The story of my going to restaurants, it is a story about “coming of age”
I never was a big fan of going out to eat, especially by myself. I mostly didn’t go out to eat because of my parents, the only time that I went out to dinner with them or my family, and (like children everyone) I was embarrassed to go out to dinner with my parents. It wasn’t until I started going out as Diana that I enjoyed dinning out. However, it was a very rocky road at first.
The first time that I went out to dinner as Diana was with the Connecticut Outreach Society, to a dinner at the Gold Roc diner in West Hartford. I was very nervous and the directions that they send said to go into the diner, turn left and go all the way to the end and turn right. Well I did, head down, pocketbook tucked under my arm, I march right down there and looked up and no one was there! I sat down, not looking around, just staring at the table and when the waiter came over, he said, “I think the group that you want is over there!” I looked to where he was pointing and all my friends were sitting there giggling, I walked right past them, not seeing them. Sheepishly, I got up and walked over to them.
The next time I went out to diner, it was also with COS, this time to the Pond House in Elizabeth
Park, this time when I arrived I looked around the room and saw them sitting over in the corner. I walked over and took a seat with my back to the restaurant, so that no one could see my face and I didn’t have to see all the people staring at us. Another time at the Pond House was right after I gave my nephew a bright yellow ski jacket that I no longer wore. I walked in to the restaurant and there was a kid sitting at another table with his back towards me, wearing a ski jacket that looked just like the one that I gave away… panic! I ending up sitting with my back to them. When I came out to the family, I learned that my nephew never went to the Pond House, so as usual, I worried for nothing.
We use to have a word that we used to denote a safe place to go, “Trannitized” as in, “Oh that restaurant is safe to go to, I trannitized them last week” and it was a major concern at that time in my life about where the safe places were to go. I worried about going to a place for the first time, would they throw us out? Would they laugh at us? Over time I learned that my fears were groundless, that all places don’t really care if you are trans, they are just interested in the color of your money (that is not to say that there are not any places that discriminate, there are, but I have not found any that discriminated against me. Close, but no cigar. I had to stare down a woman at the door of a lesbian bar in Ogunquit. She finally said, well I guess it is OK for you to come in and she took my $5 cover charge)
Now I go to any restaurant that I want, I still hate to eat alone, but I always did. I like to have a good meal with good friends.
My blog entries are cross posted to Facebook
You won't have to eat alone tonight!
ReplyDeleteThat is what inspired this topic.
ReplyDeleteOh, how we were afraid to go out in public, I use to quake in my shoes at the thought of going into a restaurant.