I'm Only Happy When It's Gay // LGBTTQQIAAP+ // Fall 2021

sup y'all? how was Halloween? what's everyone's November looking like? anyone else gonna get started on Thanksgiving drinking early this year? 🍻💮🍁🌾🌄🦚🍎🎭🧩🎃🧡🔸🔶💫🧡

Leave it here.

I have to abstain from alcohol for a week due to the medication I'm taking to clear up an infection. I'm more annoyed about this than I likely should be.

it will be a good tolerance break! I just went on a weird self-imposed tolerance break from my psych meds lol. it feels good to be back on them!

I'm now something like 7.5 months into my year of sobriety. It's a lot easier than I expected.

that's so nice. sounds like married life is sating you 👯

Well, I mean, I'm going to have bourbon again in my life along with marital relations.

Not dead yet lol!

haha no i know you will. I've been drinking a hell of a lot less these days as well which is why I think I'm ready to party. I plan to be abroad at some point so I'll be in the mood 💃

Good morning!

hi sweetums! what's the story?

Gonna see that boy whom I hooked up with three weeks ago this weekend, I think. Otherwise I'm grading papers and at night sipping Negronis and watching Chris Marker films.

Love the beginning and end of that post.

transitioning into my 'dirty old man' phase

folks, i need a vacation. to somewhere with a recognizably human culture, ideally.

hey all! Hate my job but what else is new.

Other than that, I'm facilitating a manuscript workshop that promises to be pretty cool with a bunch of rad writers in it. Feel like I might be smoking too much weed but oh well, makes the monotony bearable in some way.

Loosely planning some trips in the spring, and a weekend in New York later this month, maybe....

I haven't done a proper workout in two years, but I've been five times in the past week, good full set each time, feeling great tyvm!

map come to Philly

I've been keeping up with an exercise regimen, but more recently, I've been seeing more "results"— I'm stronger and more sinewy that I was a few months ago. Climbing V6 in the gym, and either doing HIIT workouts or bicycling 20-mile circuits on the non-gym days. Not bad for a guy who nearly died two years ago.

I walk 5 miles a day and it's done wonders to fuck with my sense of time.

map come to Philly

― Warmed Regards, (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, November 4, 2021 1:17 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

<3

been biking to the gym at least 2x a week, plus also started taking a daily supplement stack for immune system enhancement. mulling over seeing a trainer again and also have some dietary changes i’d like to start making (more protein, less simple sugars and seed oils). also trying to improve my relationship to screens, reducing blue light exposure when i have to use computers and staying away from my phone/computer after 9pm. gettin into doing kind things for my body after a year or so of doing not-so-kind things to it!

Oh, I also bought a standing desk when I couldn't sit for about a month (long story lol), but I now stand while WFH and let me tell you, I feel so much better about working. Back, shoulders, everything.

Donald Rumsfeld's greatest legacy.

be good to your bodies everyone, they deserve it

i'm contemplating doing...

foot exercises

oh!!! what would it serve you?
it's funny all this talk about taking care of your body, I was just thinking the same. I think it's because I looked in the mirror yesterday with overhead lighting lol. T if you wanna grab a drink lmk. btw are u ok with a cod3d version of your name around here? totally understand either way. maybe only for special occasions? 🙂

oh!!! what would it serve you?

it might help my running form.

yesterday morning i had a long in-person chat with a gay friend who i can talk about stuff with. it felt very nice.

that's so nice. had it been a while?

I've mainly been hanging out with my girlfriends lately, but yesterday, I reached out to a fellow queer about some health stuff and he's having me over for a pot roast tonight ♥️

you sure you wanna be throwing your weed into boiling water?

xp oh that's great!

it's been a while. my boyfriend is a really patient listener but sometimes you just need someone else. i remember when these threads had the title "i don't have any gay friends in town" or some such, which has always been more or less true for me, but i have one i guess! i'm going to try harder to nurture this friendship.

i love that. I remember those titles too. and there was definitely a while (like years) where I had no idea what it was like to have gay friends. luckily over the years I've been introduced to a bunch. it's really crazy how you forget the importance of seeing and being and learning from people that "look" like you for lack of a better word

lol Alfred

When we moved, 7.5 years ago, to the small market town in North Yorkshire where we now live, we had to say goodbye to our gay friendship network. For several years, we knew no other gays in town… but then I started playing disco on vinyl every Friday night in the bar up the road. That brought them out of the woodwork. Over the summer, we invited all the town gays that we now know round to our place for drinks. Most of them had never met before. And now we have some formative sense of a community. And this pleases me.

that sounds so wonderful

Wow.

It was all a bit too much for one of our number, who, several drinks in, suggested that we all get our cocks out. Talk about misreading the room. The he spent the rest of the weekend messaging around: “I’m so sorry if I offended anyone”. Ah, bless.

omg lol. at least the gay community specializes in non-judgement. good for you for instigating that, game changer.

