Vegas. Baby.

I was in Vegas all weekend for my college roommate's bachelor party! I was the only gay guy in the group, so the weekend was mostly spent going to overpriced crowded straight clubs and really cheesy strip clubs, but it was really great to hang out with my friends and we had a great time. I even bet the winning horse in the Kentucky Derby so I was up overall for the weekend!

As it turned out, I ended up staying a day longer than my other friends, so my night I was by myself I decided to check out an acrobatic/dance show (La Reve) and the gay nightlife, or what I could find of it. Really, what I would have liked to find was a sleazy gay strip club, but apparently there aren't any! A lot of people recommended Flex lounge, but it was pretty far, and I had heard its not very busy on Sundays.

I got free entry to the Closet Sundays party at the Revolution Lounge at the Mirage, so I decided to go and check out the go-go boys. I hate going to clubs by myself, I even hated it when I was single, but it was actually really fun. I met a really fabulous drag queen, whose name I'm forgetting [looked it up later, it was Lady Kimora], and I provided some financial assistance to some go-go boys in the form of dollar bills in their underwear. When I had arrived it wasn't even very crowded, so I got a great seat at a table, which was a real treat after the weekend of expensive bottle service required at all the straight clubs. As the club got more crowded two other guys sat at the same table, and after that it got less fun...

I had made polite conversation with them at first, but then when it became clear that one of them was in to me, I told him, "Sorry, I have a boyfriend," and I thought that would be the end of it. But instead, the guy got increasingly more awkward, asking me questions like "Why are you here if you have a boyfriend? Why are you drinking a beer if you aren't trying to get drunk?" All in all, the questions started like a normal conversation, but got even a little hostile toward the end. I tried to ignore him, but when he started trying to put his arm around me, I decided I'd had enough and I left the table. All told, I still had a great time at the club, and I wasn't going to let one drunk asshole ruin it.

Later on though, in my best Carrie Bradshaw impersonation, I couldn't help but wonder-- are monogamous coupled gays not invited to the party? I probably should have started my blog post with some sort of explanation for the sparse postings on my part, but a big part of it has to do with the fact that I don't feel the loneliness and closeted misery that was driving me to start the blog in the first place, or the novelty of the gay scene that motivated me to continue posting as a single gay man. I'm incredibly happy in my daily life, but I can't imagine boring someone else with the details of my regular routine. In kind of the same way, the gay social life seems so defined by the hookup culture, that I sometimes feel like I don't belong-- that I'm rude to even be wasting people's time since I'm unavailable.

Anyway, that's silly. Gay men are a community that should be more than who you're able to hook up with at that given moment. A lot of people say that coming out is the beginning of a delayed, accelerated second adolescence, and maybe because I came out so late in life, I rushed through that whole process too, but now that I'm experiencing a broader side of the gay community- the LGBT activism community, the networking group at my work, and I've begun working with gay-community charities in New York such as Green Chimneys and GMHC. As I become more involved in the gay community I am continually impressed by the power of the collective and the unity that I have come to feel from the people I have met and I'm proud to be a part of it.

P.S. I promise to post more than once every 5 months going forward so letopho can stop yelling at me about it :P.
P.P.S. Speaking of gay community and activism, I met Rosie O'Donnell at a Family Equality Council benefit! Did you know she and her partner have adopted 10 kids??

P.P.P.S. Yeah... I don't know what I was thinking with that tie.