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

🙃🙃🙃 wassup y'all? i'm so happy we're all here. lots of years between the lot of you. friends, lovers, cuties welcome. 🐙🐙🐙

Bump.

feeling mighty real tbh

great title swen, can i call you swenny henny?

y'all I just spent 4 days in Boston w my new "friend" and it was soooo nice, we seem to really enjoy each other's company and he was v cuddly and affectionate and it just felt v lovely to have like easy uncomplicated intimacy, also while I was there I bought a golden fork to keep in my office for work lunches and I am irrationally excited abt it, it is truly so cunt

this weekend I am performing in a Kate Bush revue thing called N1ght of 1000 K4tes, it is going to be v fun (it's in its 8th year and I have attended all but the v first one and this will be my 2nd time performing!!!), it is one of my v favorite things abt Philly, every year is like going to summer camp and seeing all your friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jK7dW8Jf74

lmao at having a golden fork, it's completely perfect and now i want one. kate bush community theater sounds lovely.

it's got like a sanded matte finish instead of a high-gloss sheen, I really love it

it's actually my friend's performance/idea and I'm just one of the performers, but it's like, about covid??? (which I'm not thrilled abt but I love my friend and am happy to contrib), it's like a sound collage based on "Aerial" (which I tbh am thrilled abt) and there's like, dancers in the audience, and mirrory things on the stage reflecting back on the audience, and there's like, contemplation and one-ness and survival and stuff I think

that's sooo cool and I'm jelly. I just listened to Aerial the other day. my introduction to ILX!

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!

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

if i was gonna live anywhere else in the USA it would prob be chicago. was there for a week in june staying in edgewater and it was very nice and gay

A while back a native Chicagoan told me Edgewater was called the Gay 90s because everyone there is either gay or 90. (I love that neighborhood, and it's far more diverse than that suggests.)

That’s funny, Chicago is my least favorite city in the entire US lmfao.

Why so?

have you ever been to umm dallas texas

I lived there for a few months, visited a few times— I just found Chicago unfriendly, with a vastly overrated transit system, and a vibe that just doesn’t suit me.

I like Dallas, love Houston, hate Austin.

our pals whom we stayed with live in Edgewater, not far at all from the Granville Anvil lol. it’s a wonderful neighborhood!

never been to TX at all bar airport xfers but of the major cities there I’m most curious about Houston

Yeah honestly the “gotcha” stuff that people do about cities doesn’t work on me. I’d rather live in Richmond than New York. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was in Houston for a conference last year. The best part was meeting up with a college roommate for dinner.

Yeah honestly the “gotcha” stuff that people do about cities doesn’t work on me. I’d rather live in Richmond than New York. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

― out of the cradle endlessly party rocking (the table is the table), Thursday, August 13, 2026 7:23 AM (four hours ago)

but you live in philly!

I have the weirdest taste in American cities— I love LA but beyond that feel more enthused about a trip to Birmingham or SLC or Charleston SC than any of the “centres”. I have sighed and said “I could live here” about fuckin Milwaukee

I’m currently replaying Mutsumi FKA Mu lyrics in my head— particularly “Hello Bored Biz Man” which 1-2-3-4’s all my favourite lyrical devices all at once

Specifically the way she switches to a man’s voice for “what do you want?” but finishes the sentence in her girly voice “…me to do today?”

I’m copy pasting the lyrics from Genius into the thread right now because the number of ?s is so delightful:

Hello bored businessman
What do you want me to do today?
Take your ??? off
???
Should I tell you off
??? really for?
Listen to your bullshit
Complaints about your wife?
Listen to your worrying
About your children?
??? good girl
????

i've only ever heard good things about milwaukee, chicago people love milwaukee. i've never been and actually don't know a ton about the gay scene there, would be interested to learn more. minneapolis just decriminalized bathhouses!

LA is great i just find it to be an isolating experience. i was at a wedding in ojai last year and two people i know who get really good work in TV in LA separately and without prompting unburdened themselves emotionally by explaining all the reasons why LA is deficient and they miss NYC. great city to visit, but everyone goes home too early. if i had millions of dollars to buy property i would certainly consider southern california. however!

See— my LA hack is to socialize over breakfast and lunch hours. Late night is not the move. The gay scene in LA was too weirdly racially/class segregated for my comfort. I’m just lucky to have fantastic friends down there

I can’t imagine ever “missing NYC”, it’s like “missing your 20s”— grow the fuck up

a city that i've been to a lot that i don't particularly like and have turned down job opportunities that wanted me to move there -- nashville

kinda feel like a city needs to have at least .. 700,000 people in the metro area proper otherwise you just see the same people everywhere you go for years. my experience going anywhere in slc is that i will see all the people i met 15-20 years ago and decided i don't really like because they're boring and live here because of their boring family. flashback to when i didn't fit in with them and update: i still don't fit in with them. "hey how are ya long time no see" (internal: "wouldn't mind if it were longer").

so many good friends of mine live in boston, a horrible place. i like nashville ok but wouldn’t live there, austin an objectively worse version of the same thing. LOVE chicago but have only been there once and i never trust a first impression. philly is my favorite american city and i’ve been threatening to move there for a decade, but… i love new york. i would miss new york if i moved. there are so many things that suck and are stupid about it. but it’s my world. also pretty easy to have a gay time here

can you tell i love city chat

i’ve never been to LA except driving through it on the way to somewhere else, but i grew up in its significantly worse sister city las vegas so uh no real desire to experience it

I love Philly, Chicago; I've been to the latter enough in the winter not to wanna live there, lol.

