I came, as I always do, with such high hopes and expectations. You know, the worst thing you can do when visiting a place. If you’re like me, you romanticize things to the point of perfection. Since nothing is perfect you will be thoroughly disappointed. When people think of a perfect time abroad, it is full of adventures and parties. I’ve even joked with my friends about how I’ll obviously get plastered every weekend and fuck loads of locals. There’s just one slight snag in these plans: I don’t like doing that stuff.
When I enter a shindig in full digging of shin, I feel it instantly. Disconnect. Maybe it's Nordic, maybe it's Heaven. It might even be moments in Central Station. All the same, you feel that voice in your head saying, You’re late. You’re intruding. They don’t know you. You don’t know them. This could be dangerous. Leave. Still the group pushes forward, descending into the mob. It’s hot. They’re all over us. I smell… tobacco? No. Vape. No one asks, “Should we have some alcohol?” Somewhere there’s a bar, and the group, like water, flows through the currents of the crowd. At my height, you get a good vantage overtop the heads of the partygoers, and I can see the foreboding taps and try to glimpse any deals or menus. The flashing lights make me want to squeeze my eyes shut. On paper, it sounds lovely: Dancing, music, and revelry in large numbers. How can a lot of people having a lot of fun not be fun? Well, it is, in a couple words, “a lot” for me. But… I have to do it if I want to meet gay people. There are little to no known quiet gay places to hang out. We don’t get meet-cutes like the straighties who can assume everywhere is their dating pool. We get dating bowls. Small cramped spaces to float around and pray for someone like you to like you. Unfortunately, it tends to run a bit too hot in the bowls, and all they end up wanting to do is spend a single night with the prettiest fish. I am not the prettiest fish, and in this bowl they know I’m foreign. I thought it would make me stand out. It does, but not the way I hoped. When I look up at the bottles and taps at the bar club I feel like an idiot. I’m supposed to know these drinks–everyone else knows these drinks. How can I not know these drinks? Well, you don’t drink. Just choose something, where’s the menu? Jesus, where do they put the menus? They’re already ordering. Find the menu. Running out of time. Where do they keep the Goddamn menus?! Fuck, I’m up now. FUCK. Default. System Error. Choke out the first thing that comes to mind. Vodka lemonade. The bartender asks something but the music is too loud. I nod along and smile as if this shitty dance music isn’t entirely too loud. Receive a drink. Wishing it was like lemonade back home and not a discount Sprite. I’m not a fan of drinking, but it seems the practical alternative to complete shutdown at a party. I wish they had some quiet spots. Most places I’ve been to the quiet spots are outside where everyone smokes. As much as I love getting second-hand, my body disagrees with it. I guess they want more room to pack people in. The quiet zone is not really that economical in the long run, I guess. They probably get overrun with couples fondling each other. I remember highschool parties, the few that I went to, that the quiet spots were always full of making out and near-exhibitionist fucking. The herd is moving onto the precarious dance floor full of grippy grabby ne’er do wells. Why must we go there? Drink. Really, can we go anywhere else? Drink. I’m uncomfortable. Drink. Okay, let’s go. I feel the pain that is shitty dance music numb in my ears. My friends dance around me, they’re beautiful. Am I surfacing, or am I drowning? The flashing lights are my friends now. The lighthouse is above me, I can see the light above. The bubbles float upward in my vodka lemonade. The rhythm seeps in. The heat in my stomach matches the temperature of the crowd. Homeostasis. Largely, one fundamental thing I’ve learned about London is there’s a lot of people in not a lot of space. At most parties in America, there is enough room in the building to breathe, an optional rave zone to be close and personal. In London, that’s not the case. There are people everywhere. You go outside, there are masses of people. Bathrooms, there are people. It’s all cramped as hell. You can look around any party building, going from place to place, and there’s always people. The buildings are cramped most of the time, and they’re always pushing in more if they can help it. We’re dancing, maybe a song I actually like plays. Maybe not. But I can feel the groove. I look out, watchful of the