There are straight people, and then there are straight people. The straight people I hang around with are only really straight because they happen to sleep with people of the opposite sex. In fact, one of my straight girlfriends puts me to shame with her vast knowledge of the queer events around town. She does drag, which even I haven’t done in nearly a decade, and I believe the entirety of Toronto’s lesbian population is included somewhere in either her or her husband’s address book.

She is an example of a straight woman whom I would have called “queer” back in the 90s when the word was radical and didn’t refer to a bunch of gay minstrels showing men how to dress and decorate properly on TV.

Now while most of my straight girlfriends aren’t donning fauxstaches and dancing before crowds of mesmerised lezzies, they are all so comfortable with their sexualities and with those of their friends that it wouldn’t occur to them to mark some kind of fixed delineation between themselves and the queers with whom they associate on a regular basis.

And I am so used to being around them that I forget where my little bubble ends and that outside of it are the other kind of straight people, the ones who actually watch those minstrels on TV and think they are learning something other than a reinforcement of a stereotype.

So what does this have to do with New Year’s Eve? Nothing; it’s just background.

I spent New Year’s this year with a fabulous bunch of people. Michelle decided to stay home because she hates the holiday and would rather pretend it didn’t exist. She especially hates the kind of New Year’s celebration that involves people getting all dressed up and lining up to get into the most fabulous place in town, so you can imagine why she really didn’t like the idea of joining me in ringing in 2011 at downtown hotspot Brassaii.

So I gathered a few other fine folk to join me in her place, including my date, a fabulous femme fatale defense attorney who doesn’t take it lightly when the dress code calls for fancy. She wore opera gloves. She looked like a smoky dame from a 1940s film noir. In other words, HAWT. I was pleased to have such a splendid woman on my arm, and worried that I might not actually be splendid enough myself to match her, but she didn’t complain.

We stopped for drinks at a friend’s beforehand, and then headed over to Brassaii at around 11:00. When we arrived, there was quite a line out front. I asked a woman in front of us if she already had tickets.

She fairly sneered as she replied, “Yes. We all have tickets.”

Okay then. So I texted Mikey, asking, “Do we really have to stand in this line?”

No sooner had I sent the text than my stunning gay boyfriend and VIP host extraordinaire materialised before me. “Well look who it is!” He called, and turned, saying, “Come on. Follow me.”

I smiled at the woman in front of me in line and let Mike lead our entourage past the crowd and through the gates, the bouncers waving us through at his signal. My friends, who had never had the Chalut treatment before, were significantly impressed. I say, if you’re gonna look like movie stars, you may as well go somewhere where they treat you like one. That’s the reason I keep going back to this place.

Mikey offered us a schwackload of drink tickets, and gave my friends a tour of the place. Inside, it was chaos. Wall-to-wall people, dressed to the nines and moving to the music. We had to work to keep our group together.

Thankfully, it was an unseasonably warm New Year’s Eve, so we got our drinks and headed back out to the patio, where it was a bit easier to breathe. By this time it was near midnight already, so we started our countdown. When the clock struck twelve, we all kissed.

Let me tell you about this kiss for a second, because you have to understand that I am in a committed relationship with someone who just didn’t happen to come out that night. So I kissed my date, and while it wasn’t, I suppose, your straight up, sanitized friend-peck that makes more of a sound than it does a tactile impact, we certainly weren’t sticking our tongues down each other’s throats, either. There was some mild lip intermingling, that’s all. Nothing inappropriate for the sort of friends we are.

But of course, and here is where that background bit about the straight people and the other straight people comes in, as soon as our lips began to intemingle, some douchebag behind me nudged his friend and started bellowing, “Hey, yeah! Girls kissing!” I half-expected him to start beating his chest.

My film noir dame made an eloquent comment about how straight men assume that all displays of affection are made specifically for their entertainment, but all I could come up with was, “Oh my god, the douchebags are out.”

See, this is what I mean about forgetting about those straight people. I hang out with straight folks all the time, and it would never occur to them to leer and/or cheer when my girlfriend and I shared a kiss. These guys were practically drooling. And I am not exactly the kind of gal who makes men drool on a regular basis. It was all about the lez factor.

At any rate, they didn’t seem to like being called “the douchebags,” and took their cue to leave us alone, which was refreshing. We went on with our night and our drinks, until the inevitable moment when someone had to make their way through the crowd to find the bathroom. I let her go without me, but within a few minutes found that the power of suggestion had taken over and I was bound to follow.

If there is one thing I like less than being drooled over by straight guys, it is using the bathroom in a straight bar. I’m a butch dyke. I have been redirected on more than one occasion. I have engaged in some inappropriate behaviours to make my points known about gender…also on more than one occasion.

But biology is biology, and when you have to go, you have to go. My friend and I forged a path through the swarm and into the back bathroom. I saw one or two eyes do a second take at my entrance, but nothing was said. Phew!

However, as I was closing the stall door, I heard someone say, “Hey! Loosen up! Open your mind!” Being fully self-absorbed, I assumed it was a reference to me. It wasn’t, as I was to find out.

When I finished, my friend, who had seen me enter, was waiting for me. She told me that while she had been waiting for me to come out, some girls started dancing seductively together at the precise moment that she had happened to glance over at them. It was to her that those words were directed. And she just shrugged, saying, “Doesn’t bother me!”

Ha! If those women had any clue the kinds of kinks that this particular friend was into, they would probably be asking her not to be quite so openminded as she is. What can I tell you? She’s a dirty, dirty girl.

It’s just weird to me to be around people who think that two women dancing together would be something to raise an eyebrow at, although I am not so far removed from that context that I can’t remember what it was like to be so defensive about it. It’s just been quite some time since I was in that place, and to return to it was something of a head-shaker, like looking at a photo album and realising you grew up in Bizarroland.

Or maybe I live in Bizarroland now, I don’t know.

When we got back from the bathroom, the bunch of us decided it was time to head out of the straight playground and forage for some food. Poutine, to be specific. Brassaii had treated us well for the night, but now it was time to start a New Year off right—with greasy, fried food, topped with improbably delicious fixings.

2011 is looking to be a good year so far.