Bromance; Race

One of my big problems with blogging is that if I take a break for a while, all these things I want to talk about start piling up, and then when I finally sit down at the keyboard I want to give each topic that's been germinating it's fair share of time, but then the post becomes a monster. Well, here goes, I'll try to keep it succinct.

The Bachelor Party
This weekend was my friend E's bachelor party! I've known this guy for like 5 years now and he and his fiance are two of my closest friends in NYC now. They were the first NYC residents I came out to (Identified in this post as Friend Couple #1). Y'know though, after my parents, I think that one of the relationships that I feared would change most was the relationships I had with my straight guy friends. I always knew that they would be "cool with it" but I guess I always worried they would treat me different going forward. After this weekend I feel ashamed for not giving them enough credit. This weekend I was totally just one of the guys, and even though they all knew I was gay (even some of these guys that I never met before), it wasn't awkward, and it was fun. There was some ribbing about me sneaking off to gay bars, and they made me get a lap dance from a girl (which was actually fun, and she was a really good sport about it). Mostly it was just drinking and bonding, and mostly making the groom's life hell, cause that's what bachelor parties are all about right?

They even let me throw some beads at this guy underneath our balcony for showing me his ass, heh. Ah, New Orleans.

I did break away from the hetero-fest a few other times too, especially while they were getting series' of lapdances, to check out the gay go-go bars too heh. I figure if they get to see female strippers, I can see cute brazilian boys in their underwear. It was pretty much the same thing as up here, but I do think I attracted a lot of attention, both from the go-go boys, and the other patrons, just cause I was Asian. It was nothing untoward or creepy actually, but that and an offhand comment in one of letopho's recent posts got me thinking alot about my next topic which is:

Race
So I have been pretty sheltered, race-wise having grown up in California and living now in NYC, both of which have thriving Asian populations. I was a little stunned in New Orleans not seeing any Asians (except our group, which was predominantly so. For the most part it was fine, but there was some outright racism that I'd really never seen before, but my friend told me is really not uncommon in the south. At one point, a group of us (maybe 10 asian guys) were walking down the street, and this hot dog vendor stopped and bowed mockingly at each of us. It was offensive on this level I'd never even seen before; I would have told him off, but he wasn't even worth my time.

OK, I meant to write more about that, especially in the context of dating, but I'm tired now. More later.