But what would gay bars be like without judgment??

ok that's true 😹

mike that sounds so great :)

talking to a cutey on grindr from the uk who wants to meet up when he's here in a week - never tapped into my thing for auburn haired brits!

my bf is an auburn haired brit!

omg lol
obv
you guys sound perfectly suited

We hung out with our queer friends yesterday! One just had a hysterectomy so we brought him coffee and snacks and an edible, and we sat around and watched our dogs act like idiots while chatting like maniacs. It was great.

My partner and I went to see Eternals on Saturday and then took a stroll through Rowes Wharf just in time to see a drunk bachelorette fall into Boston Harbor trying to recreate the "I'M KING OF THE WORLD" scene from Titanic. We then helped fish her out. It was wild.

Whoa, DJP. That sounds wild!

That reminds me we have to help our friend Jim retrieve his dead father's Zippo, which is down in a ditch below a tall bridge and difficult to access. He dropped it and it fell through the bridge sidewalk, one of those very intense grated metal things.

obviously the bachelorette thing is not funny but i mean, it's also really funny.

It was all a bit too much for one of our number, who, several drinks in, suggested that we all get our cocks out. Talk about misreading the room. The he spent the rest of the weekend messaging around: “I’m so sorry if I offended anyone”. Ah, bless.

― mike t-diva, Sunday, November 7, 2021 8:40 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

my heart goes out to this man.

I mean, everyone came out the other end okay so I feel only a little guilty about how I keep cackling every time I think about it

lol that's good.

Also good on ya'll for saving some drunk white woman.

lol

I also just rewatched Titanic the other day and confirmed my suspicion that Leo is my favorite actor

T your hang sounds so nice

It was! We love these friends.

finally rescheduling my second date with Danny, costume designer. first date was him plying me with beers, which I had no problem with. he suggested drinks for round 2, I guess that's fine? I feel like in straight land round 2 is always dinner

a friend of mine (ahem) works at a government agency. he was in the office early on a monday morning, and the director of said agency, also known to come in early, came by the cubicle for a visit. the first words out of this director's mouth were "did you see adele last night? *gasp* *swanning*".

in a video meeting a few weeks ago, the director was talking about the mission of the agency, and referenced the words of a practioner from long ago, which were, i shit you not, "as (professionals), we are riding the horns of uncertainty." my friend responded, "and we ride the horns that we're dealt," and the director burst out laughing. everyone else looked uncomfortable.

the director has shown my friend photos of his grandkids, and is mormon of course. either closeted or on a down-low arrangement, right?

he is a closeted married gay guy

there are many of them

true

my friend was delighted at first that he could "tell" but now he just wants to keep his distance. he is pretty sure there are some closeted lesbians at his workplace too.

Question for the U.S. folk:

Was ABBA a gay thing in America before "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"?

I figure it was an Australian and probably European thing, but then American straight people saw the movie and assumed it was a thing here too.

I don't know, tho Levan never played them at the Paradise Garage, according to this list:
https://x.facebook.com/housemastersmusic/photos/a.160929651951502/413817093329422/?type=3&source=48

I say this as someone who has come around quite a bit on ABBA and would even call "The Winner Takes It All" an A+ pop song ... good for Larry.

I love ABBA.

And I agree with you, Eric.

Can't fight the feelin'

Apparently, that list is hogwash and there's been some minor kerfuffle about it, from former PG DJs and party attendees!

I just found out myself.

still, what a list, phew

true!

Anyone ever put together a good playlist of holiday soulful house music?

no but i want one! please share if it comes to fruition.
i had a weird phone thing happen last night -

i met a guy on the phone and we had crazy conversations via text for like hours, like all night. is that weird? i feel like I'm in jr high school. like I'm 36?

sounds fun!

you know - fun is relative.

you know j0rdy i was thinking of u today - of your reaction once when i commented on something. it was very trivial but I have an emotional memory and it made me happy so I remember it. I'd rather not go into the details so as not to spoil the magic of the moment but just know that you left an impression!

i met a guy on the phone and we had crazy conversations via text for like hours, like all night. is that weird? i feel like I'm in jr high school. like I'm 36?

― surm, Friday, November 19, 2021

It's fun! Exhausting too. The guy I've been fooling around with gets miffed if like a normal person I determine the texting must end. He's also in his early twenties.

im 38 and romantic feelings toward a million people feel as intense as ever

marcos!

"feelings feel" lol

i usually edit a little more if i know alfred is in a thread

hey!!!

i usually edit a little more if i know alfred is in a thread

― marcos, Friday, November 19, 2021

dude, have you seen my typos?

you know j0rdy i was thinking of u today - of your reaction once when i commented on something. it was very trivial but I have an emotional memory and it made me happy so I remember it. I'd rather not go into the details so as not to spoil the magic of the moment but just know that you left an impression!

― s;-urm, Friday, November 19, 2021 2:46 AM (twelve hours ago)

<3 :-*

Going to be in NY for 36 hours, already have the whole thing planned. I'm jamming in a lot!

oh yeah!! i forgot. what's on the agenda?

hi marcos!!!

