Am I the worst L Word character?

Watch this if you're even a little bit of a lesbian.

This month marks 20 years since the first series of The L Word first hit screens. Two whole decades since the original (and lessss-be honest, the only) mainstream lesbian drama entered our lives. Bisexual teenage me was mostly straight identifying when it hit screens in 2004, but I remember watching bits of The L Word on my incredibly heavy laptop that had a dodgy streaming service and quite a lot of viruses at uni. Watching The L Word is a part of the queer woman’s syllabus, a rite of passage, a cultural must and a good confirmation of queer tendencies if you’re a bit on the fence about the whole girl-on-girl thing. 

The first job, then, is watching the thing. The second is deciding who you fancy the most. (Carmen, on paper, Shane, in reality. Always Shane.) The third is choosing which character you are (assigning each of your friends with a different character a la Sex & The City / Friends is also advisable if you’re lucky enough to have a brilliant queer friendship group to play with). 

I started rewatching all six series in December right before a Christmas meal with friends and so conversation turned to assigning roles. Everyone secretly wants to be Shane but declares that they see themselves as a Bette or, even better, an Alice. I, myself, see myself as an Alice. A bit bonkers at times, a media-dwelling bisexual and a good friend. At worst, I have a few things in common with Jenny. Mad, mad Jenny. Straight until she wasn’t, a writer (a bad one at that), occasionally too big for her boots. 

IMAGINE MY DISMAY when my friends trolled me with the label of TINA. The least fanciable. The least sexy. Terrible style. Unlikeable. Flaky. Politicising her sexuality at every given opportunity. Single mum. Thinks she is cleverer than she is. Should be cool because of her job and lifestyle but just, somehow, isn’t. Never knows what the hell she wants but is always unsatisfied. 

And yet, I just described myself, exactly, to a tee.

So this latest rewatch of The L Word, armed with this knowledge, was painful. But brilliant as ever. If you haven’t watched it, it’s on Amazon Prime at the moment. 

Shout out to all my queer friends, who all think they’re Shanes and Alices and Bettes. You’re Marinas and Papis and Helenas at best. 

And if my future Bette is reading this, call me. 

PS. Future post(/s, probably lots of them) on dating as a bisexual single mum are coming.

PPS. Take the Buzzfeed quiz if you need help finding out which L Word character you might be.