The six women you meet in gay bars

Whilst I appreciate that categorising ones sexuality is daft, it's clearly perfectly acceptable to divide the women I meet in gay bars into definitive groups based on other criteria. The following list is the result of five years of intensive scientific research and not something to be taken lightly.

1. Professional Lesbians

These are girls whose entire lifestyle revolves around the gay scene. They've known they were gay since they were three. While most female children go through a period of hating boys, these girls are busy climbing trees and playing football with the lads, right up until the point when they seduce their female secondary school teacher and then start munching rug on a regular basis, by which point the only significant men left in their lives are gay.

They generally work as journalists for gay publications, left-wing politicians, lesbian bar managers and truck mechanics.

It is easy to spot a professional lesbian because she will have gone out of her way to assume a lesbian image often having short spiky hair, piercing and tattoos. The typical uniform includes a tank top, baggy hipster jeans and heavy flat-soled boots.

These women are often decidedly butch.

2. Casual Lesbians

This subgroup of lesbians are the ones who've done away with the beauty rituals of being an extreme femme without taking on the time commitment required to actively make oneself look intentionally butch.

Most casual lesbians first become aware of their sexuality when they develop a hopeless crush on their heterosexual school friend which prevents them from fully exploring their sexuality until either university of their late teens when an older, predatory lesbian introduces them to the gay scene.

Spotters can identify these women because they usually wear their hair either long and tied back or short and scruffy because they don't bother with regular trims. They rarely wear makeup and don't understand nail varnish at all. They wear jeans, trainers and casual tops in neutral colours.

3. Femme Lesbians

Femmes are often the last to come out of the closet, having experienced a few relationships with men before realising their lesbian tendencies. Their first one or two sexual encounters with women are usually experimental and unnerving but with time they adjust to a lesbian lifestyle.

It is important not to mistake femme lesbians for fag hags. A useful pointer is to look at the people she is dancing with. A fag hag usually restricts dancing to a raunchy display of grinding with gay men whilst genuine lesbians usually hang around in mixed or female groups. Look for signs such as noticeably gay female friends.

Beware, very few of these women are single so watch them move for a while before launching an attack - the last thing you need is a girlfriend returning from the bar just after you've introduced yourself with "Hi, are you a lesbian?"

Whilst most femmes dress in very feminine clothing, the shoes and finger nails are often a give away. A sexually active lesbian usually keeps her nails short and often their beautification ritual breaks down when it comes to a decision between comfortable shoes and stiletto heals with lesbians quite sensibly opting for the pain-free option.

4. Bicurious women

These are irritating women who rarely have any sexual interest in other females but have decided to either experiment because it's fashionable or pretend to be experimenting to impress men. This can be devastating for lesbians who fall for them but rather useful to women who like to sleep with and corrupt innocent, feminine girls. These women often go to gay bars with the hidden agenda of wanting to meet bisexual men. Occasionally bicurious women attend gay bars with their boyfriends in the hope of finding a girl for a threesome.

Bicurious women are usually dressed in a feminine manner (including the shoes) and they can be spotted because when they're dancing close to women they're checking out fit men of their shoulders; so if you're interested in one, be sure to ask a friend to stand behind you and check where her eyes are focussing.

5. Straight women

Whilst it would be a travesty if gay bars were exclusive to gay people, you would hope that straight people who choose to attend would be comfortable around lesbians. Regrettably many straight women at gay bars react with terror if a lesbian so much as glances at them, grabbing the neared gay man and pretending to snog his face off to assert the fact that there's nothing she would like to do less than fall into bed with a lesbian pervert. However their contempt for gay people does not extend to gay men who they'll happily flirt with because they don't feel threatened.

6. Fag hags

These women are dangerous because their repeated presence at gay venues leads lesbians to conclude that they are in fact also homosexual when it turns out that they're just accompanying their habitually gay male friends.

Some fag hags are there because either they have an impossible crush on their best male gay friend or are so bitchy that they simply can't relate to other women on any level. A small number of fag hags harbour the unrealistic dream that they can convert gay men.

Frustratingly fag hags are often very fit and achieve a high level of self-confidence because their gay male friends repeatedly tell them that if they weren't into men, they'd go for her. This combination of self-assurance and physical beauty is deadly.