It’s Friday night in Columbus, Georgia. I’m on the top floor of the opera house, waiting for water to boil. Apparently I’m doing something wrong. All the water keeps evaporating out of the pot before it starts to boil, which defies my understanding of how this works. It’s moments like this I wish I’d finished high school, so I’d have a better grasp of science stuff. Or Home Ec. Whatever class teaches you about how water boils.I give up after a second failed attempt, toss the water, and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My roommates (which I have three of now, we’ll get to that in a minute) have gone out dinner. But I had bad luck the last time I ate at a restaurant, nearly choking to death, so I’m a little gun shy. Plus, I’ve got myself on a pretty tight allowance. I have to send money home to help with bills, just like the dishwasher at the restaurant where I used to work. Only I’m sending it to Atlanta, not Honduras, and I don’t have four children.
Now, about those roommates. My first week here I lived alone in a room with four twin beds. I pushed them all together, envisioning the wrestling arena-sized SUPER BED I’d always wanted. Unfortunately, it made more of a mattress runway, where I could roll endlessly left or right, but my feet still hung off the end. I then tried a two-by-two configuration. I then realized I had entirely too much time on my hands, and moved the beds back. Two days later, the occupants arrived- the technical crew for the touring play.
The crew has worked together before. It’s a straight couple named Wes and Gina, plus a guy called Calvin who I’m pretty sure plays for our team, but it’s hard to tell because he likes video games and fantasy movies. With that set, the fanboy tendencies override any obvious clues about sexual orientation. The same is true of Wiccans, in my experience.
Don’t judge, I’m just telling you what I’ve observed.
On their first night, my roommates set up a Wii, then stayed up ‘til three watching a Harry Potter movie. I was the grump curled up on the twin bed in the corner, covering his head with a pillow and praying for sleep. It’s not that I don’t want to stay up and play Wii or watch fantasy flicks, it’s just that… Okay, that’s actually exactly it. Fine, I’m a wet blanket. I’m the mean ol’ fag who brought his own bedding (never know who’s slept on strange sheets, not taking chances on crabs), and lies around reading books and staring at a picture of his boyfriend. I’m fun too, dammit, but I came here to work.
I’m still fun, right?
The more I think about it, somewhere in the last six months I kinda stopped going out. For a while, on the rare occasions Preppy and I showed up at a bar people would act like we’d just returned from overseas. But the last time I went to Burkhart’s, I didn’t know any of the bartenders OR the drag queens. All my old bar buddies were gone, too. Time passes quickly in social fiefdoms, and if you’re not consistent, you fall out of the crowd so fast it’ll give ya whiplash.
But just because I’m not a barfly anymore doesn’t mean I can’t be fun. I can stay up and play. I decide to prove this, so I finish my peanut butter sandwich and head over to Club Questions, the one gay bar in Columbus. It’s only open on Fridays and Saturdays, which is usually a good sign. It creates a phenomenon I call “Two-Day Gays,” the people who have to wait all week for the gay bar to open, then really cut loose when it does. It’s the type of bar most of my friends started out in, before they moved to Atlanta and became full-time gay, which requires a lot more outfits.
Club Questions very recently changed its name to the less-fun Club Odyssey, a fact most people in the bar have chosen to ignore, calling it Questions or The Q. I sit at the bar, waiting for someone to chat me up, but also apprehensive about that possibility because I’ve never hung out in a gay bar alone when I wasn’t looking for love. I don’t know how one strikes up a conversation with a stranger in a gay bar without it seeming like flirting. Everyone’s arrived in groups and talking to each other, though some people cast curious glances my way as I smoke the better part of a pack of Marlboros and down four beers. There’s people dancing. I picture myself dancing alone, which I used to do all the time, but now seems a little sad.
Shit. Maybe I’m not much fun anymore.
After about ninety minutes, I come to accept that I am a visitor in a social fiefdom, and nobody’s gonna break rank to say howdy. I make my way to the door.
I know I have a clique back home- the group I feel safest with who’s always up for a good time. But I like to believe we try to meet new people, make them feel welcome. Is this what the next seven months is gonna be like? Finding one closed circle after another? Because if it is, I’m gonna need a lot more books.
I enter the apartment, and my roommates are watching TV. I head for my bed, and then stop. What the heck, sometimes ya gotta make the first move.
“What y’all watchin?” I ask.
“A really unfunny home video show,” says Gina. “Wanna watch?”
“Yeah,” I say, settling on the floor next to them. “That sounds like fun.”
On their first night, my roommates set up a Wii, then stayed up ‘til three watching a Harry Potter movie. I was the grump curled up on the twin bed in the corner, covering his head with a pillow and praying for sleep. It’s not that I don’t want to stay up and play Wii or watch fantasy flicks, it’s just that… Okay, that’s actually exactly it. Fine, I’m a wet blanket. I’m the mean ol’ fag who brought his own bedding (never know who’s slept on strange sheets, not taking chances on crabs), and lies around reading books and staring at a picture of his boyfriend. I’m fun too, dammit, but I came here to work.
I’m still fun, right?
The more I think about it, somewhere in the last six months I kinda stopped going out. For a while, on the rare occasions Preppy and I showed up at a bar people would act like we’d just returned from overseas. But the last time I went to Burkhart’s, I didn’t know any of the bartenders OR the drag queens. All my old bar buddies were gone, too. Time passes quickly in social fiefdoms, and if you’re not consistent, you fall out of the crowd so fast it’ll give ya whiplash.
But just because I’m not a barfly anymore doesn’t mean I can’t be fun. I can stay up and play. I decide to prove this, so I finish my peanut butter sandwich and head over to Club Questions, the one gay bar in Columbus. It’s only open on Fridays and Saturdays, which is usually a good sign. It creates a phenomenon I call “Two-Day Gays,” the people who have to wait all week for the gay bar to open, then really cut loose when it does. It’s the type of bar most of my friends started out in, before they moved to Atlanta and became full-time gay, which requires a lot more outfits.
Club Questions very recently changed its name to the less-fun Club Odyssey, a fact most people in the bar have chosen to ignore, calling it Questions or The Q. I sit at the bar, waiting for someone to chat me up, but also apprehensive about that possibility because I’ve never hung out in a gay bar alone when I wasn’t looking for love. I don’t know how one strikes up a conversation with a stranger in a gay bar without it seeming like flirting. Everyone’s arrived in groups and talking to each other, though some people cast curious glances my way as I smoke the better part of a pack of Marlboros and down four beers. There’s people dancing. I picture myself dancing alone, which I used to do all the time, but now seems a little sad.
Shit. Maybe I’m not much fun anymore.
After about ninety minutes, I come to accept that I am a visitor in a social fiefdom, and nobody’s gonna break rank to say howdy. I make my way to the door.
I know I have a clique back home- the group I feel safest with who’s always up for a good time. But I like to believe we try to meet new people, make them feel welcome. Is this what the next seven months is gonna be like? Finding one closed circle after another? Because if it is, I’m gonna need a lot more books.
I enter the apartment, and my roommates are watching TV. I head for my bed, and then stop. What the heck, sometimes ya gotta make the first move.
“What y’all watchin?” I ask.
“A really unfunny home video show,” says Gina. “Wanna watch?”
“Yeah,” I say, settling on the floor next to them. “That sounds like fun.”
