Couple of fools

Have you ever been to gay suburbia? It is like Menjo’s on a Thursday night, only people skip over the drink mixers and go straight to the shots, and the smell of desperation is masked with Pine-Sol.  

There is premade ham in a box, cheese bites, red and green gummybears filled with vodka, home rolled bread, red and green floral arrangements, literal gay gag gifts, biggest bulge raffles (for charity of course), name tags, and me; the black Grinch doing Jager shots in the kitchen corner.

Couples parties was one of the few obligations I had to endure after “dating” Franco for a whole seven days and this week it was all about the holiday party.  

Not wanting to show up empty handed, I brought a moderately priced red wine that I left in Franco’s car because he assured me they did not care what I brought. (I would have re-gifted that wine to one of my best friends for her birthday if I had not broken it in my driveway in a drunken stupor; I guess the universe frowns on re-gifting, too.)

Inside Michael’s (the host) tidy Port Huron home, it was an archeological dig site. Every man I met had the muscular remains of someone who was very gorgeous in their hay day. Now they were middle aged and in the closest thing to marriage the state of Michigan allows for two gay men. If anyone at all still sat on their laps, it would be to read their Christmas list.

This was my first official couples mixer and was it cold. It turns out, if you were not in a relationship, you were supposed to talk to the single guys at these events. While Franco texted in the corner, I went to network, which was easy because we were required to wear name tags.

Tim, who was just getting into the marketing company he worked for, was pulled away by his boyfriend and given the, you-should-not-be-talking-to-this-guy look. To avoid another Tim-like situation, I talked to pairs: James and Rob were all about the power of two.

“We” love this, “we” don’t do that, “our” future, and “our” friends; I could never get used to speaking for two, and some say this is why I should not be in a relationship. It always felt like I was talking to the same person. Do my friends really have to become “our” friends? Is this how a successful relationship works or were they foolish?

So I had to wonder, is being a couple about two people coming together to work as a couple, or is it about two people working to become the same person?

7 Trendy truthful things (2)

1. Please stop with the “no hookups” cry on Grindr, Manhunt, Black Gay Chat, Boots and Chains, etc. Honestly, who do you think you are kidding?

Is it “no hookups” just in case your younger, gay cousin has Grindr, too?  Or are you trying to hide your sex history from your boyfriend? Don’t worry, I won’t tell them you're a slut, but just because I won’t, doesn’t mean someone else would be so kind.

If you want love, go out and meat people; feign laughter and intrigue from their bad jokes like the rest of us couples do. I know it is a little much but tis the ways of love, and tis the season, too. So, until you are ready for that, be prepared to answer the same 3 questions over and over again: Top? Bottom? Vers?

2. Grindr advice: the easiest guys to screw are the guys with “no hookups” on their profile. Amirite?  Amirite?

3. Baye (babe or baby); Wyd (what you doing); Hmu (hit me up); Wu(what up); Wfu(wanna fuck); All I have to say is, wtf?

     I had a date with a guy who loved to utilize these terms -- we never made it to our date.  I called and he texted back, "wu (what up) we gon chill"? 

     Guys, If you don't have the effort to text someone full words, then you probably should not be texting them at all. And if you use text slang because you are in such a hurry, phones have this really cool voice feature, too, it is kinda what they are known for. A two minute phone call is all it takes to make plans to "chill" in your best friend's basement. Yuck!

4. Wearing glasses when you don’t need them-

     I dated someone who wore non-prescription glasses because he wanted to look smarter, and I did not have the heart to tell them before--but now, now that I have no heart-- you are a loser.

5. Talking about how drunk you got after the age of 24-

If after 24, the highlight of your weekend is how many alcoholic bevs you purchased, then I guess I would drink a lot in your case, too.

6. Str8t Acting-

    In 2011, we saw too many teenagers die because they were not allowed to be themselves, so why waste your time acting like something you are not?

7. Stop serious debates at nightclubs-

Haha, are you running for another term in office? Shut the fuck up and dance.

Men are the new women

Among  all the eye rolling insults used to dismiss men on the basis of looks, personality, and frame — bitch, slut, ugly,  round and excessive, to name a few favorites — there was never such an insidiously life-changing word as: frumpy.

For the last two weeks, before going out to the bar to be judged, my friends judged themselves, first.

And, “I just don’t want to look frumpy” was the common fear factor.

To date in a world where fat made you not applicable, frumpy was the new fat and a somehow the new worst case scenario.

You can be a sexy bitch; a cool bitch; you can even be cool-if-you-weren’t-such-a-bitch, but there is nothing cool or sexy about being frumpy.

Like “mushy” and “slimy,” when you use the word “frumpy” you already have general idea of what you will be looking at.  It’s not so much whether they are good looking but if they have stimulating qualities. It is the male version of homely, with the usual bad clothes and muffin tops.

Twenty pounds less, or even 10, and some guys will be in the “hott” zone and on their way to a dim life of shallow happiness and lavish dinner parties where wine is the main caloric intake and food is meant to complement the atmosphere, not to be eaten: the materialist’s American dream.

Weight is an outward problem that can be rectified with a mixture of diet, dieting and more dieting, but if you are frumpy, you could stand to lose a little more than pounds.

What makes frumpy so hard to digest is its loaded recipe of judgment:  take career, add looks, sprinkle with personality, and top off with sex appeal as needed. It is an insult based on your total package — your life.

And the dating standards have changed.

Men are the new women, and those poor straight women are now basically fembots. Men should be high maintenance but masculine; fashionable but masculine; emotional but masculine; outgoing but masculine; skinny but masculine; have a nice ass, but a masculine ass. The constant switch between who we are and who we should be to be “dateable” eventually makes us neurotic enough to be girls.

But most importantly, men should have a plan: How do you plan to make your date’s life better?

It turns out, in a state suffering so severely such as Michigan, where people are lucky to have a job, the question of, “What do you do?” is more important than ever. And whatever you do, you better have a good reason for doing it, because everything has an expiration date.

Students are easy.

Being a student is the easiest excuse to explain why you are a barista or a delivery driver. A recent college graduate who works at Starbucks has potential. He is getting his life together.

Graduate two years ago and still work at Starbucks? What happened? Did you decide coffee was your real passion?

We need to be doing something other than work with our lives so when your date is talking about you to his friends, you sound good, at least on paper or at the very least better than his ex-boyfriend. Oh how gays love guys who are involved.

[“This guy volunteers where? Oh He is a keeper.”]

When it comes to dating there are two types of men: the men we want, and the men we can get.

Of course you know what I am talking about because your last date probably fell into the latter category.

But don’t write your date off as frumpy just yet.

Everyone knows good jobs take time and great jobs take effort. There is a reason you are splitting the bill at dinner. There is a reason they had to show up in their work clothes. There is a reason their car is making that awful sound. There is a reason they live in a room and not an apartment or house. They could be going through an increasingly popular recession inspired “rough patch.”

Wait, so what are they doing on a date?

Goodnight

xo