Well, I went to the Guggenheim with one of my oldest friends, we took a nice walk, then I went to Artists Space for a poetry reading, had an amazing dinner with friends in Chinatown, then another poetry reading at LOMEX, then a long long train ride to the Rockaways to stay with another old friend and her elderly dog (who is dying and whom I've known since she was a puppy). We had a lovely if bittersweet time. Then I left the Rockaways after a walk around Ft. Tilden and brunch, took the A straight to Penn Station and came back to Philly. All told, I was in New York for 27 hours and fit quite a lot in. I also managed to not get stinking drunk, a first for me in New York lol.

I just re-read my diary from my first solo trip to NY back in 2004 and it's highly embarrassing.

still feel like a rube when i visit big cities tbh, even though i've spent some time in them.

I'm sweating now and leaning on the John door

i met a friend of a friend yesterday that i barely know, we ended up having a very friendly and enthusiastic conversation. they run sound for a new gay-ish bar here that does a lot of drag shows and they want to put together a dance night at some point. there isn't much good happening in that area here, like at all. feels like queer nightlife is the grimmest it's been in decades.

xp good luck, take care of yourself!

Damn, table, for 27 hours you really covered a lot of ground. Artists Space rules, was the scene of some surprisingly wild nights (for an art galley) in my high school years.

Dogs should never die.

I read at Artists Space two months before the pandemic. They paid me more money than I've ever received for a reading, plus my train ticket and dinner. Art world money going to broke ass poets like myself is kind of cool.

that is super cool. I'm glad you had such a lovely time in ny.
also plax!! it's so nice to see you here.
I'm in St Louis seeing doctors, and relying heavily on shopping for holiday cheer
i watched a movie last night - obvious child feat. Jenny Slate - and it made me miss flirting. i had to reschedule on Danny to come here but he was beyond sweet about it, so I'm looking forward to seeing him when i get back to ny.
my friends (gay and straight) have shown me so much love in the past few weeks. i never expected to have that much love in my life. it's more than i thought i deserved. I'm trying to let them love me.

hope everyone's doing ok <3

Doing okay! Going to my friend's birthday party at a gay bar tomorrow! I haven't been in a gay bar since 2017!

I had good sex the weekend of my birthday with an old friend. I was knocked out so solidly that I awoke, smelled foreign smells, saw him beside me, and realized I wasn't in my aparmtment.

smelled foreign smells

mmmmm i long for this

that plus a dick in my ass

lol!

marcos!

Okay, birthday party at gay bar was so cute! It's a piano karaoke bar, so very dramatic and histrionic presences everywhere, a lot of old theatre queens and young theatre queens and everything in between. And my friend's friend V1ct0r was there with his new date, a NB twink who I couldn't keep my eyes off of all night, so much so that Theo started teasing me about it lol...while admitting that he also thought the twink was extremely hot.

In any case I felt really GAY for the first time in a long time, and it was glorious. I also found out that I know the lyrics to a lot more show tunes than I thought I did. Guess you can take the boy out of the theatre...

that's adorable

that sounds so fun T! LA doesn’t really have gay piano bars anymore sadly. there used to be a wonderful one that closed in 2013, my husband and i went on some of our earliest dates there and always had a fun and kind of sloppy time (I think one of the young cute bartenders there had a crush on me and really liked to get us liquored up lol)

we saw “the power of the dog” last night - went into it mostly cold and wasn’t really expecting all the gay stuff! very good, recommend

is that a new movie? i can't wait to see Being The Ricardos on Friday ... am i the only Nicole obsessive here?

t#ddy that sounds like such a great time. i can't wait to feel more gay soon ... given my schedule for the new few months it's gonna be a hot minute. i've been having a weird thing with penetration where sometimes the idea turns me on - which is strange because i've NEVER been into it. i'm way too anal for that.

The Power of the Dog is a good literary adaptation, but maybe not a terribly great gay movie: its take on the homo-sexual/social/phobic is less revelatory in 2021 than the movie thinks it is (the source novel is from the late 60s).

About right.

oh interesting. can i tell u i've never been interested in gay movies. like have they ever gotten it right

Some more than others.

This probably says more about me than I would wish, but there are gay movies that seem to get gay more right than I ever had.

<3

I've found many of the "gay" movies of recent, except those about or from the perspective of teenagers, to be singularly awful. I hated "Strange by the Lake," for example. Never been more bored while watching a film ostensibly "about" cruising and gay sex.

And to clarify what I mean re: teenagers, I mean that one of the only other gay films I've seen recently was "Love, Simon," which, for all its bourgeois affect, actually felt extremely real and similar to experiences of younger gay people I know.

oh interesting. i was curious about that. the young people are good queers, it's for sure.

I like (not love) Simon and its TV spinoff Love, Victor just fine (and for the reasons you state) but the Canadian film Giant Little Ones, from a few years back, is a stickier and more challenging film about queer teens.

Y'all should check out Being 17.

Thanks, will search it out.

I never would have watched "Love, Simon" but I was hungover on a flight from Vancouver to Montreal and it was free to watch in-flight, so...

