It's Legal Now

I've been meaning to tell this story for some time now.

Towards the end of last year, I learned about a mentorship program through a local nonprofit and I just knew that I needed to sign up for it.

In order to do that, I needed to get fingerprinted at the police department. The day that I went in, I happened to be wearing the ring that LaVa gave me for Christmas.

It isn't a diamond ring and I wasn't wearing it on my left hand. These details will be important in about five seconds.

The city where I work uses police volunteers to do the fingerprinting. So I was dealing with an older gentleman - probably in his late 70s.

As he was dipping my fingers in ink and pressing them onto the paper, he was making conversation. On the fourth finger he asks me, "who made you that ring?"

Me: It was a Christmas gift from one of my girlfriends.

Him: Oh. What did you get her?

Me: Umm. I can't actually remember.

Him: I guess it wasn't very meaningful. Are you guys serious?

All of the sudden I realize that he thinks I said that my girlfriend gave me the ring. There's no way I can get out of this now. And certainly no way to tell him that I got LaVa a sleep shirt that says, "The Snuggle is Real."

By this point we are on to the second hand and I'm hoping that we can get out of this conversation before it gets any deeper.

Wishful thinking.

We sit down to finish the paperwork and he keeps asking questions. Do we love each other? Are we going to get married? You know that's legal now?

I tell him that, no, we aren't getting married. He asks why. Then says, "you're not sure yet, are you?"

Exactly! I'm not sure I am an actual lesbian, Sir! I told you that one of my girl.space.friends. got me this ring. Not my actual girlfriend.

Of course, I didn't say that. I just smiled. Then he asks, "is your family ok with it?"

We were so close to being done. I just said that they were. Though when I left there and called Match to relay the story to her, I decided that I should have started crying and said, "no. I haven't been able to tell them."