GAY Secrets?

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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

7 Trendy truthful things (1)

I.                   TOMS are dead. Completely dead.

No, they were not shot dead with the glitter gun used to make these, but this trend died when people (cough* teenage girls, cough* and gay men, who are basically the same people) actually started wearing the walking glitter bombs.  And the earth was salted on this trend when Kardashian doppelgangers began to buy them in bulk and refer to them as, “those one shoes that everyone has.” They had a good run, but the trend is over. Amen.

Aren’t you happy though? One morning splash in a water puddle and you had about an hour before they become the pair of TOMS you don’t really wear anymore, you know, the knock around pair you wear to get gas, go to the bank and shop at the market, because you know you won’t be taking your smelly shoes off there. Or will you? Gross.   

With the assault of 1930s 40s and 50s style (Ray Ban Wayfarers, J. Edgar movie, Hitler youth haircut) classic is cool again. Oxford lace ups will be the TOMS of this spring, exhibit A: for men and exhibit B: for women.

Did anyone else think that TOMS the shoes, was also Tom’s of Maine? This guy is a saint! Has anyone actually been to Maine? I know it’s one of the 50 states, but who actually makes an effort to go there? I feel like you plan more trips away, than you actually go, kind of like college.

II.                Ladies, if you are wearing UGGs this winter you are insane. And if they are glittery UGGs, you should already be filling out paperwork for an insane asylum.

These UGGs no longer belong to women, they are now a men thing. Ladies, I would recommend some cute leather boots, I don’t know from where just make sure they are cute, whatever that means.

These men UGGs are big, clunky and rugged. Perfect! 

Men, enjoy the UGGs season, just don’t wear them with black leggings and a T-shirt, under a colorful North Face, while your hair is in a sloppy ponytail. Ugh. Tisk, tisk ladies. 

III.             Good news four your eyes four eyes, glasses are back.

 I know what you are thinking, “weren’t they always back?” Yes and no.

Glasses are no longer about the black Prada, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana (as long as they are black and from a high-end designer) thick rimmed glasses that every “trendy” girl, gay man and heterosexual, metrosexual wannabe picked up to feign sophistication and artistic ability. Sadly, I did date someone who went out and got thick non-prescription glasses for the trend. I know, I know, me actually dating, very sad indeed. Anyway, that is so over, so go ahead and break those glasses now. Wait! Buy a new pair first!

This time it is about color. So express yourself. We fight hard to keep freedom of expression alive, so don’t be a designer black-thick-rimmed glasses clone. Try the eyewear equivalent of TOMS here.

IV.             Guys if your idea of dressing up is a solid colored V- neck with a blazer, it will be suddenly very noticeable you have no real style.

Don’t know wear to go to wear something other than a V-neck? Life after the v-neck seems hard doesn’t it? Well you will have to pull out a little creativity for once so you are on your own on this one. Start Here

It’s ok, I see you are not feeling fashionable, so go ahead and slink into Meijer at 12 a.m. so you can pick up your weekly pack of Hanes tagless white v-neck t-shirts with your diet Red Bull and Redken hair products. 

V.                Kim Kardashian is out. Sorry Kim! But 2012 is looking to be the year of real talent. And since sex tapes have been over for a while, I don’t know how she will maintain her celebrity status. Maybe scotch tape? Ha!

VI.             The word “like” to fill in for the thought process, is like, like , so annoying, like it should have been gone three likes ago.

Since we already do so much “liking” on Facebook, there is no need to fit it in four times more in a sentence. That is like, redundant. Don’t you think? Try replacing it with “well” or just a facial expression to make it appear that you are thinking. Don’t wrinkle your forehead though, wrinkles are never in. Never.

VII.          Being a bitch is so fucking over. Remember when, “I like you, you are mean,” was a compliment? Well now you are just a mean bitch.

Being mean is no longer cool especially three years after high school graduation. Most mean people today, really mean, they have nothing else going on in their brains. There are plenty of topics to have an intellectual conversation on today: Herman Cain, Occupy Movement, Michele Bachmann’s French Tips. There is a little something for everyone, so pick one, and don’t pick on anyone else. It is almost Christmas and you know who is watching you.   

