Faithful

Okay, remember how my pal Slutty Mandy decided try something new and go out with a guy a few years older than her usual meat market? Well, she called me with an update, and it was a doozie.
“Wait, he’s WHAT?”
“You heard me,” she said. “He’s goddamn motherfucking MARRIED. As in, man and wife, rings and shared debt, the whole thing.”
“But you said he was divorced.”
“Because that’s what HE said,” she hissed. “Then last night he clarified that statement. Apparently when he said “divorced,” he meant “not really even remotely divorced.”
“Well that is just… tacky.”
“It seems that the only difference with older guys is that they’ve had more time to get really good at lying. I’m so fed up. The only thing worse than being a dirty mistress is being one without realizing it.”
“Maybe it’s time you try that lesbianism thing the girls are so wild about,” I say. “Lindsay Lohan seems to find it agreeable. I think I’ve got a brochure around here somewhere.”
“I’ve tried the girl thing,” she says. “Aside from it being less messy I really failed to see the appeal. Jesus, Topher, why do men do this? Why is one person never enough for a guy?”
It’s a question often asked. Statistics tell us that men wrestle with the concept of monogamy more than women. Although, I assume these reports are based upon interviews. It’s entirely possible that the men are admitting to their indiscretions, while the women are simply better at hiding it.
For most of the guys I know, finding the one and only remains the stated goal. Listening to them, one would assume they crave monogamous relationships. And yet in the moment, a nice option comes along, and suddenly a man can conveniently forget he’s married until after he’s been on a few dates and stayed over. It’s bad enough when there’s one man involved, but when it’s two guys attempting a relationship, surrounded by other horny gay guys… well, resisting temptation basically becomes your full-time job.
My friend Sammy used to hang out with a married guy, just as friends. There was a little flirtation, but nothing that spelled trouble brewing. Then one night, Sammy got a text from the guy that said “I wish I was inside U,” and attached to the message was a picture of his erect penis. Sammy was without words. He handed me his phone and waited for my response.
“Where is he right now?” I asked.
“I think he’s at Wetbar. Why?”
“Because this was taken in his bedroom. It’s a used dick pic. Not only is he trashy enough to try and cheat with you, he sent you a picture he probably took for his husband.”
“Oh my God,” said Sammy. “That IS trashy. I don’t even warrant a new dick pic?”
“If that doesn’t sum up the situation, I don’t know what will.”
Look, I’m no idiot. Monogamy is hard. I have cheated on boyfriends in the past. I had every excuse in the world, too: We hadn’t been dating that long, I was drunk, he ignores me, I think the relationship is going to end soon anyway, he won’t let me fuck him enough, he won’t let me blow him, or my most consistent, I just wanted to feel desirable. I was smart enough to know, sometimes in the moment and sometimes immediately after, that what I was doing was hurting the guy I was dating at the time even if he didn’t know. I didn’t realize how much I was fucking with my own head. That came later, when I actually committed to one person and finally respected how significant that is, and how unprepared I was to not solve problems in the relationship by going out and getting some strange.
We don’t really need statistics to know that men love the thrill of a new conquest. But a word of advice to those who might conveniently forget they’re married at the sight of a hot ass: Work to maintain what you were lucky enough to find, or know when to walk away. But don’t try juggling your commitments. You might get off in the moment, but at the end of the day all you’ll be is a used dick in somebody’s i-Phone, waiting to be deleted.

