Desperately seeking Deb

Last year I endured a brief obsession with my fitness. Needless to say this was a very inconvenient addition to what was an otherwise busy schedule of avoidance, procrastination and sitting around. This meant that at least one to two mornings per week (because I’m too lazy to truly commit myself wholly to anything - even my obsessions) you could find me running around near my house, my course including a tour through a nearby park overlooking the harbour. It was here that my next obsession was born.
In the park was a fence and on the fence were hundreds of padlocks, each with names of couples locking up their love and throwing away the key (combination locks were also present, but don’t have the same romantic sentiment). There was one lonely lock that caught my attention. Her name was Deb* and she was locked to no one but herself. Immediately I saw her in my mind: a butch lesbian not unlike Chastity Bono (Cher’s daughter) or Miranda off Sex and the City’s "wisband" (wife + husband). There were no men in her past, only failed relationships with women seeking someone that Deb could never be. That’s when she realised that she didn’t need another person to love her. She was enough. She loved herself.

Cue Whitney Houston’s “Greatest love”.

Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all

Deb became a sort of hero to me. A pioneer of satisfied solitude. I would bid her good morning each time I ran (which was increasingly less as winter set in), but soon the obsession with early morning fitness and, in turn, her, died.

It wasn’t until this weekend that I remembered her. Her short hair and kind eyes sprung into my mind and I longed to see her once more. I took a little trip out to the park, back to the fence, back to Deb. But to my horror and disbelief, Deb was gone. Unlocked and deleted from her monument of personal love. I can only assume that Deb found love, or died (along with Whitney), her little gold padlock dissolving on the wind with a whisper. Or perhaps she took the lock down when she realised self love doesn’t get you laid and maybe the padlock was sending out the wrong messages to the universe. After all, nothing says chastity like a pad lock…or Cher’s daughter.

But Deb, if you’re reading this, I just want you to know I love you. Padlock or not.



*As I said, even my obsessions are tarnished with laziness and over the year since seeing her I have actually forgotten her name - Deb is just a filler. All I know is it has a very butch ring to it. Something like Myrtle, or Cheryl, or Pauline, or Gertrude etc. I tried Googling “lesbian names” to jog my memory, but it just came up with a string of well known lesbians. Then I typed in “dykey names”, which brought up a selection of derogatory labels. Then I typed in “butch girls names” but it came up with butch boys names and girly girls’ names. It astounds me that the following are considered butch boys names:

Constantine (seriously?)
Sam (androgynous)
Waylon (Smithers)
Santiago (wussy)
Lou (off Neighbours)
Juan Carlos (anyone with two first names is never butch)
Lance (off Neighbours, now on St George and Hungry Jacks ads)
Nicky (girls name)

Or that the following are considered boys names full stop:

Bucko
Butch
Duke
Hud
Jock
Ram
Rebel
Reem
Rip
Stone
Titan

Please, people…these are children, not dogs.





What a tangent. How did we end up here?