Finding New Gays in Unlikely Places

This post was submitted by Jonathan, one of TNG's newest fans.

I'm convinced there are more new gays out there than meets the eye, but the difficulty seems to be figuring out how to sort them out from the rest of the crowd, especially when the crowd is gay and almost uniformly mainstream.

"New Gay" appears if anything to be a way of thinking and far more than just a look. But let's be honest: unfortunately, image is largely what we have to work with when trying to spot a new gay in a crowd. This "new-gay-spotting" is a process which I'd like to think is more than stereotyping, but is still less than perfect.

New-gay-spotting is a social art that is probably very similar to a phenomenon witnessed on most lines of the Parisian metro, where polite staring is an accepted way of acquainting yourself with those around you. It's about careful observation and the delicate construction of a narrative that aspires to explain a stranger using every available detail—searching for a story beneath the statue of his or her public persona.

I was recently new-gay-spotted myself. TNG Zack picked up on a few details about me several weekends ago when he passed me a TNG card at the Black Cat—I must have been sending the right combination of signs (my chucks perhaps, the guy I was with, or maybe my taste in music?).

It's clear there are new gays to be found at certain types of establishments and with enough clues, we pick up on each other in due time. What happens though when the stakes are raised a bit and it's no longer DC9 or the 9:30 club: are there new gays to be found at say, somewhere like Town or Halo?

Of course not, you say. I've read the discussion that Town has generated previously on this site, and I know it wouldn't receive very a very glowing recommendation from most TNG readers—I'd venture to say most wouldn't be caught there.

I share the collective distaste for it, which is probably why I feel slightly guilty having provided them my with patronage last Saturday along with a friend from college. It could be fun this time, I told myself when he proposed it.

Nothing new to report; I could have done without the entire thing before I even made it through the front doors, standing in line and listening to a pair of overweight women with their all-too-skinny gay sidekicks contemplate out loud, perhaps only half-jokingly, what the chances were that there would be some "straight men" there. (This was following a particularly disturbing experience earlier in the evening when someone came up to me to say how much that individual "loved indie fags"—is that a compliment? ).

What struck me though was the sheer number of people in attendance—enough to fill two large floors to capacity—with so many people, how could there not be other new gays? I looked for the details, I saw hints of self-expression between some of the tight shirts, seven jeans, and bare chests, I tried to look for eyes voicing similar disappointment and longing for something better, some form of thought.

I was ultimately unsuccessful, including with my college friend, who, after explaining to me how much he hated places like these and wasn't necessarily feeling the best about himself there, proceeded onto the dance floor, took his shirt off and quickly found a blond, Hollister-wearing distraction for the ride back up the confidence roller-coaster. My disapproving looks had little effect.

As I grabbed my coat and cued up my iPod for a post-bad-techno detox on the walk home, I started to think about how my college friend and I—despite our differences in image (he fits into the gay mainstream in a pretty classic way)—really aren't that different in how we feel about being gay writ large. When we sit down and have an intelligent conversation about gay culture, he seems to voice some of the same frustrations I do. His image belies the fact that he can think for himself, that beneath his mainstream exterior there's some shared new gay frustrations lurking.

Reflecting back on it now, it seems that the real distinction between us is our ability to tolerate a flawed system and accept it rather than work to change it. He has chosen to accept gay culture—even with his reservations—based on the reasoning that "it's all we have." Hundreds of people that night—including myself—made a decision to accept Town as our late-evening nightlife option because "it's all we have." I'm not particularly thrilled to have supported it that night, but am comforted by the fact that I try to lead my life in a way that moves toward the creation of a gay identity I am willing to embrace.

So are there new gays in unlikely places? Probably. It would seem that there are many that are frustrated with the way things are, but far fewer that are willing to make the independent decision to turn away from "what we have" and—in a positive way—create something different. Maybe it's fear that drives them, but I suspect there's a number of new gays out there that have yet to really come out of the closet.