An Embarassment of Riches

I think I've been spoiled by my proximity to the gay ghetto. By pure coincidence, my house is on the west border of Shaw, my office is on U street and my boyfriend lives in Adams Morgan. As such, it is reasonable to assume that any young, attractive, well-dressed guy that I see on the street is fair game for my roving eyes. I spent four years at a small college in Ohio, so even two years out its a novelty to casually encounter gay people in my day-to-day life. A stranger saying hi to me on the street will have me flattered for days.

But as anyone whose read this blog in the last couple days knows, I'm currently camped out at my parents house in a reeeallly gentrified neighborhood (think Logan Circle in 15 years) and this area is much less friendly to casual cruising. I'm starting to embarrass myself.

Most of the young cute guys around here happen to be fratboys from the local university and they do not take kindly to me looking at them. Its not like they're punching me in the gut, but the reaction to my glances is less "ooh, a boy is looking at me" then "uh-oh, some guy is looking at me. Do I have food caught in my unibrow?"

Some would say that I probably shouldn't be looking at strange men on the street in the first place, but its become kind of ingrained in me. When even the 9th Street Giant is one strobe light away from being an actual gay bar, its kind of hard to lose the "see and be seen" mentality that comes with being a gay man in a big city. I hate it, but I almost feel to ensconced in it to do something about it. Nor do I know if I need to.