Brae. A gay woman's tale!

Me and Lea at Inbetweeners 80’s night

In the lesbian world when a relationship ends you sometimes feel a bit isolated or alone.   For many this is a trying time and when the reality of being “on your own” hits you do realise that sometimes you have to get out there and meet new people.

I found myself in this position when a long term relationship of 8 years broke up.   I had friends but they were long standing friends of many years and most of them lived down south.   Locally I was alone when it came to lesbian friends.      A friend of mine told me about a woman’s group that she had set up in Edinburgh, Rubyfruits, that met on a weekly basis, so after a few weeks of doubting whether I wanted to walk into an established group on my own, I plucked up the courage to go through to a meeting.    It was the right decision at the right time for me.   I have met and formed great friendships over the last three years and through Rubyfruits I then discovered a group in Dundee, Outskirtsocial, where I have met other friends.   These groups are designed to bring women together to socialise, organise events and make friends and work extremely well for women of all ages.

The events are varied and frequent.  We have bowling, walking, barbecues, theatre and cinema nights, camping, weekends away, disco’s and general shenanigans!

I live in Fife and realised that there was nothing that worked in the same way as these groups so I decided to set up Fife Inbetweeners (Inbetweeners because we are between Edinburgh and Dundee).   Last weekend we celebrated our first anniversary of the group with an 80’s night.

It was lovely to sit there and see friends, who without the groups, I would probably have never met… it was also lovely to sit back and see that through Inbetweeners we now have 1 engaged couple and a new romance blossoming.   For such a small group of women (sometimes we total 20 in number) this is a great wee record!

Romance is NOT the main purpose of the groups, but a lovely addition to the friendships we build.

All the groups have had their romance stories (I even managed a very short one myself!) but the main purpose is friendship, support and a bliddy good laugh now and again.

After visiting friends in Romania I realise how lucky we are in the UK to have such freedom over our sexuality and how open we can be about it.    I have friends in Romania who have to live such a sheltered, closeted life that they have no other lesbian friends at all.   They have to stand alone and fight for their relationship and their love and they have my utmost respect for how they have done this.

One day my friends will visit and I will show them how we enjoy our friendships over here, I think they will be stunned at how easy it is.

If you are in Scotland and would like to know more about lesbian groups in your area please let me know .. I know of groups in Fife, Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow and can put you in contact with the right people.

Do not sit alone and let life pass you by, get out there, make friends and learn to laugh again!