The Firing Squad

I’m on the phone with my best gal pal, Slutty Mandy, catching up on the events of the weekend. Mandy’s been out a few times with a slightly older guy. I mean, not AARP or anything, but a little above the age group with whom we tend to socialize. There’s logic to this, really. She hasn’t had much luck with guys in the late twenties-early thirties range, so she’s just leapfrogging over them and trying the next level.
“My date went surprisingly well. Spent the day on his boat…”
“He has a boat? That’s good. Means he pays his bills.”
“How so?”
“Because,” I explain. “If the bank starts taking things away, the first thing to go is always the boat. So if he’s managed to hang on to that, there’s probably a good credit rating on this one.”
As years pass, different things make a man appealing. Ten years ago, it was abs and access to a reliable dealer. Now it’s steady employment and a solid FICO rating. Although I suppose the abs and reliable dealer would still be welcomed. They’re just no longer deal-breakers.
“So,” I say. “When do I get to meet this fella? I could make dinner. I’m a housewife now, I do that sort of thing. I also do crafts now. Do you need an afghan?”
“I don’t need an afghan in July.”
“Well, I’m really bad at it, so it probably wouldn’t be ready ‘til around President’s Day. Now, seriously, when do I get to see this guy?”
“Um… you don’t get to meet him yet.”
“Why not? What are you hiding? What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing is wrong with him, sweetness. I’m just not quite ready to put him in front of the Topher Payne Firing Squad. I wanna try this out a little bit longer before you show up and openly judge him.”
“I do NOT do that!”
I totally do that. Here’s thing: I am very protective of my friends. They’re quality people with much to offer the world. I also know that when people get into new relationships, they tend to completely ignore their friends for a lengthy stretch while they’re flush with dewy romantic encounters. Anyone who says they don’t do that is a damn liar. We all do it. I did it. Some of my friends claim I’m still doing it.
My point is, if you’re going to take this quality person with much to offer out of my daily life for a while and keep them all to yourself, I have the right to evaluate whether they are worthy of such an honor. And if they are not, am I not duty-bound to report my findings? What sort of friend would I be if I didn’t point out that the person my best friend is dating drinks entirely too much, or wears pleated pants, or has no chin?
And don’t think that I’m some shrieking harpy here. They all did it to me back before I met Preppy. When I was roommates with George, he would actually reject men on the doorstep. The unlucky suitor would arrive for our date, George would open the door, and make a guttural sound of disgust. Mandy would play it with slightly less subtlety, settling in with a glass of scotch and tilting her head in mock-interest. With careful precision, she would pick my boyfriends apart, leaving them lying in a heap on the floor before announcing they weren’t clever enough to run with me or my crowd. Preppy managed to disarm them all through a method no one had tried previously: He found them all hilarious. Their posturing and interrogation left him amused beyond words.

Which, incidentally, is one of the reasons I like them too.
“All right,” I say to Mandy. “You have your clandestine affair. Keep him to yourself for now. But eventually he’s gonna have to face the tribunal. You can’t hide him forever.”
“I know that,” she sighs. “But for now, let me believe I can.”
“Fair enough,” I say, already preparing my list of questions for the man who dares to win the heart of my best girl.

