I don’t often feel like a piece of meat, but man, I do find myself besieged by well-kept old ladies and gay men. Considering I work in the arts, am an artist and have a lot of older friends/connections, I end up at events where I’m the youngest, and if not the youngest, the most serious of the young set. I also tend to be approachable, so I find myself at the bar, trying desperately to get through the evening over a few/seven drinks and trying to have a non-art conversation with the bartender when, inevitably this/something like this happens:
“Aren’t you having a great time?” 
says, getting another drink. “Let’s toast: Here’s to god.”
I reservedly clink glasses and give her a weird look.
“Oh, I don’t mean… GOD, you know. I mean, spirituality, the vibrancy behind the art. The passion. The universal love manifest in art.”
“Well…” says I and look at the bartender. “I… yeah, sure.”
And then, the hunting party shows up and I’m locked amongst a twittering, impassioned and very agitating conversation. Of course I can get out of it all by being like the other people my age (if there are any in attendance) who can barely carry a conversation, who don’t look at others and barely even talk to each other. Problem is, while connections and entrées are an important part of the world, being 29 and in my position means I have to, on top of my past, either ride on novelty or nicety. I’m trying to ride both horses.
A couple nights ago, I was at a gallery for a reading and got trapped by the husband (much older) of a friend of mine, who wanted to discuss digital cinema with me. He’s involved with the whole scientific side of the adventure. I ended up nodding and pantomiming parts of his story and avoiding being in any photos. He kept telling me that he didn’t want to bore me with the details and I kept thinking: “This isn’t the boring part?”
At some point, I was asked to chaperon a group of the single older ladies and some gays to a whiskey bar. I’d actually planned on dashing for the same bar, and because I had my mind set on it, I thought: “Hey, how bad could it be?” Why do I always have that thought?
The whiskey bar was reserved for a private party, so we went to a dive near the gallery.
Upon a step in to the dive, one of the ladies said she wanted “a fucking drink” and “wanted to dance.”
Good thing dancing is “forbidden” in bars… except in the back room, so the bouncers kept escorting the ladies back, but like cats, they kept turning around and running into the main bar to groove to the awesome music…
I got caught in a conversation between a gay Spaniard and the “a fucking drink” lady regarding their secret obsession with reality shows. She kept doing some sort of birthing rite dance to explain how much she enjoyed reality shows, all the while slipping out of her black shoulder wrap and dropping her bag after every time I picked it up for her. I ended up tossing the bag into a booth the rest of the party had overran.
I was in a bit of a dilemma, though. Before I went out that night, I found out the Spanyard has his work exhibited in a space I co-founded about ten years ago, but haven’t had any connection in more than six years. To say, or not to say? While he screamed about Project Runway, and “a fucking drink” lady nattered about Sheer Genius, I downed my gin and tonic, then started in on a cosmo I was holding for someone else.
At a certain point, I got dragged into the dancing room and thought: “Fuck it.” If I was a cheeseball, I’d probably say “Laissez les bons temps rouler,” suck another Red Bull vodka out of a yard glass and take off my shirt.
After a bit of dancing and realizing this was not a good scene, I opted out and ran.
I ended up at another bar I go to occasionally, but not enough to know anybody at, and I’m pretty sure the guy who struck up a conversation with me was gay. We were just talking about whatever, nothing sexual, and this pretty drunk old fag comes up to us and sort of leers at me then at the guy I was talking to.
“Uh, no thanks man. I’m not gay,” says I.
“mummblemumblemmmmumblemmummbblle”
“Yeah man, I’m just having a beer,” the guy I was talking to said.
“mummblemumbblemuummmbbbllee [leer] mummmblemumblemumble”
We try to ignore the guy, but he keeps hanging around and tries to flirt with both of us, and… the old aggression reared:
“Hey man, we said we’re not interested. Move on.”
“mummmblemummblemummbbble” and he tries to caress me and the other guy.
“Fuck man, you don’t understand what I’m saying.”
“mummblemumble I’m not trying to flirt mumblllemummble [leer and lick of the lips]“
“The fuck you flirting with, you not flirting with me or this guy, huh?”
The old guy kept looking between us and still wasn’t getting it, so I say “You don’t know? You flirting with the wall maybe,” I said, reaching behind me and tapping the wall, some football poster on it. “You flirting with these guys on the poster? Yeah, they might like your sorry ass, but why don’t you move on buddy cause I’m standing in front of this wall right now and you’re bothering me.”
The guy finally shoved off.
The guy I was talking to laughed and said that was great. I felt a mixture of coolness and irritation at talking to the poor schmuck like I had. I’m sure I could have handled it better, but at the time, that’s all I could take. The guy I had been talking to told me he was at a bar the other night and this guy grabbed the bill of his hat and pulled him closer… or something, I missed the details of the story.
“You do that? That’s how guys flirt?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Sometimes it’s more aggressive.”
“I wouldn’t be down for shit like that. I wanted to punch that guy just for being an idiot. Listen, I gotta go. Nice to meet you man.”
