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

so I have had my own idea for YEARS that I have told several ppl abt and have gotten a good response to and I think I am going to finally finally try to pull it off next year, I think I have maybe even talked abt it on here somewhere, but the song is this v inexplicable house remix of "Rubberband Girl" and the performance is a complete ripoff of UNZIPPED (1995) where it will be a fashion show and there will be all sorts of zany chaos and hijinks backstage but w like perfect immaculate runway walks the second they come out from behind the curtain, the performance has nothing to do w the music but maybe I'll get some LIVESTRONG bracelets made and throw them into the crowd idk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KII-OXV86c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBc4rXKkTU

AERIAL is honestly the best Kate Bush album

also it is a bit $$$ (20 of them to be exact) but they are selling tickets for the livestream tomorrow night at 8:30! https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Night-of1000Kates/470113?afflky=UndergroundArts

stevie i still have that KB shirt you sent me! it's a lil snug on me atm but whenever i wear it ppl always ask about it

omg mine too is a lil snug, I forget which one I sent you but the one I have has her face on it and my belly makes it fold in half so that it makes her look like that one picture of Aphex Twin

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/da/Aphex_Twin_-_Syro_main_press_photo.jpg

you sent me the glow in the dark one (which amazingly still works after probably dozens of laundry cycles)

I just watched unzipped recently and it was so good. also did you know there's a sister documentary called catwalk that basically follows Christy Turlington all over the world?
pretty awful what's going on with Linda Evangelista. she just released the first body pics of her condition due to coolsculpting. unimaginable.

I was sad to miss Kates. Heard my friend Anna blew it outta the park, and saw the wacky inflatable Cathy and Heathcliff blow-up piece on film. Looked like a really fun time, but we had planned a dinner months ago with our gay friends, one of whom is going through a health scare...so it seemed more important to hang out with them.

I finished "Detransition, Baby," yesterday, and while I thought it ended much too quickly, I thought it had some really lovely moments.

hope your friend is hanging in there <3

xp y0ung?? she fuckin KILLED it (as per usual). I hope they post a recording of the livestream.

I've been listening to a lot of RuTH lately 🌄🌄🌄

yes Stevie, that Ann4

o boy what a life we lead really

so I'm not sure when the next time I'll "meet" someone is, let's call it, due to extenuating circumstances

do i care?

will i ever go out to a bar and pick someone up again? i had occasional game. all of a sudden I'd love to meet someone younger than me. i usually don't gravitate to that realm. i wonder what that's about

you will absolutely go out to a bar and pick someone up again, it is so inevitable

Date tonight. At a (rooftop) bar. I shoulda asked if he's jabbed.

first date? how did you meet? brown hair, big heart, bat eyelashes?

you know Stevie it's just at first it was pandemia, and then health stuff that's going to take another 6 months to settle. just didn't realize I'd be singing the same tune for the goddamn 3-year dark ages. but whatever i'm going to get so many beauty treatments when this is all through I plan on looking like Princess Jasmine meets Bella Hadid. mark my words.

also i quit smoking forever and it's truly something else. going on 6 months.

my new issue of BUTT just arrived!!!!!!!!!

omg i already read some of the poems
how is it at large?

is it large?

C'mon Simone, let's talk about your big "but."

I haven't read it yet bcz I got it at work and then *brag alert* went straight to my fuck buddy's house for a cute date and only just got home a few hours ago!!!

butts all around

butts rule everything around me

OK SO
I'm not a butt man and i keep feeling more and more alone
like American men are just obsessed with them
i feel like there's something wrong with me

Stevo you're killin it these days

don't care about the outside, it's what's inside that counts imo

like the way it feels?

yeah! i mean not to get too tmi or too cliche i guess but i just think anuses are this incredible part of us lol and i really like experiencing them.

So! My Saturday night date sold me out. I suspected trouble when I had to text him 15 mins before meeting: he was running late thanks to a "minor emergency" at his parents', whatever that means (what's a "minor" emergency?). Luckily a friend kept me company at the bar.

An hour later, date texts: "On my way, send location address plz?" That's the last I heard of him. For a while I thought he died -- until I saw a an Instagram post Sunday morning.