Being 17 is another good one, yes. Ditto The Way He Looks.

Tho Stranger by the Lake is an all-time favorite, I get and kind of agree with tabes here? At least in the sense that nothing's quite as fun, rich and dramatic in a gay timeline as the act of coming out.

It was my favorite film of that year, but I get why it might bore.

Oh, definitely will search it out. "Wild Reeds" is all-time gay film for me.

Another favorite, Pink Narcissus, arguably depicts self-actualization as a dead end.

I mean, I legit fell asleep the first two times I tried to watch "Stranger.." And I like a lot of boring movies!

I love Pink Narcissus.

But part of that is also that it's *actually* sexy.

"Wild Reeds" is all-time gay film for me.

Mine too.

Gotta watch that one again. Saw it on Canadian television back in the 90s when it aired late in the evening on one of our "arts" channels. The circumstances (though not the movie) made me feel like I was sneaking out of bed to watch porn.

coincidentally the only kind of gay film i like

Canadian television?

I know, I was surprised, too! I thought in Canada, the entertainment was hockey, moose turds, and placing oil pipelines through treaty lands.

My impression of the finest in Canadian cinema:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XlMq0809SI

(I wish I lived in Canada, tbh).

xp porn lol

i'm very basic

persimmons have a distinct aftertaste of cum

lol
hi
sorry I've been traveling
I'm staying with my aunt in St Louis
family triggers are in overdrive
I'm on new meds -
and they might actually be helping? i dunno
2nd doctor I've had in my life suggest tms
have y'all heard of this?
low level ect i think
i meannnnnnnnnn I'm thinking about it

oh god, take care. sending you positive and peaceful ish.

we'll see - i probably won't go through with it but it's gaining a lot of traction in the field.

heading back to NYC soon after an insane trip to St Louis. almost winter! time for the shining!

had the best t4t afternoon-into-late-night date yesterday! we were both nomadic genderfucky basement show art faguettes in our 20’s before fully coming out as pan trans around 30. she was telling me ridiculous stories of running a noise venue/label during her Coke Year; turns out we both really like fixing old electronics (cameras for me, synths for her) and we had some amazing sex while smoking a ton of weed and listening to her doom metal records. really hoping we can become besties with benefits!

then, this morning I got brunch with my wonderful nb stripper metamour and dished all about it over strong bloodies. (they’re 9 years younger than me so they call me mom! despite the fact that they are 100% my sugar daddy wrt brunches and the like. they’re buying me a latex dress for Christmas!) then they pulled off the slickest “hitting on a hot stranger at the bar” I’ve ever seen! I’m so intensely proud of how they’ve found their power these past few months.

It’s been almost five years but I’m still amazed on almost a daily basis at how much better being out is!

your excitement and positive energy radiate from that post, i love it

amazing sex while smoking a ton of weed and listening to her doom metal records

i hope i'm not overreaching by saying that i, a cis person, also find doom metal really sexy, and i guess it's just cool to hear that someone else does too.

Oh, I definitely have had many orgasms listening to doom metal and related genres, everything from Sunn 0))) to Fall of Efrafa. Also once had very intense sext to Tim Hecker's Ravedeath, 1979, lol.

But I mean, T and I are also aging punks, so listening to lots of doom metal isn't too weird.

"had the best t4t afternoon-into-late-night date yesterday! we were both nomadic genderfucky basement show art faguettes in our 20’s before fully coming out as pan trans around 30. she was telling me ridiculous stories of running a noise venue/label during her Coke Year; turns out we both really like fixing old electronics (cameras for me, synths for her) and we had some amazing sex while smoking a ton of weed and listening to her doom metal records. really hoping we can become besties with benefits!"

i want to have your life!

love Tim Hecker

back to bk after a month or so
geez y'all i love ny
i didn't realize how imperative it is for me to be here as a non driver and general weirdo

ran in our very own Stevie D at the farmers market yesterday. it was really nice.

aww love that

what's the weekend like everyone?

lol

Merle Haggard wrote and sang a song called "If We Make It Through December."

Yaknowwwww i get that

u still living it up p diddy? who's on the dance card?

we’re in florida at my in-laws for the holidays, they live in a 55+ community that has a clubhouse with a pool and hot tubs. spent a little time chatting with a sweet elder gay couple in one of the hot tubs. the older of the men has three children from his previous marriage, but after his wife died he met and fell in love with his current partner, who have been together as long as B and i have. the younger man has Parkinson’s and didn’t talk as much but he was very funny when he did. the older man’s sister also lives in that community and i guess when they visited her they liked it so much they ended up moving there too. was heartening to see an older gay couple faring well and happy in what is otherwise an extremely hetero living environment. they asked us if we’d ever consider moving to a place like that and…honestly idk. i could see myself getting into it if there were other homos around maybe.

anyway hope alla u gayz are having a happy, or at least tolerable, holiday season so far

❤️💜🖤🤍 great update
I would think about it tbh
i enjoy the idea of a residential community - just has to be the right kind of ppl. they can b chock full of Karens.
love always having people around though. i love people.

donna, that's sweet.