Make It Happen

“It’s right here somewhere,” I say, slowly driving through the streets of Candler Park.
“Do we need to turn Vera on?” asks George, reaching for my GPS. “Preppy made you get her for situations just like this.”
“No, I got it. It’s just past the golf course… I think.”
“Watch it, George,” Slutty Mandy says from the back seat. “You’re ashing all over me.”
We’re taking a post-brunch field trip, so my best friends can see the most exciting thing that happened to me all week. Possibly ever.
“There! Right there!”
I slam on the brakes directly in front of a 1920s Baptist Church, which was repurposed in the 1970s when it was purchased by the First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta. Two days ago, it became the site of my upcoming wedding to Preppy.
“That’s not a little church!” yells George. “You said little. You said you were gonna have a tiny church like the one Slash played guitar in front of in the November Rain video.”
Slutty Mandy begins singing Guns and Roses behind us.
“Turns out those only exist in music videos and episodes of Little House on the Prairie. Besides, we needed a larger space. I’ve got a big family, and the guest list just kept growing. We’ve got sixteen attendants now.”
“Sixteen?” shouts Mandy. “Christ, who are you, Princess Di?”
“Look, y’all. I never had a graduation ceremony, I’m not Jewish so I didn’t get a bar mitzvah, I don’t even do big birthday parties. This is the one and only time I’m asking everybody to drop everything and come celebrate something, and I don’t wanna hear crap about it.”
“Down, Bridezilla, down,” says Mandy. “Nobody’s going to take away your special day. I’ll put the baby’s breath in your hair myself. I’ll carry a parasol. Whatever you and Preppy want.”
“Preppy wants what he always wants. Whatever makes Topher complain the least,” says George, examining the building with a critical eye. “God, I’m just wondering how in frosty hell I’m supposed to do flowers for a space that size.”
“I’ll help you,” I say. “We’ll do it together. It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know,” says George. “You don’t take instruction very well. And you never have free time.”
“I will for this! My last day at the restaurant is next week.”
“What?” says Mandy. “You quit your job to plan your wedding?”
“No. That’s just a benefit. I’m gonna try to be a writer. Full-time. And if I need extra money, there’s plenty of things I can do. Odd jobs.”
I know, it seems rash, but I really did think this through, in my way. I made a budget of the exact dollar amount I need to make each month, and then I just have to come up with creative ways to make that much money. So I made another list of things I might be good at that would still give me time to write. I came up with babysitting, photographing events, phone psychic, being one of those guys who gives out comment cards at movie screenings, hosting a talk show, and assembling products in my own home, among many others. My friend Vincent in New York does pretty well cleaning houses in suggestive outfits. If I got some abs maybe I could do that.
Poor Preppy. When he met me I had a nice, stable, full-time job doing very responsible, adult-type things. But once I convinced him to marry me, I up and decided I’d had enough of all that. He was a little nervous about the whole thing, but I promised him if by the end of the year I was broke, I’d go put in an application at Starbucks.
But you never get anywhere without taking risks. I could keep telling myself my day job doesn’t define me, but is that really true? Whatever you do with the majority of your day does define who you are, at least to some extent. If you spend ten hours a day being a bartender and two hours a week being a musician, then which one of those words really describes you better? There are two things I wanna be at this point in my life: A writer, and married to Preppy. As I drive away from the church, I feel like I’m finally making both of those things happen.

Rain on my Parade

“I will never, never be dry again,” I say to my best pal Slutty Mandy as we wring ourselves out under the Civic Center awning. We’ve just walked the route for Pride Parade 2008, apparently sponsored by The Wrath of God.

All that flooding and rainbows felt distinctly Old Testament.
“Preppy is so lucky he had to work today,” says Slutty Mandy, trying to bring her phone back to life. “Is your Blackberry working?”
“I’m hoping it will when it dries out.”
“Great, well there goes getting a cab. Fabulous.”
We decide to forego riding MARTA from Civic Center, suspecting that every single waterlogged reveler was headed in that direction. Instead, we simply return to the parade route and walk it in reverse, back to Mandy’s apartment in Midtown. To pass the time, I bitch constantly about how wet/chafed/tired I am.
“I’m sorry, didn’t you walk EVERYWHERE up until like six months ago?”
“Not in the rain. And not for like, miles. This is coming dangerously close to exercise, and you know how I hate that.”
“How do you think I feel? I had spin class this morning. My legs are killing me.”
“Oh, no, Soggy Mandy. People who exercise voluntarily are not allowed to bitch about having to engage in MORE physical activity. There’s nothing so obnoxious as people in great shape complaining about how sore they are. You’re supposed to like this sort of thing.”
“Your denial of your own history astounds me. You used to go to the gym.”
“I also used to breast feed. People change.”
We decide to cut through my old neighborhood.
“Oh, man. That’s where Neighbor Guy lived. He was my waist size, too. If he hadn’t moved away he could loan me clothes.”
“Sweetie, would you really stop at a former trick’s house demanding pants?”
“Yes. I would compromise myself in any number of ways for dry clothes right about now. Ooh! Charlie used to live over there before he got married. And Dean moved to Stone Mountain of all places, got himself a farm house. Over there’s where Criminal Mike lived until the cops found him. Aw, and that bartender with the tattoo of eyeballs on his lower back, remember? He lived right there.”
“Jesus, did you fuck all your neighbors?”
“I didn’t have a car. It was practical,” I say, really considering my surroundings. “Wow. I don’t think I know anyone in Midtown anymore.”
It’s only been about two years since I left my little apartment on Durant Place, and my fiancée and I almost always make it to a bar once a week, but a curious thing has happened: Right around the same time I packed up my boxes and headed out of the Midtown mix, a good number of my friends did too. No longer content with our tiny, overpriced apartments, yet in no way prepared to buy one of the area’s stately old homes, we took our leave. I got a house on a quiet street in Decatur, a car, a soon-to-be-husband. We have a yard. Now, I borrow lawn care supplies from neighbors instead of having sex with them.
And while the life I’ve built is a source of great joy, I can’t help but be a little wistful as I remember closing Blake’s and stumbling down this street, belting “Express Yourself” for the benefit of my sleeping neighbors. Let it never be said that I don’t have happy memories of my bachelorhood. Vague, drunken, happy memories. I recently visited my friend Nick at his new apartment in Ansley Forest, and of course already knew where his bathroom was.