He's 24, a former student who emailed me four years after class to ask about getting a beer or coffee. On determining he was queer he gushed: he praised my self-assurance, brains, looks, etc. We might've met that night had I not plans already. It's worth noting I barely remember this kid in summer 2018.

I wonder if simply not showing up is a phenomenon of the young?

Anusii are a cliche?

that sucks. definitely hit next. it's been a phenomenon of the young and old as long as i've been dating tbh. xp

Yeah, I wanted to avoid generational generalization, but a few viejos noted The Vanishing has been more prevalent in the last four years.

I've ghosted more than my share, I should note.

I have never done this, to my knowledge?

me eiths it's dumb
I'm too polite though

wassup homieslice

good morning!

Mornin' sunshine!
What's on the platter?

I'm vegetarian tonight.

sexually or culinarily?

Lady Bracknell : Well, both, if necessary, I presume!

So, I’m in one of the only two gay bars in Marbella (southern coast of Spain) right now, and the thing here is that high heeled shoes are passed around, everyone tries them on, and then they take their turn swishing down what passes for a catwalk. Pleased to report that my boy got the loudest applause of the night. We make our own entertainment.

The bar is filling up because at 4am they close the doors, bring out the ashtrays, and everyone can smoke indoors.

We will be back tomorrow for drag queen bingo.

omgggggg jealous

Oh I forgot to mention the seventy something naked woman who did her catwalk turn clutching a large stuffed teddy bear.

stop

jealz to the max

Just ended a fabulous evening with j0rdan.

yesss. what did y'all do?

we went to a sports bar so i could watch basketball while we talked about madonna

...and Mariah Carey. And my terrible non-date last week.

I don't know, maybe I'm more conservative than I used to be as regards this sort of thing.

When people my age talk about partying or going to gay bars all the time, all I can think about is how empty I find those environments, and how I'd really prefer being at home or sitting around a campfire or something.

I was talking recently with a friend of mine, my best gay friend really (he is one of the co-editors of the Lou Sullivan book, a gay trans man), and we were talking about how we had to figure so much out for ourselves, as he has had to constantly deal with baby trans men basically imprinting on him and treating him like a daddy bird, a role he doesn't like. For me, it was more like, I realized when I was a teenager and would go to gay spaces that while there was desire there, I felt just as alienated in a lot of gay spaces as I did in straight spaces. Obviously we all know that there are as many ways to be gay as to be straight, but one of the reasons it took me so long to come out— a process documented here on ILX back in the day!!— was that I just couldn't find myself in much of what passes for gay male culture and sociality. Like, I wear glasses to a night at the bar, and people will still classify me as a "nerd." It all seems so juvenile.

I also realized, after I typed that in, that it is obvious why these environments feel so bad to me: I partied and drank and drugged from 18-34. I quite literally was a party DJ and promoter. I met my husband at a club night where I was working.

I neither need nor desire to party anymore. I go out dancing a few times a year, the majority of those hours spent at the local electronic music festival (where I have hung out with Stevie D and donna rouge, among others). I am looking forward to my annual lost weekend in September, and then I can go back to being in bed by 11.

You know what's universal? What you just wrote. Part of the problem is the hole left in our culture when AIDS killed thousands of would-be mentors: a generation of knowledge lost. Add this complication to growing up in towns and cultures where queerness was a stigma and it's no wonder it was harder for us (I didn't come out till I was 24).

I have hope that high school and college men and women at least get an idea of how to perform their sexuality thanks to social media. Of course it has its hazards but it's better than what we had.

Yeah, I have noticed a lot fewer young gay dudes I know spend all their time in gay bars. Which, thank god, as most of them in Philly are pretty abysmal other than the Bike Stop. And occasionally U-Bar.

yes, i was universalizing for the purposes of discourse and not describing an experience that i believe applies to all gay men everywhere...

