The QLP Questionnaire: Natalia Weaver
"This persistent belief that I am settling for a woman because I can’t get a man is hilariously wrong and laughable..."
Did you struggle to find love? Or maybe you had a difficult time making it work in a same-sex relationship or outside the typical heteronormative parameters that dominate our culture and have lessons to share? Since most LGBTQ+ people don't have many role models to help us learn what it means to put ourselves together, we invite you to take “The Queer Love Project Questionnaire” and share your distinctive experiences so that others might learn from them. Email us at QueerLoveProjectSub@gmail.com to find out how you can participate.
I’m Natalia, and I am currently completing my final semester at the New School as a Culture and Media major. I have a strong love for screenwriting and post-production. Passionate about amplifying marginalized voices through film, I aim to challenge current perceptions of Mexico in Western media, while also highlighting and bringing awareness to cultural themes.
I am currently working on a series with my best friend highlighting the experiences of queer Black and Brown girls growing up in a predominantly white Y2K America, here is the link so you can support the project!
What is your age, where in the world do you primarily live, where did you grow up?
I am currently 22 years old. I have lived in New York City for the last three years, and I grew up in the suburbs of Orange County, CA.
How do you define yourself on the LGBTQ+ spectrum?
I go back and forth between lesbian and queer: The labels honestly overwhelm me as I have previously dated men but did not feel as romantically involved with them in comparison to my experiences with women. Because of that, however, I have received backlash for using the term lesbian. And there was a certain type of love there that I don’t want to deny? I don’t know, it’s all weird. So it’s a matter of: I know I like women and want to end up with a woman and really can’t say the same about men, which is very “lesbian” of me. But to have been with men and with the belief that sexuality is fluid, can I still call myself that?
What is your relationship status?
Dating longterm (2+ years).
Do you have an “ideal” relationship status?
Married some day.
What is the biggest misconception about being single or in a relationship?
That life becomes easier (when in a relationship)—attachment is hard. Recognizing what actions towards your partner is being influenced from childhood and previous relationships is hard. Also, as a result of growing up in an extremely homophobic environment, there are times where I have to break down internal barriers with my girlfriend. Even in New York City, one of the most progressive cities in the world, I sometimes still have to silently remind myself that there is nothing wrong with wanting to hold my girlfriend's hand or express affection just because we are two girls.
When was your first intimate moment (holding hands, kiss, etc.)? Was it with someone you liked? Did you feel pressured into it?
At church camp at 12 years old, I was dared by the boy my friend liked to kiss him. I was very anxious but played cool and acted as if I had kissed lots of boys before (in actuality I was writing lesbian Heathers fan fiction in my church journal earlier that day between Heather Chandler and Veronica). I felt happy he liked me and, on some twisted level, wanted to kiss me instead of my friend(s) who liked him. When we left the church camp, he invited me to the mall a week later. I begged my parents to let me go and was granted permission (under the conditions that my dad takes me and stays around the mall with my sister). At some point on the date, the boy wanted to kiss me again on a bench and I was absolutely repulsed at his effort and did not let him. We did not work out. (Fun fact: my first girl-kiss ended up technically being his next girlfriend. Long story and, yes, we all went to the same church.)
How would you define love? Is it the thing you work at for a long period of time? Or is it the strong feeling you feel for someone right from the beginning for no reason?
Love is a commitment for sure, but I also think it is a feeling of love that needs to be fueled in order to truly value and work at that commitment. It scares me how easy it is for some people to fall in and out of love, but at the same time if it’s really that easy was the love ever real to begin with? I don’t know. I wish I had a clearer sense of what love is, but I feel as though it’s something I have far too much and too little experience with at the same time.
Does the relationship fill your deepest needs for closeness with a person? Or do you prefer not to share every part of yourself?
