My Coming Out: Green Line Turned Me Pansexual

It is a typical Sunday, you wake up slightly very hungover, but there is work to be done. It is the one day of the week where you can shed the snakeskin of Reformation jeans and Tank Air top. On this glorious Sunday, wear your bestest greyest sweatpants, wide leg, trailing down, lowest rise possible; put your hair up in a bun, resist the temptation of a slick back; wear this big Penn hoodie you love, you are part of this collective, accept it; but make sure to sling your Goyard over your shoulder — something still has to prove your wealth and lack of taste. Onto the shoes, it’s a weekend day remember, no Vejas, no Golden Gooses. The UGG Tasman, yes, perfect. 

But, who knows, maybe on this Sunday, you will realize the outer layers mean nothing, the way you present yourself to the world has nothing to do with your true being. 

So you realize, you were able to shed your superficial materialistic skin this morning (to the best you could). Yet again, you can do it, detach from the material, stop giving power to those constructs, the social, the political, the sexual. So you decide to make a change, instead of Pret, you go to Green Line Café. In this unfamiliar environment, with unfamiliar people, faces, clothes, jewelry, you fail to pick up on the signals. Perhaps there are none. 

At this Green Line, on 43rd and Baltimore, the unfamiliar consumes you, you cannot simply sit there and do your readings; the words are hazy now and all you can focus on is your barista crafting this lavender oat milk latte. Zoom in on the forearm tattoos and the rings adorning the long slender fingers, you notice bare short nails, the oversized outfit masks all curvatures that a body could have. Another person walks by, you scan them up and down, petrol-blue linen pants and a pamplemousses-pink tank top — you didn’t know clothes this color could be worn; navy blue and grey are the only colors allowed, no? Examine more closely, a certain déhanché that confuses you further, a wide smile with a labret, doe eyes with teal eyeliner on the lower lash line, who is this person? Your eyes now shift to the next person walking by, intriguing curly hair curtained from their angular face with a turquoise bandana — you didn't know people could do hair like that. A pendant hanging down their neck, shiny and enticing, but nothing you can assign to any designer you know, an aesthetic you cannot put a label on, what genre is this? You desperately look for patterns, signs, and symbols, anything. What is this place, with nothing to help you attach to the material, and everything urging you to go beyond it? Accept it now, people are hot and that is it. You are pansexual.