i was mum about it here because we really just wanted to dedicate our time to a. and his friends while we were there, but we were in philly for about 10 days at the end of july. the trip was just non-stop flow. i was more friendly, open and outgoing than i've ever been in my life! we made new friends. we went to the episcopal church in center city both sundays, where they have an amazing centering prayer group. we helped this really lovely older couple from the church move a sander from the second story in their old-ass little two story walkup in center city--don't know the official name for these. row houses? man, this one woman we passed catcalled me sort of. i was wearing blue short shorts and she said something like "gentleman in the blue shorts... i like your body!" she said "body" in a kind of rushed way like imagine someone spraying their face with a fan lmao. and then we were walking somewhere else and i passed a dude and i just heard "strong as shit" before knowing what hit me lol. anyway something about being there this time lit a fire under my ass. it was so so so so hard to come back. i've tried and tried but i just despise salt lake with all of my heart. right now things are looking up as far as saving money goes but it's so tenuous - we have like 5 appliances on their last leg / home repairs etc. and an unexpected bill could always topple the one story high house of cards that needs to grow into a mansion that is my savings account. but i'm more motivated than ever. we have to get out of here.

the place i spent the most time in while i was in philly, other than a.'s apartment and the hotel / conference i was attending for work, was the gym! i got a week pass at city fitness and ended up working out in 3 of their locations in center city. of course i had to check out the locker rooms and the saunas / steamrooms and let me tell you they were hott haha. i got handsy with a muscle daddy in the steamroom at the gayborhood location. he even went down on me! anyway as far as gay spaces go i feel like gyms may be a better option at least for me than gay bars.

I'm glad you had a nice time here, map!

thanks t. you live in an amazing city!

xp to myself, i think what i detected during this chat was that my straight friends who are transitioning from 30s to 40s while being childless and still feeling or living "young" find themselves at a life crossroads, as some of their straight peers begin to outwardly move their lives forward along very traditional pathways. i think these people are left w/ existential angst about whether their lives are progressing as they are supposed to, they are feeling time pressing down on them and they are confused as to what they should be feeling at this moment in their lives. there's lots of questions about what is the right thing to do or even just the right way to feel about being in the space between youth and middle age. there is a mental displacement.

there are plenty of gay men in nyc who find the party scene distasteful, find it crazy that people in their 40s stay out until 3 yada yada, and i don't mean to say that standing athwart from your peers doesn't cause existential angst, or that i don't feel some of the same angst about aging and life as my straight friends. but if you're a gay man who is taking a social path that deviates from your peers, you are not also deviating from a path that humanity has laid out for you as the way forward w/ life. there is an ability to more freely pursue the life one wants to build for himself without having to carry all the societal baggage that some of my straight friends are starting to feel weighing them down. and if you're a gay guy going along the same track as your peers -- staying socially rooted in the party/bar scene -- you're just more likely to meet new people, make new friends, and have a more diverse array of experiences than what happens w/ straight people who keep up w/ their peers, which is to essentially experience a deep atrophying of social life. i think that both types of gay men are afforded a level of agency in many diff ways that straight people find themselves struggling to achieve, either in actuality or mentally

i know none of this is especially revelatory, it's just happening to me & my friends, however i can only relay my experiences, and yes i am talking about life in new york city

i do think what you're describing j0rdan has broader resonance.

not drinking means that bars are generally a no-go for me. the bar scene here is bad and awful anyway. apps and the gym have been the only things in my life that bring new slc people into it at the moment. it's taken me years to realize that i need to be a part of a richer social fabric in order to be happier. part of the issue here for me is that anyone who chooses to live in slc is automatically suspect in my eyes. if someone ends up here of their own accord, and not because they get roped into being the caretaker of parents (another slot reserved for straight world approval of gay men, it seems), i have this deep unshakeable feeling that our values aren't the same. so i'm grinding around this city day in and day out with my guard up at best, actively hostile at worst.

anyway, i lost access to apps because my phone is too old because i can't afford a new one. but i learned recently that something called "daddyhunt" is downloadable on my iphone 6. i think i'm going to throw caution to the wind and give it a try.

you are not also deviating from a path that humanity has laid out for you as the way forward w/ life.

This just isn’t true, though— being a married gay man who isn’t into parties and etc, I feel like I am definitely deviating from TWO paths— both the gay world of parties and etc and the straight world that you speak of.

Again, I think this really does have a lot to do with your perspective as someone in New York, which isn’t a knock, but just a reality.

you are not also deviating from a path that humanity has laid out for you as the way forward w/ life.

This just isn’t true, though— being a married gay man who isn’t into parties and etc, I feel like I am definitely deviating from TWO paths— both the gay world of parties and etc and the straight world that you speak of.