A message from Michael Song Lim

So I woke up to this message in my inbox, and I thought: Great! He gets it! This message saves me the trouble of blogging about it. Tell me if you get it, too below:

So there we have it, a policeman pepper-sprays seated protesters at close range, not with a small device, but essentially empties an extinguisher-sized canister of chemicals into young, upturned faces. Now, the sprayer, UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike. knew full well that the cameras were running. He brandished the canister, slowly raised it, and opened fire. Lieutenant Pike must have known that his full name and phone number would be tweeted all over the blogosphere before he wiped his hands and holstered his weapon, and must have predicted that his telephone message machine would be filled with inquiries, probably before his victims were triaged and admitted to the hospital. He must, therefore have figured that the UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi would have his back. And, I’m sure that both Generalissimo Katehi and her sidekick believed that it's high time to draw the line against the Occupy movement. Both figured that, although the public may sympathize with the protester’s demands, most would agree these spoiled children need to be taken to the woodshed for a good whippin’.

Why is that? Why is it that busloads of Tea Party activists can invade the halls of Congress with sticks and signs to protest Obama’s health care plan, and be considered a savvy political force, while seated student protesters are considered legitimate targets for cops? The main reason is that the Tea Party preaches privatization of all public institutions, and thus, has the support of billionaires everywhere, whereas the Occupiers demand oversight of same moneymaking machines that create such billionaires. No mystery there.

But here’s the real reason why many people disdain uppity college students: A general consensus that a university education is overrated. Many people believe that university students are being treated to an extended pre-employment luxury cruise of useless learning, learning that has little to do with future employment. Wealthy media figures enforce this notion with stories about growing rich using simple money-tricks. Parents look at the outlandish cost of a university education, and dearly wish it were so.

College students, coddled as we may be, see reality a bit more clearly. We’re aware that the ideas of inventors like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are useless unless you have an educated class that can develop them. New disease aren’t cured by brilliant flashes of genius, but by teams of scientists who make those findings practical. An American-developed Prius won’t be made possible by a few savvy inventors, but by the work of many engineers. Thomas Edison might get history’s credit for all those inventions, but it was those teams of scientists at Menlo Park that did the real work. Wanna have breathable air a hundred years from now? If we have it, it will be the result of a bunch of really educated people, not because of a couple wise guys with big wallets.

Most Occupy protesters have followed the same course well-travelled by millions of other Americans: Get fired from a good job, resolve to find something in a similar field, spend months, then years posting resumes, knock on lots of doors, and eventually, feel damn lucky to be offered a job at Target. And it is these educated job-seekers that most clearly see the new line being drawn in America. They see what companies are looking for these days, what the lauded “job creators” value: More burger-flippers, more checkout girls, more service-sector employees all around. That’s the “job creators’” idea of the future. Now, it’s not that America doesn’t need other things. But the billionaires tell us: “There’s no money in it.” Can’t save the future ‘cause there’s no money in it. Can’t develop an energy-efficient type of housing because there’s no money in it. Can’t make solar panels as cheap as the Chinese do, so why bother? And most importantly, can’t understand the irony of a wealthy Chinese businessman taking a high-speed bullet train to work while reading a newspaper article about South Dakota having to un-pave their roads because they have no maintenance funds.

But for the mega-rich, that’s the point of creating a nation of burger-flippers. If you are overworked and underpaid and trying to raise a family, you'd have no time to read such a newspaper article; much less have time to reflect on its implications. A nation of minimally educated workers might grumble about having to work two jobs to get by, might grumble about China getting the better of us, but there wouldn’t be enough hours of the day to turn grumbling into action.

But in order to create a nation of pacified serfs, you have to first do something about the smart kids, and it begins by spraying mace in their faces, spraying it at close range, and seeing if you get away with it. During the 1960’s, when violence rocked America’s college campuses, few Republicans questioned the value of education in general. Nixon-era Republicans wouldn’t care for the likes of Herman Cain, who brags that he knows nothing about foreign policy. Perhaps Republicans in the 1960's didn’t seek to dumb down everyone and take over. But the NYPD, under the order of their billionaire-mayor Michael Bloomberg, knew exactly what to do. A week ago, they descended upon Occupy Wall Street under cover of darkness, took down everything, went straight to OWS Library and destroyed 5000 books. That’s what you gotta do. Always burn the books. And pepper-spray the kids who read them.

-Michael Song Lim

Hello?....Anyone there?....

I know. I know. I did it and I am sorry. I did what I hate, and I did what you probably hate, too.

I am sorry. Can you please forgive me? Friends? Boyfriends? Ok ok friends is fine. I know I have not kept in touch but I promise it is for good reason.

Why?

Well, it doesn't matter now does it?

Only thing that matters now is that I am back, and I am here for you. I promise this time. I swear.

So, welcome me back already.

xoxo Mell