L.A. is too much like Miami as far as vibe but not in weather and in how long people stay out.

Philly rules, full stop. Also stevie is there so it rules by default

My only issue with LA really is that it’s ground zero for what I describe as “expensive friends”— friends with whom one maintains a friendship more because of the status/id of said friend rather than any actual brotherhood/sisterhood. People who end up costing you time and money but you keep up the friendship because “he’s [redacted name]”. You don’t get that so much in Canadian cities, or cities that aren’t LA or NYC

come to Miami again!

we took a short detour to milwaukee when i was in chicago to see a friend who lives there. didn't see too much of it but i enjoyed walking around the downtown area, and the new art museum building is kind of breathtaking. also cheese curds (fried or otherwise) are a thing of beauty. would like to go back! (did you guys know UW-milwaukee has the second largest collections of maps in the US after the library of congress???)

philly just rules, so many great people there and i'd consider moving there too. i do miss nyc sometimes (sorry!!!! jk not really), i feel, idk, comfortable there in a way i've never quite felt in other cities, even the one i've now lived in coming up 16 years, but i also grew up near it so maybe that's why, and i don't regret having left it.

still never been to miami, we keep talking about heading down there for a night or two when we visit my husband's family but we've never managed to make it work. i've come to really enjoy st. pete tho, have to say.

And please yes Boston sucks, wowsers. I fell in love with Austin at the right time— 22 and crashing at a vegan co-op making out with random gays from San Antonio. Houston has some good food (and hideous architecture and urban planning) but otherwise didn’t show its face to me. Dallas was strip-mally, Denton seemed cool.

I used to enjoy NOLA but it’s kind of a booze town for alcoholics, no? It feels like a cruise ship or something.

I haven’t been there in a while but I LOVE Atlanta. And Savannah. And Charleston SC. And the tri-city. I dunno if I’d live there tho— however a Southerner feels about snowsuits, I feel the same about bug spray

And yeah Alfo I guess it’s been twelve years since I hung with you in Miami— far too fucking long if you ask me

re: LA - that particular type of person is easy enough to avoid here imho. it helps that i'm not in the entertainment industry (or at most very tangential to it) and neither are most of my good friends

a city that i've been to a lot that i don't particularly like and have turned down job opportunities that wanted me to move there -- nashville

Fukkin truth bomb

There are a surprisingly high number of hot guys but it’s not worth the endless bachelorette parties

I love Hello Bored Biz Man

US city ILX gay fap!

What do you want...

...me to do today?

(xp)

On some healing news-- things remain "feeling slow" but are "progressing quickly". I'll be driving again, soon. Just today I received some docs in the mail I'd signed just a couple weeks ago. Seeing the difference in "my penmanship", like how much my right hand has recovered in the past two weeks, was shocking, shocking!! And yet the days pass by with such tedium and I'm still sleeping 10-11 hours out of 24, sheesh

great news

And yeah Alfo I guess it’s been twelve years since I hung with you in Miami— far too fucking long if you ask me

― brb (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, August 13, 2026

what a time!

I am glad we all agree that Boston sucks. Honestly it sucks so much that when people I know say they love it there, I think less of them!!

i feel that way when people say it about slc. "oh we aren't gonna vibe." "oh cool you are one of those people." there are the dyed in the wool mormon whites. but among gay or more liberal people they're either very embedded in family (who are often dyed in the wool mormon whites). which, i just don't relate to at all. or they moved here to get ahead. from california / texas / indiana or wherever. usually another conservative state or the conservative part of cali. often in some kind of health-related field. the health scam *ahem* industry is the biggest game in town here, behind mining oil and gas, with outdoor rec far down the list somewhere. houses are (or were) cheaper here. so it's a market move. these people tend to only care about making more money. there are a lot of them in this city. for a place with such a weird religious rep it's very materialist. the taste though is not for "expensive and finely made", it's for "expensive trash." slc wins when it comes to the amount of money you have to pay for access to abysmal culture and aesthetics.

what i love about.. nearly any other city i've been to is that there is a fair amount of people you see on the street who are obviously marching to the beat of their own drum, who never "grew up and bought a house in the suburbs". maybe they're poor, maybe they're doing well for themselves, but for whatever reason they are living a colorful life and being somewhat more true to their authentic selves. in slc the people you see walking downtown are either commuters working their finance job at jp morgan chase or houseless. often it's the houseless people who are actually displaying authenticity. a fair amount are obviously in pain but not all.

I'm on the eve of a birthday-- 47-- and I was lying in bed this morning contemplating how comparatively un-productive, artistically, this decade, my 40s, has been for me. I was adding up all the factors that have been eroding that productivity. "Owning dogs" is a big one, "COVID" also. "The men I've dated" for sure, no shade at the two men I've chosen to split my time with but they were a time suck. "PTSD" was a big one, as was "playing bridge on my phone"-- I really got into bridge but I've probably spent 60-90 minutes daily, on average, in playing it, all in tribute to my late grandma. I've decided to give up bridge, and men, moving forward.

Owning dogs is the best reason for un-productivity.