Again, I think this really does have a lot to do with your perspective as someone in New York, which isn’t a knock, but just a reality.

Hmm this is where Deep House has relevance.

For sure

Interesting thoughts on this interesting topic!

I’m a barfly for life, even booze free I just wanna hang out at the bar drinking ginger beers shooting pool and chatting the chats. I never got into “the gay scene” because it’s as strange to me as “a pickup bar” might be to a straight person— my man is with me or he’s at home, and if I’m single I’m not looking to pick up or hook up. My friends are generally gay and we hang out but I don’t need to be in a gay environment. Dancing is fun but I prefer shooting the shit. Drugs have never been for me.

In my new city, Vancouver, I’ve been finding myself hanging more with lesbians than ever before— my desire for queer elders has been sated by all these wonderful women. We used to hike and have dinner parties— I can’t hike right now but hopefully I’ll be back at it once I’m healed

Wait, remind me -- am I the only bachelor here?

I’ve been finding myself hanging more with lesbians than ever before

we were welcomed into a little lesbian circle through some of a.'s friends in philly and it felt really really good to hang out with them.

i could definitely do soda at bars. i feel like going to a bar is always best when you're visiting somewhere. i can't really go to a bar in slc. i just .. there's no one i would want to talk to lol. though that might not be true, i haven't really hung out downtown in years. it would probably be a good idea. i'm a fiend for the touchtunes lol. i get lost in it and forget to talk to anyone.

i can def do soda at bars, and i do occasionally have a drink or two. i just find it boring ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to each their own!!

yes to each their own! i know it's kinda corny but i also liked the civic character in philadelphia. people seemed to be proud of their independence in a live and let live kind of way. and also proud of their blackness, as a city and a place. is that accurate at all t?

Sometimes I sit in a bar by myself, drink bitters and soda and play bridge on my phone with nobody to talk to. Remembering that I work from home, alone— the time “out” is often a daily respite. (More often than not I see denizens and have a good time.)

I am a bachelor, ex and I split in May just a few weeks before the accident. It wasn’t a hard or sad breakup, in truth I’d felt checked out for months. We’re not not getting along, we’re not currently speaking but it’s not bad, just spacious. Despite the fact that I moved to Vancouver at his behest I’m not upset about it, I love it here so far, even on my own.

I’ve been chronically coupled my entire adult life and I’m kinda over it right now. Over sex, dating, coupledom, it feels like it’s pulled me in ways thatve wasted my time and expended my resources needlessly. A part of me, post-accident, is in the “who would ever love my disabled ass anyway” boat, but I think/hope this is a temporary state of mind

As someone who didn’t come out until his 40s and only has partial custody of his kids, I feel very much like zebra pretending to fit in with a bunch of horses in this conversation.

and i’m very curious about your perspective bcuz of that!

xxp you are obviously loveable no matter what and like you said above, you'll be healed and hiking eventually so being disabled is temporary too, for what that's worth. sex, dating and coupledom are worth taking a break from. i have to take regular breaks from them even though i'm in a relationship. sometimes you gotta choose you in a way that leaves others behind for a while imo. maybe this is the start of something better for you. i mean maybe not, but it will be worth finding out.

fgti i’m a chronic coupler too. my friends who casually “date” guys for months on end are foreign creatures to me

djp i join jordan in saying i'm curious about your experience here.

agreed w/ map and j0rd DJP.

map, your impressions were largely correct. :-)

Well, I am coparenting remotely with my ex. The vast majority of my travel/vacation time is spent seeing my kids. I also am still a newlywed and a good amount of time is spent with my husband forging a new life together while also starting the conversation of where we want to be when we are older. I very much have family concerns, particularly with regards to my kids and how they will navigate the world as young Black men. I feel like I missed the nightlife window but I’m also not fully replacing it with parenting time because most of the time my kids are halfway across the country from me. It’s a very weird and unsettling mix of things that I never in a million years would have predicted to be my mid-50s life.

It’s all just very… different from what you guys are talking about

how do you deal with missing your kids? i'm sure that must be hard.

