Coming home

I've had two firsts in the last bit.  When I started the blog again earlier this year I was excited to see some page views.  Then I noticed that I could block counting my own and I hadn't.  The page views stopped :-(  Then they started to trickle in.  Sometime in the last day they went over a thousand.  Wow!  Feel free to comment about what is relevant or not to your situation - feedback helps.

The other first is more interesting or so I think.  The day before I got married my two best friends bundled me up into a car and began driving.  I had no idea where they were taking me for the first 30 miles or so.  Then it dawned on me that they were headed for an area nearby where there were a lot of strip clubs.  I convinced them to turn around.  I had no desire to see naked women dance on a stage.  No, I wasn't being moral or restrained; I just didn't see the point.  It should have been a sign - one of many that I missed or ignored on the way.

So the other day I am in NYC.  A couple of acquaintances ask if I want to go out to a bar after a meeting.  One adds last time I was there there were guys dancing on the bar and the bartenders were hot. 

We get there and there is no cover.  The place is filled with a great mix of people - young, old, black, white, Asian, Latino.  The bartenders are hot especially the one who helped us.  But no dancing.  So we sat and chatted - or yelled at each other over the music.  Good conversation; becoming friends rather than acquaintances. 

We talk about a few things - being married and gay, what constitutes cheating and why, our particular situations.  A bit of what we talk about is the coming home.  Being out and about with people who are gay is like coming home.  There is no need to be guarded, to watch what one says, or who one looks at.  At least that is what we shared as a common experience.  I am able to be relaxed in a way that I am not elsewhere - not that I think I am particularly uptight.  But it feels like coming home - safe, a place where I don't have to be guarded, a place where I am part of rather than different than.

So great conversation, but then the dancing starts on a little stand in front of the main bar.  We move over in that direction.  I see the point of going to see someone dance - still don't see the point of going to see a woman dance, but I see the point here.  One of my companions puts a dollar in the guys underwear.  The guy then notices the three of us more.  Then I put one in as well.  Wow.  Won't say a lot more than that.  But very nice. 

Nice company, nice dancing, nice time.  Like coming home again.