The Living Centrifuge

I am a gay man who has been out of the closet since I was fourteen, and yesterday was the first time I've ever been to a gaaay bar. Actually that's a vicious lie. And also, by the way, my gender politics don't convince me that gay is the right word to describe myself, but that explanation is way too long for this post, so perhaps another day. Okay so back to the vicious lie. I am a gay man who has never been to a gaaay bar, except the Icon in Ottawa. Oh, and the Lookout, also in Ottawa, but the Lookout is more for the girls. And anyone who has been to either of these locations knows that they don't count.

So, yesterday, I went to a very popular establishment in my current city of residence (which by the way, is changing to a different city across the country at the end of the month). I would say that this is the first REAL time I've been to a gaaay bar, and it was very very very interesting. Not so bad, because I had the boy to hold on to most of the evening, and his friends were very nice to me, so that made it a little easier, even though it was the first time I was meeting them. I could go on ad infinitum about the fact that I'm socially awkward, I don't have anything to say, I get slightly panicky in crowds, I hate the gays in general, because they're happy with rating one another, I have a feeling that anonymous gay sex is politically inexpedient, but I think the real fact of the matter is, I just don't like loud places. I'm a crotchety old man already.

In fact, it's more that in a loud space, I don't feel like a useful human being. I was going to say that I don't like bars, but I looooove going to pubs and having a pint with a friend or a group of friends, so that's not it, really. It's actually that a loud space such as a gaaay bar precludes anything but the most rudimentary grunts and whistles. Which is fine, I guess, considering the purpose of a gaaay bar - that is, to find men to whistle and grunt at. However, I enjoy using colourful language. At a gaaay bar, all that illicits is a grunt with a question mark at the end. And, one of the boy's friends last night asked me, if you've never been to a gaaay bar, what do you do?

I told him what I've told you. I go to pubs with friends, I go to the theatre, see films, opera, dance. Go to galleries and museums when I can. I write things. I meet with people and talk about art. And then it hit me this morning that all of these things are useful. They contribute to something in some way. Most of my friends are also artists, so even when we go to pubs, we're talking about our work, or the work of our colleagues, or the state of the art in general, and although this is interspersed with anecdotes about our lives, our friends, what we had for dinner last night and the shoes I shouldn't have bought, but aren't they fantastic, I come away from these encounters feeling like I am a fuller human being. Every conversation that I have hones and clarifies what I want to be doing with my life, not only professionally, but also, how I want to live my personal life as well (one of the edicts I really like is "be quiet and ordered in your life and wild and revolutionary in your art"). I take inspiration from the arts around me - they actually teach me how to live. And in a gaaay bar, or any loud space where communication is reduced to a series of grunts and whistles, this type of moral and artistic striving is basically precluded. Unless you buy Diotima's argument that the desire for human beauty circuitously leads to the search for the Good, there is no real point to being in a gaaay bar. And even then, I have a feeling that very few of the people at any gaaay bar are going there with Diotima in mind. My suspicion is that they are a little more alcibiadean in their motivations.

Now don't get me wrong, I did have fun, it just felt a little vacuous compared to my usual (admittedly boring from most points of view) activities. However, the fact that the boy has said that he's falling for me, and that he will wait the eight months for my return after the contract is over, makes any vacuousness of the evening easy to bear. Agh! I feel...something...for this boy. Lordy.