I definitely categorize and very seldom show all of myself in my intimate relationships due to fear of rejection or lack of care. The boys I dated told me I was like a robot with them, while in contrast I can be argumentatively overemotional and over-invested when in a relationship with a woman. I hope to get better at that one day, or feel safe enough with somebody to do so, but I can’t tell if that stems down needing to actively look for that or if it has a lot to do with me and my own issues. Because it is something I have struggled with with every partner I have been with (and I have dated very different types of people throughout my life)
When did you come out to family, friends and others for the first time?
In fifth/sixth grade after Teen Beach Movie came out. I told my lifelong religious friend at an amusement park, “I am as straight as that crack on the floor.” I was so fucking terrified I could hear my heart in my ears.
“Um... It’s not straight; it’s crooked...”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
While she didn’t shun me or ridicule me, she did seem a little uncomfortable and caught off guard. I don’t think I explicitly came out again to anyone after that. (Fun fact: we don’t speak or anything, but she is a lesbian today!) Eventually, two to three years later, my parents found out through reading messages with my first girlfriend.
Did you have any LGBTQ+ role models as a child or teenager? What do you remember about images of same-sex or queer relationships or messages you gleaned?
I had a shrine of Rowan Blanchard and Chloe Moretz growing up—partly because I was enamored with both celebrities and had huge crushes/both were huge advocates of feminism but also because I knew something about the both of them was gay. I include them because while they were not out growing up, both celebrities have since come out as openly queer (Chloe Moretz has been engaged to a woman for years!!! I fucking knew it!)
I did not have any outright LGBTQ+ role models, but I found a safe haven and comfort in the internet. I saw that other people were shipping girls x girls and boys x boys the way I was within mainstream heterosexual movies and found solace within that. I would make/watch fan edits and write/read fan fiction of these fictional queer love stories in order to feel seen in some type of way by my favorite media/characters. I knew gay people were out there but found more comfort in this for some reason (rapunzel x merida were one of my favorites)
“She Keeps Me Warm” by Mary Lambert was pretty big for me, as well as “Same Love” by Macklemore. I would get in fights with my parents over keeping the radio on whenever it played in elementary school.
In middle school, “Take Me to Church” by Hozier was on repeat for me. I remember people were so angry about the music video, but it just made me so heartbroken and distraught that people could still have hatred and homophobic comments after witnessing such a gruesome depiction of a hate crime.
“When Girls Like Girls” by Hayley Kiyoko came out in 2015—literally so huge and insane because two former Disney stars were playing lesbians and neither died at the end of the music video—my entire world shifted.
Are there any pivotal pop culture moments that you credit for teaching about love and/or relationships (this can be songs, TV shows, books, movies, etc.)
But I’m A Cheerleader!!! Corny choice but truly was the first lesbian movie I watched that showed me that everything I was feeling and desiring was achievable. But it would come with the cost of being honest with myself. Also broke down the feelings of compulsive heterosexuality so well.
Do you have a Chosen Family?
Not an entire family but a selective few chosen family members, yes
What is your relationship with your biological family (if any)?
Rocky but good and could be a lot worse/nonexistent with the things I went through growing up due to their homophobia. My mom is finally coming to terms with the fact I am likely to end up with a woman after 10 years, but the fact that it is so hard for her to accept even now still stings greatly. On some level, I just want my relationships to be celebrated the way my siblings' straight relationships are, rather than just tolerated or something that has to be dealt with. You would think I would have come to terms with that by now, but it’s still hard, and I feel it likely always will be.
What do you (did you) like about dating as a LGBTQ person? What do/did you dislike?
The culture and the level of understanding. I do think my emotions can feel more intense in my relationships with women—which at times I like, but also on some level can very much dislike.
Has race, ethnicity or cultural differences been a factor in who you seek out?
Yes, I dated only white people the majority of my time in Orange County (to be more specific—white boys).
Have you had any difficulties dating or finding/keeping a relationship?
Yes. I have dated about five people seriously, but two of those were very short, yet somehow also the ones that affected me the most (with exception of first gf, but that was the longest relationship except for my current one). I am very good at projecting an image I want to see on other people, no matter how undeserving or inaccurate it is, and being absolutely shattered when it inevitably doesn’t work out. This is neither fair to me nor to my partners.
