Ulysses...Come on!

Last night Susan and I attended a theme party held by Lesbigay - the organization we signed up for at the beginning of the semester, thinking, Oh, gay and lesbian groups are always looking for straight allies to help them fight for their rights. We forgot that in South Africa they already have their rights. Still, we thought it would be a fun group to join. As it turns out, they're not the friendliest bunch of people I've ever met. Or maybe they're just wary of Susan and me because we're straight and we ate a large portion of the free pizza at the opening function. Anyway, we have only befriended one Lesbigay member throughout the entire semester. So we figured, hey, it's time to get our 80 rand's worth and go to this party and make some friends.

The theme of the party was to dress as your favorite fictional character. Susan and I were really excited about this. Until we realized that we don't actually have any clothes that would help us to look like our favorite fictional characters. Also we did not know who our favorite fictional characters were. I thought about dressing up like Hester Prynne, but I did not have a puritan-length skirt. Or a scarlet A.

Then Susan and I came up with a great idea. We each had a red dress. And black shoes. We would pick a book that nobody in the world has ever actually read - such as Ulysses, by James Joyce - and say that we were characters from that book. And then when people were like, "What?" we'd be like, "You know...from Ulysses...the Red Twins...with the crazy hair and the...Ulysses! Come on!" Like you'd have to be real stupid not to know what we were talking about.

So after Afrikaans, Susan and I went into the bathroom of the arts building, changed into our red dresses and black shoes, drew asps on our faces and clavicles, made our hair look weird, and headed off to the Mystic Boer.

We paid the 10 rand entrance fee, then stood there in the midst of lots of people - male and female - dressed in underwear and fishnets. We felt very awkward. And anxious. I do not do well in groups of more than five people. Especially if I don't know them. I do not like making new friends. Really, going to the party was probably not a good idea at all. But we really wanted the chance to say "Ulysses...come on!" to someone. So we went up to a girl dressed as Heidi and her friend who was dressed as...whatever Heidi's boyfriend's name is. Heidi asked us who we were supposed to be.

"Oh, we're the Red Twins. From Ulysses," we said.

"Cool," said Heidi.

Clearly someone hasn't read Ulysses. And doesn't want to admit it.

So we moved on. I wanted to go home. But Susan said we had to stay until we'd made at least three new friends. So we had excruciatingly awkward conversations with Holly Golightly, the Playboy Bunny, and a caveman named Johann.

But we still hadn't had a chance to say "Ulysses...come on!" to anybody.

Then, a man came up to us, dressed in normal black clothes.

"Are you people?" he asked us.
"What?" we replied.
"Are you with the people?"
"Are we with...what people?" we asked.

This went on for approximately ten minutes, before the man finally said:

"Do you like guys or girls?"

"Ohhhhhh. Guys."

"Okay. I just wondered. It's so hard to tell sometimes."

"So who are you dressed as?" Susan asked.

"Fictional Character," said the man.

"Any particular one?" Susan asked.

"Fictional Character," replied the man.

"Cool," we said.

"And who are you?"

"We're the Red Twins. From Ulysses."

"From what?"

I could tell this was going to be our window of opportunity. "Ulysses. By James Joyce. We're the Red Twins..."

He wasn't saying anything. I knew it was now or never. "Ulysses," I said. "Come on!"

And I realized that, if you say something like that to someone you don't know, it doesn't sound like you're pal-ing around - it just sounds rude. Like you think the person's really stupid for not sharing your pretended wealth of literary knowledge. This guy did not walk away from us. He slid. Like, "Okay, I'm just gonna sliiide over here and..." He was gone.

So Susan and I went home.

I think it was one of those ideas that just sounded better in theory than in practice. Like communism.