Where in Florida?

Now that I'm in my 40s, I kind of just want to fast forward to my late 60s.

alfred: they’re in lakeland. we spent last night in ybor city bcz we had an early flight out of tampa. ate outside in a cloud of cigar smoke then popped over to a gay bar for a nightcap.

oh weird my entire mom's side of my family is from lakeland

hi y'all

!!!

hi alfred i live in fl now

practically a golden girls episode up in here

Thank you for being my fiends!

clouds!!! so good to see u pop back up 💜 how's it been?
winter thread? any themes of note?

;_; at the explicit Golden Girls ref just a day before Betty White’s passing

o fuck yes. 100 years old and what a goddamn gift to the world.

i want to make a motion that we just do a single rolling thread with the next one.

we had four days in a row of a full social calendar over the weekend, including dinner with one couple and a hook-up with another. it was really nice.

agree with map

sweet suggestsh and sorry for the delay
I'll think of names
in the meantime regail me please

hiii

shall i tell the story of our couples hook-up?

it was ok, not as hot as i thought it would be, based on hooking up with these guys like 5 years ago.

very excited to be getting out to the desert this weekend, even though it's cold, because clean air and quiet.

I rejected a hookup with a known commodity on Wednesday b/c I wasn't sure of his COVID status.

How are y'all dealing with it? He's a good fellow whose job requires, he says, weekly tests, but I got nervous being in my apartment potentially inhaling his delicious mephitic fumes.

omg wtf is a known commodity
like a journalist
yes mappy

Uh, we had a wild time last night

uh oh yo
so that's the the drill huh just allude to the time
but share no details

lol, it involved some barleywine, dancing, and something similar to these

Okay now _I_ want details

Seconded

We had been smoking weed and casually making dinner a few weeks before Xmas and T asked me, "what if I had big breasts," and I said, "probably kind of hot," and then he got a deal on a pair from some Chinese retailer that caters to Asian drag queens.

Anyway, we just had some fun with them.

egg foo fun!

lolol

what a riveting life don't we think

honestly boobs are pretty rad

Steve Martin in Roxanne: "If I were a woman, I'd play with my breasts all day."

i would look really good with boobs

only had mine for a few years and I loooooooooooove them so much

i would look like a helga tbh. my inner woman is a ponytailed, bespectacled horse girl.

I would look like a Slavic prostitute, based on my experiences in drag.

I wish I had the guts to refer to myself as an aging dickgirl in public, because that's the image of my perfect self. (But there's a non-zero possibility of my ending up as a gay man at the end of my gender journey.)

as a confirmed aging dickgirl myself, fkn go for it

honestly boobs are pretty rad

aka "the bisexual credo"

only had mine for a few years and I loooooooooooove them so much

― nicole, Thursday, January 20, 2022 5:50 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

💙💛💚💙💜🤍

i would look like a helga tbh. my inner woman is a ponytailed, bespectacled horse girl.

― Nedlene Grendel as Basenji Holmo (map), Thursday, January 20, 2022 6:01 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I hear you, I've been told if I were a woman I'd be too obnoxious. TBH I kind of took it as a compliment

I would look like a Slavic prostitute, based on my experiences in drag.

― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, January 20, 2022 6:23 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, this is so sexy

Christine, Nicole and DJP, it's so nice to see you here.
so I got laid the other night. it was nice, you know the younger boys like to crawl up on my shoulder when we sleep. it does wonders for my heart. it's going to be a few months before I can enjoy this again, I have a few... commitments coming up that will render me a bit removed from my usual self. a spring of self-discovery.
in any event, I have noticed that hibernation has turned the gay male community into absolute dogs. people are literally throwing their clothes off and I don't think Omicron is helping. evolution only goes so far TBH.

I wish that were the case here, or, rather, gays here are like, "Omicron? Ooh! Teach me that position!!!

lollo
but if I recall correctly you haven't been entirely alone so clearly you've found some loopholes

Some holes, at any rate...

honey, I've been hole-free since early December

For holes lang syne, my dear, for holes lang syne.....

listen give me a break I've been going to bed at 5:00 and getting up at 9:00
now let me ask you something, there's this gorgeous man with deep soulful eyes who looks like a lone punk wolf. he says hi to me sometimes but it's just never going to happen. how do I reconcile this psychologically. it just feels too cruel to be true.

it was nice, you know the younger boys like to crawl up on my shoulder when we sleep.

sure sex is great but have you ever had someone fall asleep with their head on your chest?

it's worth learning to sleep on my back for

i have to turn over, waking him up about ten minutes into it. but i mean it's good for that amount of time.

it's beyond
he was like a lil puppy

speaking of, ya'll adjacent to any of that, yknow, puppy play?

i have to admit i'm curious

you know. I'm very curious
i mean i just find it adorable and very Jeff Koons

I think it's cute but we have two dogs so no.

lollll fair!

felt that way too, in the abstract, but then I encountered a couple insanely hot ppl who were into it and realized in that moment I would 100% hold a leash for the right person

tbf there is precious little I wouldn’t do if someone I was sufficiently attracted to was turned on by it. service switch, innit

any of y'all going out, as in, hitting bars and such?