crowds. Maybe I’ll see someone I have interest in. I might get flustered, static. Drink. My feet are roots. Drink. Come on, just say something. I’m out of drink. Get more? No… I don’t wanna lose control completely. I’ll be the first to admit that interactions with men in a flirty-sexual context, are a relatively new phenomenon to me. Where I come from, gay is the butt of a joke, not an identity. Homosexuality isn’t much talked about unless in hushed tones. Most of my peers started dating around the age of fifteen, I started at eighteen. I am a solid three years behind in regards to experience and that means I flounder. Boy, do I ever flounder. Check your phone, you’ll see who is single and looking on Grindr instantly. Abs. Looking for fit only. Well that’s not you, lardo. Butt. Abs. Another butt. Bathroom shot. Masculine. “Straight Acting” looking for the same. Into big. XL. XXL. XXXL. Blonde hair and blue eyes to the front. Probably a Nazi. Abs. Somebody reasonable. Somebody looking for relationships? Fun only. HnH. DM on Instagram. BB. Another butt. A 60-year-old man sent a dick pic. “Hey” from a faceless profile. Quick fucks only. Abs. DM me on Instagram scam. Somebody reasonable and plausible, looking for mates/dates. Send a friendly, “Hello! How are you?” Wait three days and realize you’re not going to get a response. Or will you find a way to fuck it up? Another one to add to the list of failed interactions. What are we at, 30? It seems I’m not the type gay men look out for. Most gay men, in my experience, desire quick flings and not much else. Perhaps it's our age, or our communal trauma of being gay in a heteronormative society playing out in toxic coping strategies, or maybe it is some other third thing. Whatever it is, the standard seems to be just to have sex with the hottest man you can find. I am not the hottest man you can find here, nor do I actually want lots of meaningless sex (despite the amount of jokes I make about it). I won’t lie with this whole living in London thing being a temporary arrangement I don’t actually know what I am looking for. Maybe it is a community? Do I want a chance at some kind of intimate relationship? Am I lying to myself and actually want sex? Who knows. I guess I should. Shut up. Hours slump on. The group will dissipate and I will hang around at the quietest spot I can manage. Sometimes we will reconfigure and dance together, sometimes we won’t. Before I know it, it is eleven, and the time to move on has arrived. Thank God clubs close early here. There are ones that stay open longer, but at this point I’m ready to turn in. Usually there’s somebody else equally ready for a night inside the house than out. I think I did want community here, that’s something I can’t get in Germantown, Tennessee and something I’m going to lose when I leave Eckerd. If it’s something I ever had at Eckerd. I know, bold thing to say as the President of the QSA, but getting ten to fifteen equally confused queers my age together knowing we’ll all depart soon enough is not, by nature, a place to put down your roots. It gets the job done to meet others like you, and we have fun and all, but I don’t feel that sense of community I imagine straight people do at their work, their regular bars, their regular places of being. Something stable. Meanwhile for us, our spaces get invaded or just don’t have the infrastructure for so many people. Heaven is an overloaded gay nightclub. Steam rooms/saunas are just plain hookup spots. Central Station is probably the best to go to if you don’t like a rave for their karaoke and older (50’s/60’s) demographic, but it can be just as crowded and uncomfortable when it’s not being a hookup kink spot. Gay’s the Word is a lovely bookstore, but you can’t stand and hang around in it all day, it isn't a library. I would say the grass is always greener but I’m looking back at America and it is still worse. Eventually I arrive home defeated. Sit in the common room. Cards? Cards. Play a hand of Oh Shit. Make stupid jokes with Madison (feel a little awkward at the inevitable dead dog joke). Laugh at Alex’s playstyle angering Chopan. Have Karly say, “You smell weird,” because she lost a hand. Double check the total point scores with Anna. Maybe realize what you have is already community, even if they’re not all just like you. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe what you wanted wasn't what you needed. Maybe you just want to enjoy cards with a group of people not in a bubble. Maybe you’re fine not liking parties. Maybe you’re fine just the way you are, having a night in.
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