are endless. Your ex will remember how useful you are, and there is only an 80 percent chance you will have to spend the night in jail. If the scheduled emergency actually turns out to be too much to handle, scream, “The amulet!” and run off without explanation. She will assume you are solving a better, more magical emergency elsewhere. 3. Imply that you have a terminal illness Guilt can play a large role in a lot of breakups. Sometimes the dump-er is wracked with the question “can they survive without me? Should I have just hidden my needs and stayed anyway for their sake?” Now only a sociopath would in any way shape or form take this common emotion and use it to their advantage. Which is why you are only going to SUBTLY imply you developed a terminal illness after the breakup.
As an expert of subtlety, I can attest that this is no easy task, because making up a new disease that she can’t go Google requires a lot of think power. Thankfully, we at AfterEllen have already crafted some to choose from.
While “bone-constipation” sounds very terminal, it isn’t terminal in a sexy way, which is why we recommend “deep twerking-thrombosis.” Once you have decided on a terminal illness, the performance aspect begins. Go through the menu, and react in very strong and specific ways to each menu item. If you see eggs over easy, quietly mutter “Over easy…but it’s never easy when it’s all over.” If she orders hash-browns, gaze into the distance and exclaim “hashes to hashes…dust to dust.”
Do this until she starts interrogating you about your behavior. Pretend to show restraint and act as though you did not want to tell her this, but it is official, you definitely have deep twerking thrombosis. The twerking has worn down your gluteus maximus tissue, and it is officially in stage 5. When she asks for details, explain vague symptoms while your mouth is full of hash browns. Then you can either throw money on the table and leave, or go on to Step 4. 4. Pretend to be heterosexual for a few minutes At this point, between you making up a girlfriend and coming down with a terminal illness your ex might begin to suspect that you may be in your feelings over her or over the breakup, and the last thing you want her to think is that you’re thinking of what she’s thinking about you.
Essentially, you need a quick means of letting her know you are not interested in her, or any woman. For at least ten minutes, you are going to get your ex to let her guard down and exonerate yourself of any suspected attention-seeking by playing completely straight.
Mid-conversation, order a big plate of sausage. Eat them while making unbreaking eye contact with your ex. Tell her “this feels right.” After your 12th sausage, find the nearest man, and as is customary in a heterosexual romance display, ask him his credit score and recite directions to the nearest Applebee’s. After you have earned his trust, bring him back to the table and inform your ex that you have seen the light (it’s neon and says welcome to Applebee’s), and you are officially a born-again heterosexual. Just to make it even more convincing, ask her a weirdly invasive question like “sooo how do girls even do it?” You can even tell her unwanted facts about your own unsatisfying sex life with your new brunch boyfriend, and that you think it would be so much easier dating women. If you manage to play it straight, congrats, you have dispelled any notion that you are interested in her! All you need to do is convince her that you’re gay again. Step 5: Pretend to rediscover that you’re gay, then come out to her to build trust This is going to be a bit awkward considering you are going to have to get rid of the guy you just brought to the table, but it needs to be done to ensure that you are still available for dating purposes (not that you want to get back together). However awkward this may be, the task itself is quite simple.
Throw a Miller Lite into the parking lot and lock the doors after he runs out, leaving you clear to resume brunch with your ex. You have likely already come out to someone in the past so this time around, make your story super compelling. You can do this one of two ways. You can either play it bi-curious and tell your ex “Brad was always so clumsy, I would love to know what it feels like to be with someone who understands my body,” or you can play the deeply closeted, tortured soul who has known for decades that her carnal desires were dragging her towards “ordering the fish taco.”
Assuming you deliver your coming out speech with enough emotion (think of Ann Coulter being told white privilege exists) you should be in a position where your ex thinks your gay, but might not be gay, but might be dying, and is wondering if Shane McRubyrosestein knows how complicated your life has become. If there is a lesson to be learned here, we at AfterEllen have missed it, and are going to take a bloated after-brunch nap.
Remember kids, always be yourself, unless who you are isn’t that mysterious or impressive, in which case, this guide is reusable for as long as you shall need it.