I would 100% hold a leash for the right person

love

Alfred i'm not but i have very special circumstances at the moment

just came down with the Omicron and jesus Goddamn christ this is the worst sore throat i have EVER. HAD. i cannot bloody eat

surm are you feeling any better?

i just received a targeted ad on facebook from The Gay Beards for BetterHelp :|

lol wtf does that mean
i meannnnnnnN! I'm gonna tell you something that s*** felt like daggers were stabbing me in my mouth. repeatedly. all day long.
i finally started to be able to eat something besides soup and ice cream last night
gonna pick out a good horror movie tonight and eat something fucking delicious. been watching the final destination series
maps how are you kitty?

i'm doing swell, thanks. wfh and gyming a lot, surrounded by mormons, just livin life.

also we got married, still so excited you guys haha

it was literally two instagram beard bears talking about how great betterhelp was for finding a therapist. and the title was The Gay Beards for BetterHelp.

like, i really never thought that the dumb appearance-based gay subcultural identity i've been slotted into would be crossed with my mental health issues, but it definitely feels good to know that the sky's the limit with weird and repulsive social media marketing.

aww congrats map!! <3

glad to hear you're healing surm. am currently beset with (non-covid) illness myself but on the mend, self-medicating with claire denis and douglas sirk films

Congrats map! Welcome to the club!

Thanks folks. Hope you feel better soon dr.

Congrats map!

so happy for you map! <3

feel better surm! <3

Congrats, map!

Awww...So happy for you both, map.

Congrats map.

Theo quit his job, which was great, and while I was worried that we were going to drive each other crazy, we're actually doing great being around each other more. :-)

that sounds great.

you guys are sweet, thank you.

o snap! Look at this happy lot!
makes my heart warm.
congratulations doll 🤍
ted that's great. always an important adjustment.
I'm tryna get one more good time up in this bachelor pad
b4 a wacky 2 months we'll see those that goes

Congratulations map!!!

congrats map, best wishes

now that my porn tumblr finally got deleted all i'm left with is perving on a video ad for wrestling singlets that shows up in my fb feed from time to time.

i need a vast and constantly refreshed store of trashy and retro porn jpgs in my life.

I just purchased two issues of a very scarce vintage porn mag by the great Meal Roberts, who was around the time as all the studio physique people but mostly took photos of boy next door, California types. More on him here:
https://www.anothermanmag.com/life-culture/11093/mel-roberts-the-20th-century-queer-photographer-targeted-by-the-lapd

All that I'll say is that my friend was selling them and gave them to me for a song-- one of them is worth twice what he asked.

Obviously, I meant Mel Roberts and my phone autocorrected. Apologies.

map congraaaaaaaaaats!!!!!

felt that way too, in the abstract, but then I encountered a couple insanely hot ppl who were into it and realized in that moment I would 100% hold a leash for the right person

tbf there is precious little I wouldn’t do if someone I was sufficiently attracted to was turned on by it. service switch, innit

― nicole, Saturday, January 29, 2022 8:04 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

i would 100% wear a leash for the right person

but yea completely otm re turn ons. if you're into something and you're also into me and i'm into you then i will be up for almost anything

i just don't think i would look good in a leash
i have no problem with the act i just do not think it would be very flattering
it sucks because i love chokers but I'm a bracelet and earring guy, like to me a cuff is self actualization
I've always a second earring but errebody and their mother says the ones on top hurt like a b

I'm thinking of perma thread names any inspo

Your thread titles are always perfect

Maybe a callback to “i have like no gay friends in town” but on the other hand weve moved past that in many ways

Permanently lgbtqia+

i am permanently lgbtq+ in town

I am permanent. I am queer. I am in town. I am here.

is that some rally I don' know about?

😂 ok good feedback. I'll get cracking. in the meantime, any good stories? new love? old flames? i might be ready for a pre spring fling tbh.

celebrated our 10th (!) anniversary by driving out to desert hot springs for the weekend. mineral water pools feel sooooo nice

Congratulations! We celebrated ours last year

damn y'all! bunch of happy clams over here. real question: what kind of swimsuit do you wear?

I go swimming so rarely that if I do wear anything, it's usually underwear. But also swimming is more complicated with a stoma, so...

I'm really concerned for all the trans and queer teens out there. Reading an article about Texas this morning made me weep.

Hello gays, I have been away from home for two weeks and I really miss my bf!

hi sweetie! are you facetiming? where are you?

UGH tabes <3 - Texas. more and more Republicans. gross. what was the article saying?

I have been away from home for two weeks and I really miss my bf!