What’s the most surprising thing you have learned about relationships from your perspective?
Taking space or time apart is not terrible or indicative that you aren’t in love with each other enough or anything like that. If anything, it can be incredibly helpful as it is super easy to fall into codependency.
Have you experienced heartbreak?
Yes!!! Yesssss! From nearly every relationship when it’s over—man or woman. I think that’s why I get scared about using the label lesbian, but I hate losing people and wish I just stayed friends with a lot of them looking back (specifically the boys I was with) because I did cherish them as best friends and connected with them regardless of how we ended up. I grieve losing everybody in my life I was once close with, and I still don’t understand how you can go from such intimacy to becoming unrecognizable or nonexistent to each other. And I think that’s why I struggle to define love properly. I have loved all kinds of people throughout my life in all kinds of ways—but more often than not it wasn’t expressed in the way or through the dynamic it should have been to begin with.
I will never understand going from knowing somebody so intimately to being complete strangers—or at times enemies. How is love so fleeting and how is losing that—in any capacity (friends, lovers, etc.)—something that you can never prepare yourself for, no matter how many times you have experienced it? And you just have to continue on and try to love anyways, even though you literally can never be the exact same as you were before them? Actually sooooo fucking terrible. David Foster Wallace wrote: "Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it."
How would you term your sexual relationship with your primary partner? Has that changed over time?
Yes, it was very consuming at the beginning. (At one point, we both were worried it was too often.) Definitely more infrequent now. Lesbian bed death is a term I heard about once—never believed it. I still don’t really know how I feel about sex or how often that should be in order to be considered healthy or normal.
Our relationship has developed into something new thanks to the comfortability and familiarity we have built over the last two years together. And I really do love that and the fact that it’s a smaller role in how we show love to each other because in other relationships I have been in I have felt used or only really wanted for sex—which isn’t necessarily true but can be easy to internalize if the relationship is mainly hypersexual.
Still, I think most people still have a yearning to feel desired and yearned for. And I love when I am able to express myself with sex and feel no shame in being intimate with a woman I love—something that's taken me actual years to overcome without feeling perverted or weird. I’m not really sure how to go about that at this point— whether this has transitioned into more of a want instead of a need or if I am convincing myself of that, as I have never reached this level of comfortability or have been with somebody for this long before.
Also, maybe it's just me, but I feel nobody ever wants to admit or ask about sexual activity or being pursued because it feels transactional and defeats the whole initial purpose of desire? Idk. Probably need to work through that one.
Do you have any moments of joy, happiness or pleasure that you can share about being in a same-sex or queer relationship?
Growing up, my happy same-sex moments were entangled with the sadness of reality. I remember how giddy I felt after my first real kiss at my homecoming dance (I missed out on homecoming pictures with my friends before because I had to tell my parents my then-girlfriend would not be there in order to go). During one of the best dates I have ever had in my life (years later at the same mall as first date with a boy), I had to pause to take a picture of a stranger to send to my parents in order to lie about who I was with. My first consensual sexual experiences had to be in the gender neutral bathroom at school because my girlfriend and I were really only able to consistently be together during school hours.
Because of that, being able to simply exist and live my adult life in a queer relationship brings a level of joy I never thought I would get to have. I don’t have to hide, I don’t have to lie or scheme or hate myself. Being gay isn’t something I try to hide or change. Simply getting the life I always pictured for myself as kid (living in New York, getting to hang out with my dog and girlfriend as I pursue film) is something that brings me such immense joy even through the bad times within that. Because for most of my life living this way is something that I felt was so impossible and out of reach. I would dream of a world where I could be myself without struggle or having to defend anything. And now this is just my life. Simply getting to cuddle with my girlfriend in a warm bed, wake up next to her, having that be my normal; it’s so rewarding and liberating in itself.
