Sometimes I feel I’m not really a lesbian. Oh, I have the basics covered: I fall in love with women, sleep with women and humiliate myself over them with disturbing frequency.

But when it comes to society’s perception of lesbians, and our own picture of ourselves, I occasionally feel like I fit in as well as a penguin in the monkey cage.

To start, lesbians are often thought of as athletic. Well, I am fairly athletic due to a generous helping of coordination. But underlying this truth is another one: I can’t run around the block without falling to my knees and wheezing “Medic!”

On the matter of softball, it’s true that, like many a lesbian, I’ve had starring moments. But they were 30 years ago, not last Sunday.

Sisters of Sappho reputedly love dogs. I certainly do. But I don’t have one. Does this mean my lesbianism is anemic?

Subarus are considered the lesbian vehicle of choice. I don’t own one. My mother considered buying a Subaru, which suggests she was either trying to bolster my lesbian identity through association, or she has something to tell me.

Apparently I’m not a lesbian, because I’m not a therapist, acupuncturist, chiropractor, nurse or nonprofit administrator. Apparently I am a lesbian, because I’ve used every one of those services.

Lesbians are said to possess no funny bone. I have a sense of humor. But this isn’t a problem, because on occasion I do declare indignantly, “That’s not funny!”

I do not bring a U-Haul on the second date. I use Ryder.

It is my deeply unscientific contention that lesbians are more apt to say something was or wasn’t “meant to be” than any other population across our land. This notion, along with its incestuous relation, “Things happen for a reason,” spills out of lesbians’ mouths more often than, “I’m not sure I could date a bisexual woman.”

Perhaps “It wasn’t meant to be” sums up modern lesbian spirituality.

I’d like to go along with these ideas, but I believe life is a pretty random affair. So I’m a minority within a minority. If I continue to subdivide like this, I should shortly vanish.

Vegetarianism is associated with lesbians, but I’d guess we mirror the national average on that. I wish I were a vegetarian. After all, whoever heard of mad cabbage disease?

When I came out I pledged I wouldn’t have anything to do with what I had been told was common to the lesbian experience: dyke drama. So even early on in my homosexual career I had an instinct to carve out my own path.

So much for instinct. I didn’t know dyke drama was scarcely avoidable.

Show me a lesbian who has steered clear of it, and I’ll show you a woman who hasn’t ventured out of the house in five years.

In typical lesbian style, I believe in cooperation and teamwork. In atypical lesbian style, I’ve never owned Birkenstocks or a thumb ring.

For all my errant ways, I don’t think my membership in this sorority will be revoked. If I don’t measure up to standards or stereotypes, goody.

Appreciating that is just another way, as the ubiquitous rainbow bumper sticker exhorts, to “Celebrate Diversity.”

Oh, I should mention that, in keeping with the lesbian image, I do like to hike. However, the thought of camping sets my heart aflame only in that it gives me heartburn.

My last girlfriend wanted to change my attitude, so we drove to the wilderness to camp. Everybody else had too, and we couldn’t find a spot. We drove home.

It wasn’t meant to be.