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 9:14 AM (five hours ago)

i hate when that happens!

last summer i started wearing speedos if i was somewhere gay, or just w/ my bf. or at the beach in p town i wore nothing

i have a cute pair of green and blue swim trunks that kinda look like athletic shorts. i have speedos that i probably don't fit into anymore (and that are kind of ugly anyway tbh)

I'm not sure why it's never occurred to me to wear speedos.

i have a deep, deep aversion

don those sound super cute

hardest thing about swimsuits is that they are always too long, even a 5" inseam looks too long on me bc i'm pretty short so i've been looking for 3". the longer "boardshorts" look comical on me

i think i'd look hella cute in a speedo tbh but would only wear it in the right place

my legs are too large to wear anything but trunks, i have a pair with roosters on them i bought in las vegas at the gay swimwear store. though they are mid thigh.

once when i was desperate for money i was *ahem* answering ads. and this guy really needed me to wear a speedo for him after we ate at the cheesecake factory. so i still have that.

my speedo is red, it felt a bit baywatch to me. i want to find a new color, but most speedos w/ designs on them are ugly. i'm thinking kelly green for this summer.

i think marcos would look hella cute in a speedo tbh as well

this guy really needed me to wear a speedo for him after we ate at the cheesecake factory

i love a specific fetish!

lol

Beefcake Factory

my bf and i have a running joke about the little factory where we ad-lib a construction foreman saying things like "ok boys, time to grease up your pistons, bend over and put your backs into it," etc.

I definitely don't fit into speedos anymore, the last pair I bought I weighed about 15 pounds less than I do now for a variety of reasons.

I should have said 'my speedos'

It's worth mentioning that I almost exclusively wear bikini briefs, tho. I hate any other type of underwear.

my kink of shame is that i bought a bunch of shorts and these weird little ball holsters from a lame gay-bro clothing company based in san diego called w00f clothing, and i still wear them to the gym. my cheeks are turning red just typing it haha.

I go home tomorrow and I'm excited to see my dude. It's been 24/7 with him for a while now bc pandemic. Physical distance has created imagined mental distance, I feel his absence.

I enjoy wearing speedos! I do not enjoy being naked in public. My speedos are black and from the Speedo/CDG collaboration.

i think marcos would look hella cute in a speedo tbh as well

― Nedlene Grendel as Basenji Holmo (map), Wednesday, March 2, 2022 3:01 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

<3 <3 <3

i dont even wanna talk about the underwear i wore for most of my twenties. like the cheapest square boxers from target lol. financial security and feeling more ***gay*** in my life now means i finally bought nicer underwear. i have these pale pink ck briefs on right now and i look good in them

My partner used to be a competitive swimmer and wears speedos, which I do not think I will ever be capabalenof doing

it took me a while to get there but whenever i was around a bunch of boys in speedos wearing a normal bathing suit i felt like a prude so i decided to switch over to the dark side... in mixed company (meaning a straight beach) i'd prob wear normal bathing suit. but as far as riis beach in new york, p town, fire island etc i like being among the horde of skimpy suits (or in p town, the horde of nudes). i believe alfred saw me wear a speedo when we were at the standard in miami beach but that's only bcuz my boyfriend's trunks got ruined so i let him wear mine thus leaving me w/ just a speedo

I lit a candle for you two at the Standard chapel.

i have a weird situation. so this guy, f, was friendly to me on ig and eventually came to a dj thing. he is close friends with my partner's work manager. he is also in an ltr. i had a friendly coffee date with f which turned into texting which got flirty, him initiating it. i asked if he was flirting, which seemed to make him anxious, but i told him it was welcome. i was communicating with my partner about it this whole time with the understanding that this sort of thing was fine (with no knowledge yet about f and his partner and where they are at), but he finally said he was uncomfortable because f is close with his manager at work. which is fine and very understandable and i'm supportive of that. so i've cooled off on texts and i'm sure f has picked up on it.

anyway, we had planned a couples dinner thing as friends. but now that feels awkward to follow up on.

i think i still want to be friends with f and i think that could still be possible but i'm unsure about where to go from here.

what do i communicate to f here? my partner doesn't want me to say to him that i stopped flirting because of the work manager, to leave him out of it. which, ok, i guess? this is strangely bewildering and i've taken a few days to try and think it over but could use some perspective.

anyway, we had planned a couples dinner thing as friends. but now that feels awkward to follow up on

to be clear, we had planned it, then they had to cancel, nothing rescheduled yet

I think maybe reschedule the couples dinner if possible and then try to thread the needle of friendly-but-not-flirty there so you're showing interest in spending time together but not interest in *wink wink, nudge nudge*?

Or, is there an avenue via DJing in which you could re-engage neutrally? I can't gauge from the story if he's a music nerd or not; if he is, maybe you can come up with some crate-digging type of question?