Half the homos in Atlanta know the layout of those apartments. They’re an inevitable stop on our personal parade route through gay life in the city.
As Slutty Mandy and I approach Grady high school, a blonde guy in his early twenties passes us, drenched and happy, with a few of friends.
“Come on,” he says. “We’re almost home!”
He could be headed back to my old place, or at least somewhere I spent the night. But the thought is interrupted by my Blackberry coming back to life, albeit with a screen full of water droplets. I answer and catch Preppy up on the day’s events, walking away and leaving my old street to a new crowd.

Since U Been Gone

“Go. Point. Four. Miles and… Turn right. On. South. Atlanta Road.”
I’m driving in Roswell, which is so not my neighborhood, and that makes me very nervous.

I have a disastrous sense of direction, and I’ve only had my driver’s license for six months. Somehow the suburbs confound me twice as much as downtown streets- Downtown is on a grid, but outside the Perimeter streets twist and turn endlessly, changing names without warning.
When Preppy’s in the car, I can keep my panic in check. He navigates, and bolsters my confidence with words of encouragement. But alone, I teeter on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He knows this, having patiently talked me through hysterical phone calls from Marietta and Buford. But he can’t be with me all the time, which is why he introduced me to my new traveling companion.
“Continue to. North. Atlanta Road.”
I call her Vera, and she knows where everything is. When Vera is giving directions, I keep the windows rolled up and the radio off. I don’t talk on the phone.

Vera is in control, and she is a wise and patient leader.

She can even tell me where the nearest Starbucks is. She does everything Preppy does except hold my hand and tell me I’m a good driver. I have every reason to believe future versions of her will do that.
Preppy’s out of town, joining his family at the beach for a few days. I can’t go because I’m in a play, and my free time is being spent rehearsing a dance number for the Atlanta Cotillion Cabaret. In heels. My feet hurt.
Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I built a little fort next to me in the bed- a Pillow Preppy, if you will. It didn’t help, and it took me forever to figure out why. Then I realized: Pillow Preppy doesn’t snore. I’ve grown so accustomed to his nightly symphony of grunts and mournful moose sounds that without it, the bedroom was entirely too quiet. Creepy quiet, just the distant thump of the nightclub behind our house, curiously located between a plus-size clothing store and a 24-hour day care center.

Actually, the more I think about it, that makes perfect sense.
Anyhoo, I laid there in the dark, next to the eerily silent Pillow Preppy, wondering if for his next gift he could locate a device that would replicate his sleeping noises. Then when he goes out of town, I can just throw on the virtual sleeping fiancée and drift off without incident. Then it hit me: I used to be a fairly independent person. I didn’t require GPS navigators and fake bedmates made out of pillows. I didn’t even own a cellular phone until after Desperate Housewives premiered. I didn’t need such things. I made my way on my own just fine. Somehow, being in a relationship was turning me into a puddle of inactive goo, no longer capable of taking care of myself.
So back in the car, I decide to exert some of that old energy- a little of that self-sufficient can-do attitude that used to define me. I turn off the GPS. I’ve been to Roswell a few times, and I have the address.