We don’t talk as much as we should but we do call. I am making a concerted effort to call more frequently; there was a period of time where I didn’t want to turn myself into a chore they had to keep but the cost has been losing very precious time interacting with them and I’m no longer interested in letting that slip away. I can’t talk to them every night but I can chat multiple times a week. I also see them in person for every long weekend, their week breaks, and for 5-6 weeks in the summer.

It’s not enough, tbh

that's too bad. do you ever feel like because seeing them is a special occasion, you get to give them the best of you? i mean i have no idea what that must be like but there must be a silver lining, i would hope. and i'm sure the love that you're giving them now, and what you gave before, is going to guarantee meaningful relationships with them when they're older.

i'm about to turn 42 and i'm (in theory) more into parties now than i was in my 30s. (to wit, i'm going to nyc in a few weeks and already bought tickets for a party there, and then the week after am going to the same fest in philly that tabes is going to.) this is i think partly a function of getting back into DJing over the last few years, and wanting to support local DJs here and make friends in that community, something i wish did more of/were better at doing. but i say 'in theory' because i don't actually go to very many, partly because the kinds that i want to go to are not ones that my partner is that into (he doesn't care for house/techno) and we tend to devote our weekends to hanging out with each other and/or with other friends. when he's out of town (which he is currently), i'm always scanning the social calendar for parties i might want to go to lol.

also re: bars - my husband and i often go to our usual gay watering hole on fridays for happy hour (not every week, only if we've no other plans). we usually have a couple drinks, sometimes we bring snacks, chat with our favorite bartender and some of the other regulars, and leave to get dinner before the younger crowd starts funneling in. it's become a kind of a special thing for us, a nice way to unwind after the end of a long work week, and something i always really look forward to. and i enjoy being in bars in general if the atmosphere is amenable (conversely, nothing worse than a bar with a bad vibe). i was just in chicago and was really loving a lot of the bars our friends took us to. and yeah like fgti i honestly don't mind sitting alone doing nothing at a bar, sometimes i just enjoy the experience of being out in the world amongst other people. anyway, all just my own $0.02 of course and not meant to suggest anything about how anyone spends their time! just how i personally feel about the above topics.

we just had friends move to chicago! it seems perfect for them.

meanwhile i just applied for a job in ... helena montana lol.

just for a bit of practice / to test the waters but never say never.

also re: bars - my husband and i often go to our usual gay watering hole on fridays for happy hour (not every week, only if we've no other plans). we usually have a couple drinks, sometimes we bring snacks, chat with our favorite bartender and some of the other regulars, and leave to get dinner before the younger crowd starts funneling in. it's become a kind of a special thing for us, a nice way to unwind after the end of a long work week, and something i always really look forward to. and i enjoy being in bars in general if the atmosphere is amenable (conversely, nothing worse than a bar with a bad vibe). i was just in chicago and was really loving a lot of the bars our friends took us to. and yeah like fgti i honestly don't mind sitting alone doing nothing at a bar, sometimes i just enjoy the experience of being out in the world amongst other people.

I love this -- this is me. I plan to sit in a bar with a martini and Peter Biskind's Warren Beatty bio in about an hour.

do you ever feel like because seeing them is a special occasion, you get to give them the best of you

Honestly our time is so abbreviated that I often feel like there’s not enough time for them to get a balanced view of me. I do feel that they don’t take me seriously as a parent. I’m sure I’m not the first parent to say that but they treat me like one of their buddies to an upsetting degree. Like, they keep adding me to chats with their friends and try to share shitposts with me while also ignoring chores/tasks I give them or direct instructions like “put down your iPad and go clean up the toilet seat you pissed all over”

haha. uh that reminds me i need to uh clean the sink.

Honestly our time is so abbreviated that I often feel like there’s not enough time for them to get a balanced view of me.

This is what I meant to ask you. Also: if you and your ex-wife have a good enough relationship that she doesn't misrepresent you as a gay man and a father. Please cut me off if I'm prying or offensive.

It’s not offensive as much as I’m not 100% comfortable about discussing this on a searchable message board. That said, anyone who wants to dive into my middle-aged insecurities xan DM me on other platforms, I’m connected to many of you elsewhere. Maybe we could do a big Bluesky chat or something.

you're not leaving this psychiatrists' bench mister!

j/k

lol