It's very odd trying to think of strategies to engage with someone that communicate that you are NOT flirting with them

haha right? I think my well-worn instinct is just to disengage altogether, part of me wants to try something different this time but i feel like it's going there anyway.

i think the issue with the couples dinner is that my partner feels like he's dragging his feet now but i need to check in with him about it. that's a good idea if we're both into it i think.

an activity that is low stakes and neutral is a good idea but i don't think he's really a big music guy. if something comes to mind i'll propose it though.

hi gay

stevie are you Posting Again???

lol I doubt it but I'm at least posting today

it's been a weird past several months for me but I think 2022 is being v good to me so far. my ex and I broke up last feb but have stayed close friends and prominent forces in each others lives, and then he started seeing someone in early dec which unleashed a whole slew of emotions, some anticipated and some not, and I realized that he was moving on and that I needed to move on too and that I was actually really lonely? like the whole year I had little desire to put any energy into like dating or hooking up but then it all hit at once and I was super depressed for like a month and a half, but I think it's p much gone now.

I went up to visit him in early jan (which we'd planned before he met his new boo) and it was... not the worst it could have been, but not really great either. but while I was there I met up with an internet pal of several years who I chatted with semi-regularly but had never met irl, we'd always been friendly but never actually flirty, and we uhhh reaaally hit it off wink wink nudge nudge (we fucked), there was like a really exciting chemistry and we've kept in touch and chatted almost daily and I'm actually going back to boston this weekend to stay w him for a few days and see this play he's in. I don't think I have the capacity for another like committed long distance thing but I really like whatever it is we're doing and hope we can continue it in its current state (though we will invariable have to have A Talk at some point, likely this weekend, to just to make sure we are on the same page so no one gets hurt)

I've also been going out more which has been really invigorating, I wound making out w 2 diff brand-new guys at the leather bar a few weeks ago (which is unheard of for me???) and one of them seems to be becoming/has become a new fwb, which is really really nice. we traded numbers and then got drinks a few days later (which turned into a hookup > sleepover > him making me breakfast), and then I invited him over for dinner last night. in addition to being an excellent fuck he's also like really affectionate and cuddly and intimate but w/o being like, emotionally clingy, which is honestly so perfect and wonderful and I feel like I've really lucked out. it's been several years since I've had any sort of reliable fwb/fuck buddy type situation, and I've been lamenting it recently so the timing is wonderful (I think I had sex with 1 person in all of 2021). we are planning a date to a brand-new massive h mart in the burbs and I could not be more thrilled.

also I've become better friends w this long-time acquaintance over the past 6-8 months or so after we went to honcho campout together, and him + me + a friend of his have become this little posse and we have been going to raves together, which is really fun and also kind of hilarious that I am entering a "rave phase" in my mid-30s. but it's nice to have a new group of friends outside of my normal friend circle who's down to do fun stuff. I also got invited to a week-long house share on fire island w them and said yes and it is SO weird and I have already had a whole existential crisis abt it but it will be such a new experience for me and I'm really looking forward to it

also also I'm going to LA for 10 days in april where I will see donna rouge, quincie, felicity redewll, and maybe make some new friends idk??? life is being kind to me and it's given me a little boost of confidence and I am really savoring it

stevie!

i'm going to LA next week, what are gay things to do?

marcos, how you holding up?

nice to hear all that stevie and that you're thriving and trying new things and people after the split.

marcos go to "ginger rogers" area of will rogers state beach in la for some sightseeing if you wish!

the l.a. thread peeps were great with recommendations for a trip we didn't end up taking last december.

err in santa monica not la

marcos go to "ginger rogers" area of will rogers state beach in la for some sightseeing if you wish!

yes this is the kind of thing i am looking for thank you!

although i feel like i will need a speedo

we order you to file a full report

stevie if this trip is anything like your last one then I am certain you will make tons of pals!

hi marcos! if yr into the gay bar scene, akbar and the eagle are in silver lake. weho has lots of bars as well but i don’t really go to any of them (for distance reasons mostly). if you were coming in two weeks I’d say come to the gay happy hour I’m DJing in highland park. and yes to ginger rogers too for fun and sun and speedos!

marcos you should go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology

Stevie, I have a number of friends who went through a mid-30s rave period. I think I just partied so hard from 18-32 that I don't have the stamina any more-- I don't even get to midnight on New Years Eve, tbh.

Also,.hi!

Yeah, my rave period started when I was 32 and was basically over when I was 38. Happy days. Well, happy weekends at least.

One of the happier periods of my life was dropping ecstasy every Friday for five months and dancing myself crazy. I learned a great deal about myself.

guys guess who I hung out with today!!!

not me!

extremely beloved former gaylxor elmo argonaut!!! we got brunch and went shopping and talked about boys and I convinced him to buy a copy of Samuel Delany’s TIMES SQUARE RED, TIMES SQUARE BLUE

aw elmo <3

ELMO

that beebs <3

and stevie!!!! honey I love that you're going out a bunch and healing. I've been there and you're doing the right thing. I've just now weirdly gotten to a stage in my life where I realize how much I love to dance. I need to go out dancing. I've been dominating a life situation for a number of months now so I'm sober as a judge but I have a nice stash on deck.

new thread to come in a day or two, just been slammed.

Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ love // A Thread for the Real Ones

PS I changed my username, let's not make a big deal about it I'll explain when necessary xxxoxox