I don’t need Vera or Preppy. I can do this.
A half-hour later, I pull over and turn Vera back on. I’m in Dunwoody. Don’t know how that happened.
I realize I have romanticized the old me quite a bit more than I realized. I knew I always picture the old me as thinner and less awkward- apparently I also fooled myself into thinking I was competent. I was never competent! I have always been just as bumbling and neurotic as I am now. The only reason I’ve noticed it so much while Preppy’s been away is because since he came along I’ve been ever-so-slightly more honest about it, and he was willing to help prevent me from getting lost or accidentally setting something on fire. He made it okay for me to admit that I can’t do everything on my own. Which is why he needs to come back, before I accidentally drive to Tennessee in a sleep-deprived haze and can’t get myself home.
“Please wait,” says Vera. “Calculating new route.”
You do that, sweetie. I’ll just sit here and wait for further instruction.

Why We Fight

Here’s a little pointer on European travel: Until George Bush is out of office, just tell people you’re from Canada. I learned that lesson in Ireland, when upon hearing my American accent, locals would accost me and demand answers regarding Dubya’s general incompetence. For a while, I tried to defend myself and my country against their tirades, but then I discovered the Canada solution, and my situation improved considerably. Everybody likes Canada- Good old genial, non-threatening Canada. It’s like the Ellen Degeneres of nations.
So I spent a summer lolling about the Irish countryside as a fake Canadian, never having visited the country I called home, and not actually knowing anything about it. But here’s another pointer: Nobody else knows anything about Canada either. I’ve wondered in the intervening years if any of the Irish people I met later traveled to our northern neighbor, and if they were surprised that the main thoroughfare in Quebec City is not named Celine Dion Boulevard, as I’d claimed.
In the village of Clonmel, I found a pub with internet access and quickly set up shop at a corner table, where I would end each day uploading photos and writing over an endless stream of pints.
It was in the pub that I met Danny, the owner of the local pizza parlor. He was around thirty, and the only gay man in town. He sniffed me out with relative ease, using that beautiful sixth sense that every homo in a small town has: Attuned to every gesture or pop culture reference, any indication that they’ve crossed paths with one of their own kind. He invited me back to his flat, to see the view. It was good to know that closeted or not, regardless of culture, every gay guy had the same few cheesy pick-up lines.
Danny wasn’t out. Not to his family, or his employees, or even the guys with whom he shared this flat. The concept of living a life where he could be out to everyone, even strangers, was beyond his imagination. When I tried to describe my experience of marching in Pride Parade, he couldn’t picture it.
“But you’ve seen movies, and TV shows, right?” I asked.
“That’s just Hollywood fantasy,” he said.
I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. In an age of the internet and gay marriage debates, people remain who cannot begin to fathom the concept of living their lives honestly. It made me profoundly sad, and a little angry.
“It’s not fantasy, Danny. It’s my life. And all my friends, too.”
“Lucky for you,” he said, and the subject was closed. I returned to my vodka tonic. And then he kissed me. It was startlingly intense- forceful and hungry. I followed him inside, careful not to disturb his roommates.
“You don’t have to hide, you know,” I said later as we lay on his bare mattress, naked in the orange light of dawn. “You could have this every day if you wanted.”
“Let it go, pally. My shop’s doing well here. Not a bad life.”
I rolled over and rested my head by the little V-shaped thing below his belly button. I forget what it’s called.
“But if you know something is a part of you- something that defines you… don’t you owe it to yourself to live honestly, and fight for it?”
Danny gave a heavy sigh.
“Some things you can’t fight by yourself.”
“Then move! Sell pizzas someplace else! You’re a great guy. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m used to it,” he said.
“You shouldn’t settle for getting used to it.”
We meant to exchange e-mail addresses, but it never happened, and I left the country a week later. But he never left my mind, and serves as a consistent reminder whenever people ask why Pride festivals are necessary. Pride is necessary because there are some things you can’t fight by yourself, so wherever and whenever we can gather to show the strength and validity of our lives, we are called by conscience to do so. Because there’s guys like Danny all around the world who believe that the life we have is some unattainable fantasy. It isn’t. It’s right here in front of us. And if we demand to be recognized, support each other, and are willing to battle for the lives we deserve, eventually people like him might feel strong enough to join us in the fight.