We were at Fuddruckers at 8:30 on Thursday, mostly because I had a hankering for cheese fries and I didn't want to brave the fluorescent orange walls and obnoxious tools by myself. He was going to grab some cheap vodka at the liquor store, but I convinced him to walk the extra two blocks to sate my cheese fries craving. It was the guy I had written about a month ago, but then promptly deleted when he found my blog and didn't like what I had written. We've been trying to be friends of a sort since then, with mixed results; he reminds me too much of Heart for me to open up and really be friends with him, and that comes off as me being an asshole more often than not.
"I'm sorry."
I'm not really sure how I should have responded. I suppose if I really were an asshole I would have turned around, snapped my fingers and lisped "Hon, I'll sthow you gay" or phrased it as a question—‘I'm sorry? Excuse you?’ or maybe I should have pressed for answers, because I'm pretty sure there's nothing inherently gay about cheese fries and a soda to go, even if I do get it with the jalapeño cheese.
That’s always such an awkward question, and its on my mind more often than I think it should be. Just how gay am I acting? I mean, I’ve always considered myself more of a Will than a Jack, if I was going to categorize myself via late-90s sitcom sexualities. I don’t lisp, my wrists don’t go limp, I don’t think I have that aloof hoity-toity air about me as I walk down the street.
I know it shouldn’t matter, that I should just be myself and be okay with it, but we all know that’s not going to happen. When I’m at a bar and someone walks in wearing a too-tight tshirt, too much product in their hair, a rainbow bracelet or belt, women’s jeans, or is just all-in-all acting too femme, I always roll my eyes, at least. It’s ok to be gay, just don’t be gay.
I’m not really sure why straight-acting got to the top of the identity hierarchy. Maybe it’s because it’s easier to introduce a significant other who is more masculine and gender-conforming to parents and friends, or maybe it’s a visibility thing, and guys don’t want to be outed by association just by hanging out with someone flamboyant. Or maybe its because in junior high the girlier guys were more likely to get beaten up after class.
I mean, masculinity is always prized. Sure, there are guys into twinks, little wisps of hairless things, but I’m willing to bet there’s more about youth than it is about physical preference. Aesthetically they may be more pleasing, but there’s too much drama and upkeep involved for most guys to take them seriously.
There are always going to be calendars of buff, naked firefighters, policemen, and French rugby teams, but I’ve yet to see a calendar collection of swimmer’s bodies, interior designers, and barely-legal choreographers. There’s an element of saving people, of protecting people, putting bad guys behind bars that puts the more masculine traits closer to the ideal. Little boys want to grow up to be superheroes and save the world, not artists and decorate it, or yoga instructors and flex it.
Assimilation probably plays a big part of that as well, though as far as I can tell, it does for most minority groups. When given the choice, the Oreo (black on the outside, white on the inside) is going to be hired before the thug, the Twinkie (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) is preferred over the guy who runs the dry cleaning business. A woman needs to have ‘balls’ if she wants to make it in business. It’s a matter of how well you fit into the dominant society, and in order to join the ‘big boy’s club’ you’re going to have to be a big boy.
And am I a big boy? I always thought so. My voice is a solid baritone, I don’t shave or wax any of my body hair (except for some trimming around the good parts, and hair on the toes). I’m thin, but I’m not emaciated, I’m well-put together, but I’m not prissy about it. I don't refer to other gay guys as 'girls.' I stomp when I walk more than I glide.
I know I shouldn’t worry about things like this, but I do. It’s like the essay I wrote last year on identity, and how when it comes to terms of safety, gay men have more in common with women than we like to think, how depending on the part of the country and the part of town, there are places we shouldn’t walk home alone, how our enemies are mostly the same, how the reason gay men are hated are because they’re too womanly. It’s hard not to think about it when you’re walking home alone from the bar or walking into a classroom for the first time: how am I presenting myself? Am I going to fit in? Do I need to downplay my love of Tori Amos?