Are there any things that standard heterosexual relationships have that you feel are out of reach or that you wish you had or could achieve?
I hate to say it, but yes. When I was dating boys in high school, there was a level of normalcy I felt with friends and family. I think because I am in a lesbian relationship, it can either be taken less seriously by people and you can easily feel out of place when you are in a room with straight couples. Not always—but even in high school I could sense how being in a straight relationship positively altered people’s perspective on me or deemed me as desirable versus a gay relationship.
In ninth grade, I actually had a white boy ask me if I was gay because no guys would date me. I responded to him that my first kiss was a boy, and I’ve had a boyfriend before and he just made a face implying he didn’t believe me. This persistent belief that I am settling for a woman because I can’t get a man is hilariously wrong and laughable by the way, and I internalized this conversation heavily back then, but now can see he was just a jerk playing a weird game. But it's something that a lot of gay women are accused of. Boyfriend=more desirable. GF=you must can’t find a boyfriend.
Have you ever been in a polyamorous relationship or would you like to be in a situation that doesn’t involve just two people?
No. Maybe if I was the third for a one-time situation. I just know I have way too much jealousy to deal with that as one of the partners in the relationship.
Are you married? Have you ever wanted to be? Explain why and what your hopes, dreams and journey has been like.
No. I go back and forth on if marriage and/or kids are meant for me. I would love to have a wedding/big party. But I have witnessed so much stress with marriage, so many people staying out of loyalty rather than a true need or desire to be together. This is something I have struggled with throughout my life already without a ring, so I worry how the pressure of marriage could impact me. But, at the same time, I would love to be so sure about somebody and have somebody so sure about me that those concerns seem so minimal in retrospect. (But I am also currently 22, so I think I will have those concerns regardless for at least a few more years.)
Have you had a difficult time navigating the “roles” you should play in a relationship?
Yes. I am already a people pleaser in my daily life, so when I am dating women I can easily fall into the “boyfriend” role and in that process overextend myself with time, resources, etc., and forget that I also value feeling cared for and attended to and should be paying attention if I’m even receiving what I need from my relationships at all.
What is your philosophy about relationships?
It’s shifted so much. Growing up, watching my parents stay together through so much turmoil. I used to think that any two people could make it work if they are willing. I don’t necessarily feel the same way anymore. I think any two people can make something work if they are willing to sacrifice themselves/their needs to some extent.
I think compromise is normal in relationships—but there are people in the world you will have to compromise more with and less with. It’s up to you how to navigate that as a couple. I have also seen the ways my parents lift each other up. So while it may be difficult, I know it's not impossible and sometimes it’s worth it.
Any good/bad advice you received from a friend or queer elder?
“Just fuck a girl from Tinder!”
Any advice you’d give to someone younger than you who thinks it’s impossible to find love?
Honestly, I am not sure. I wish I had more profound thoughts, but I have friends in my life who have never kissed or dated anybody, and I worry anything I say sounds condescending. But I would say to not stress it—there is beauty in relationships but also such beauty in being able to be comfortable and happy within yourself. So when the relationship comes along, you are the best partner and person you can be within that dynamic. (Or for yourself/friends/family!!! Because romantic love is not everything.) I think, even though I am currently in a relationship, this is still something I really need to work on for myself.
Find out more about how you can support Natalia’s creative project.
BONUS:
We all need more inspiration. Recommend something that influenced or helped shape you significantly that you’d recommend to someone else.
Book: Perks of Being a Wallflower
TV Show: Sex Education
Movie: Perks of Being a Wallflower, But I'm A Cheerleader, Heathers (Because Heather Chandler and Regina George from Mean Girls were both lesbians in my brain.)
Song: “Angels on the Moon” by Thriving Ivory; “Empty/ Miserable America” by Kevin Abstract (both songs are insane)
Play, Musical, Other Cultural artifact: The Last Of Us DLC (The video game included Ellie and Riley, the first canon lesbian couple I became obsessed with at 10 years old through Pewdiepie gameplays.)