I see you

Queers and weirdos can spot me a mile away and for some I’m a safe space to gush about a secret girlfriend or the good old “I see you, you see me” homo head nod.  The speakeasy undertones of my queer existence are so badass, I love the code-switching and the acknowledgment of my existence from others like me.

An article popped up the other day and this bit jumped out at me. It's a great article - nuanced and perceptive and far-reaching - and there's a lot of it that I can relate to. Words for clothes aren't always foolproof, so I don't know if leggings are the same thing as skinny jeans (they could be jeggings, which I think are slightly different?), but I definitely get the point. Figure-hugging bottoms, whether they be skinny jeans or jeggings or 'yoga pants' or (good lord) meggings, can be a minefield to navigate gender presentation in. Luckily for me, I live in a city where people of all genders and sexualities wear the stupid things, and that's probably why it wasn't a huge deal for me when I bought my first ever pair last summer. I loved them (I have two more pairs now) although that much figure-hugging took some getting used to. Angsty little queer that I am, I can make a big deal out of anything, particularly clothing, so you know skinnies can't be that much of an issue if my main takeaway is "super comfy, great for drawing attention to amazing shoes and colour-pop socks, and I can get away with wearing them at work".

(Who ever thought I'd care about socks and how they go with my outfit? Amazing.)

Anyway. My point (I don't really have one) is the quote above. ""I see you, you see me" homo head nod." Now, I'm not a homo, but that head nod? I am all about that. Luckily for me (again) I live in a city that's full to the brim of queers of various stripes, and god, sometimes I live for that head nod. There's zero queerness in my new industry, but out and about at lunchtime and in the evenings, we're everywhere. Yesterday I shared a bench outside a coffee shop with one of them, and although we didn't even really look at each other, and not a word was said, that fleeting moment as our eyes met when I got up to go was unmistakeable.

You know that moment of fizzing connection you feel when you flirt with a stranger? Not flirting like witty repartee and flipping your hair, but flirting like an extra moment of eye contact or a slight smile across a room? Recognition. A secret, sparkling pulse of promise. It's like that, but quieter. Comfortable, and comforting. Recognition - allyship. I got you.

I love being a safe space for the secret-girlfriend-gushing, or the "so, how do you know you're ... ?" tentative push for understanding, but what I love most of all is the quiet camaraderie of the homo head nod. I got you. We're here.