Thursday nights we always go to Dueling Pianos. It’s become a tradition. Don’t get me wrong—the drinks are good, singing along is fun, getting on the stage and dancing in great, but the best part of Dueling Pianos is watching old people get drunk for the first time in a long time. It invariably happens. The bar is pretty far from campus, and depending on the week, we’ll often be young enough to be the children of half of the people in the bar. Someone in our group of college students is going to get hit on by someone with a wedding ring on, someone balding, someone who will casually mention his divorce and three kids at home. The kids will be out of town on a camping trip, and the soccer moms go there to let off steam. A friend is going through a rough separation, and he’s brought to this bar. The ‘adults’ are the ones who get too drunk, who vomit in the bathroom and who have to take the taxis home.
That night, an overweight mom was there with her sister. Both women had long wavy hair, and were wearing the standard woman-in-her-forties business clothing from Lane Bryant or the Dress Barn. They were dancing with each other, big spins and jumping and they slowly took up more and more of the bar with their drunken antics. They were loud and shrill, pounding on the banister if they didn’t like the song, and getting way to into the dancing to “Sweet Caroline.” It was hilarious.
During the pianomen’s break, the fatter of the two women came up to our table and started asking the guys to come dance with them. Matt had gone to get another drink a few minutes earlier, and had jokingly danced with them as he walked past, facetious and mocking more than anything else. Matt sat back down and said he couldn’t dance anymore, because he had hurt his knee due to a soccer match earlier in the week (a total lie). John said he couldn’t dance with them because his girlfriend was really jealous and she wouldn’t let him dance with anyone else (John is single). Steve just burst out into laughter uncontrollably as the mom put her arm around his shoulder, awkwardness and fear in his eyes. Excluding the girls, I was the last one left, and so she asked, in her shrill voice, “You’re going to comes dancing with me, no excuses!”
“But I have an excuse—I’m gay.” Everyone smiled into their drinks, and watched how this would play out.
She took my hand from across the table and held it, like we were going to arm wrestle. I made my wrist as limp as I could, hoping to seal the deal with some effeminate behavior.
“You’re not ga-ay!”
“Uh, yeah I am. I like guys.”
“No, you’re just con-fus-ed! Mah son’s in high schools and he’s ga-ay so Ah can tell these things. You just needs a good woman to shows yous things.” She let go of my hand and grabbed the request sheet and a golf pencil from the table. “You should call me when you’re ready and Is’ll make a man out of you. You’s straight, you can’t fools me!” She wrote down some digits on the back of the sheet of paper, but I’m pretty sure her phone number isn’t 68X4U8812.
The song switched over the speakers and the opening beats of “SexyBack” pounded through the bar. Her sister came up from the bathroom downstairs and hollered at the top of her lungs “I LOVES THIS SONG!” They both went and started dancing, an awkward tango with too much hips and an inability to stand up straight for more than a few seconds, lurching onto each other to stay erect.
We all burst out into hysterical laughter, and for the rest of the night, it was “Bawb, yahw’re not ga-a-ay-y!” and my reply “Ah just needs mae a goods woman to shows mes things.”
The two women left soon after that. The pianomen finish up about an hour before bartime, to give them time to drink a bit before they start taking down their equipment and packing up. We left during the last song (because really, Billy Joel’s PianoMan gets excruciating if its requested four times during the night) and went to go dance in the basement of the bar next door.
It was reminiscent of a high school dance, only with more alcohol. Everyone was dancing in a circle with their friends, a few people were standing on the sidelines, holding up the wall. The music was so loud you couldn’t talk, the lights were flashing, and Gnarls Barkley was going “Crazy.”
It was like the ending of every single bad gay movie I’ve ever seen. I was downstairs, in the club, dancing up a storm, sweaty and exuberant, surrounded by my friends, with a big grin on my face. There were flashing lights and music videos on the walls, and then a bad remix of Cher’s “Believe” started pumping through the speakers. I could recognize what a cliché it was, but it was all right. Any worries about how gay I was acting or how straight I could be had melted away, and now I was left dancing, giving my body up to the music, feeling free. I knew that things are going to be all right.
And you know what? They will be.
As gay as that might sound.
