Of the gay guys I seem to meet in this town I have found that they seem to fit into one of two camps. The random gays are generally much younger than me, what I'll call college age. I might see them anywhere, and all too often my broken gaydar doesn't really help with giving me any actual knowledge as to their actual sexuality.
Next on the list would be the guys at the gay bar. I don't hate hanging out there, at least not until the one overly large, creepy guy keeps staring at me. He won't even talk any more than a grunted greeting, staring at me as if transfixed. There are the two bartenders with whom I'm now on a first name basis. They even know to get me a High Life when I come in, though one of them does often bring me just about any other Miller product, forgetting somehow that it's High Life I want.
But really the thing that stands out about the second group, much like the first, is the general age range, though here it's at the other end of the spectrum. These are the guys enough older than me that I'm again just not interested. These are the guys who've been out for years, who see me and think of me as very young. Often that's part of the point when they talk to me, because who doesn't want to sleep with a young man?
A lot of the copliments I might pay myself are things I can prove. I do make good biscuits, and I am a fairly decent cook. The crap that I write seems often to interest people, and I even laugh again at my jokes as I reread occasionaly. I'm a decent speller most of the time, and I can take a cut on the hand or a smack to the knee while working and endure the pain pretty well, sometimes. And apparently, though I never really realized before, I'm at least not unattractive. I've had more than a few guys point it out at the bar, and though it may all be in my head, I seem to be noticing girls checking me out lately.
The point of all of this really is that middle group that I can't seem to find. There are the older than me and younger than me gays that I spot or meet or have a drink next to, but the guys my age are nowhere to be found, and don't even get me started on gays into the sorts of things I'm into. I've mentioned it before, noting that Motorhead and homosexual males don't seem a pair one often finds. The sad but oddly uplifting songs of Mr. Leonard Cohen seem a perfect gay fit, but again I have to wonder in the gay man's world of dancable pop music where I and my love for the morose fit.
So did all the gay guys my age leave town? So many of the people I meet seem to be from somewhere else, and I sometimes get a feeling as if these guys are from towns so much smaller than this town, that this town must have seemed like the big city, the welcoming lights you see from you little farming community, that this place is so big and bright and welcoming they need never move on from here. The young gays are just now getting old enough to get out and get a taste, and perhaps many of them are just here for college, or they came to school and haven't quite managed to grow up enough yet to know to leave.
The guys my age must have tired of this town and its sometimes small town feel. They must have all moved on to bigger and better and less homo insensitive places. I'll admit to having met maybe two guys my age that seem even a little interesting, and both of them are attractive and seem likely to be cool in a way that I could enjoy hanging out with them. They are also both in relationships, which should make me feel that maybe there are at least a very few gays, but why I don't seem to meet them I can't fathom.
I do love this town, but I do sometimes yearn for a bigger place, a place with more people, a place I stand a chance of meeting someone. It's more than an age issue or a compatibility issue or a musical taste issue, but it's at least those three things, and it's more.
Of course, the chance I'll get to leave this town are nearly nonexistent, and my actual desire isn't necessarily to leave or to stay. As usual, what I really want is not something I can so easily tease out of the murky swirl of thoughts inside my head, that layer upon layer of ideas and possibility.
I'm sure there's great advice, unhelpful things one could say about being myself, being patient, work on being the person I want to be, take care of my own needs, don't rely on a guy for happiness or some such shit. I'm sure I'm doing those things to some extent. Whatever, I just want to meet these guys that I know have to still be here somewhere.
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