I’ve been to gay bars/clubs before… but only a few times and never as a gay person. I’ve only ever been as “a straight friend”
accompanying his gay friend—
The most recent time was with my friend Alex. It started off being a normal night where we met
up with a bunch of (straight) friends. Not having any luck hitting on girls, my friends were asking Alex and his friend Sam what it was like for gay men. Sam suggested we head over to a gay
club to experience it first hand. I'm sure he was as surprised as I was to find that the reaction was a unanimous (drunken) “YES". Straight people are so dumb.
Sam is really just a friend of a friend but he is the gayest person I've ever hung out with socially--he cracks me up. He is definitely the type of person where, upon meeting him, you just know. He is an effeminate, flamboyant twink bottom--and a total bitch. He's "fabulous".
This is my oh-so-embellished memory of our arrival: Sam greets the bouncer, not with his ID, but with squeals, giggles and kisses on both cheeks, *peck, peck*! He takes off his form-fitted jacket and without even looking in the dude's direction, throws it to the coat-check guy as he marches on passed him. He looks around scanning the crowd for familiar faces with his chin held high. He's beaming with pride as he shows off his straight entourage behind him. He waives to the shirtless bartenders like a true regular and they immediately pour us all shots of tequila. Everything... was... fabulous.
We, the glorified straight entourage, just hung out in a big
group like awkward straight people would. We immediately took more shots to expand our comfort zone. We weren’t mingling at all, just sorta
hanging out, laughing, and enjoying the novelty of whatever was happening around us.
There were older hairy men getting dirty on each other, small younger twink
dudes making out. Solo creepy dudes just scoping out the situation. I actually
saw one of the guys from my gym (who I still see today). He is older, 40’s, not attractive and pretty hairy. Luckily he didn’t see me but I was so drunk and so in my “straight guy” mindset that it hadn’t even dawned on me
that if he DID see me, he would assume I was gay too. Stupid I know.
Anyway, like I said, I had the whole gay part of
me turned off. I’ve gotten so good at just assimilating to the straight world
that sometimes I think I am straight. I was just enjoying the
surroundings the same way my straight friends were… it was a novelty for me too after all.
I broke away from my friends for a second to go to the
bathroom. I peed and then naturally went over to the sink to wash my hands. Keep in mind there were gay men all over the place, but I swear I didn't look at any of them, I wasn't even thinking, "Oh, I'm alone in the bathroom this is my chance to gawk and stare and be gay while my friends aren't around." Nope! I was in straight mode--maybe even more focused than usual despite being drunk.
Of course the sinks were really nice... they were raised fancy bowls fixed to the marble counter top with the faucet reaching tall and bending eloquently over and into the bowl. I didn't notice the guy next to me looking at me until I turned around to dry my hands.
I have no memory of how he initiated the conversation-- I just remember standing at the bathroom sink being completely and instantly engaged. Within moments I knew everything about him. He was in his late 20's, born and raised in Lebanon-- then moved to Minnesota where he went to college and now lives in DC working for some Arabic speaking news station. He had a "look" that struck me as interesting and fun, not like sexy or hot. I literally was talking to him as if we were in a coffee shop (except drunk). He said he knew French and so we were speaking a little bit, but I remember him not understanding me and I was thinking, "Fool, you do not know French" but it was probably that I was drunk and suck at it now.
Anyway, my friends saw me chatting with this random dude and immediately thought, "We NEED to SAVE HIM!"
I admit I was being completely stupid and literally ignorant in thinking that he wasn't hitting on me. This blog is anonymous so I can say anything I want and will be completely, 100% honest here, I was NOT flirting with him. I had too much to lose... I literally just wasn't thinking about the implications of what I was doing--straight up ignorance.
So my friends came up to us, rudely joined the conversation, and blatantly started pulling me away. I was like, "No guys, it's fine... it's fine.. it's.... OH MY GOD...."
Then I look at the kid in shock and lean into his ear (music was loud) and I said, "Wait a second, I'm NOT gay you know!"
He looked at me and in all seriousness said, "Yeah, no, me neither!"
Which is completely inconsistent with what happened next. He said, "... but I like talking with new, interesting people... please give me you number!" I have no memory of what happened exactly because I was ripped away and pulled upstairs.
We then went over to the dance floor and danced for like 2 minutes (see how drunk we all were? hah). We stopped because-- well for me 1.) it didn't feel right and more compellingly 2.) it was impossible to avoid these creepy older men who just kept staring at us, inching their way closer and closer until we just left.
All in all it wasn't the most eventful night... at least from what I can remember, but it was a good time-- a true novelty-- Something that I should try to get used to? Something that I should accept?
Nahh. Honestly, it's just not my scene. Being gay doesn't always have to go hand-in-hand with Rhianna club music, flashing neon lights, and poppers..... (ok fine, no one mentioned anything about poppers, nor did I see any poppers-- I just wanted to throw that in there.)
Anyway, I had a good night....and I have absolutely no idea how but I had A LOT of missed texts from a random Minnesota number the next morning.
