Straight and Gay, the Worlds Collide

Jon (and his big mutt) recently moved to Shaw from upstate New York.

This past weekend one of my best friends from college came down for a visit from NYC. Convinced that he had already had his share of museums from past DC visits, I did my best to think of things we could do. Fortunately, my little stint as a DC cruise director was made easier by the fact that we really only left my apartment at night… that probably sounds very sexual. Far from it! He's straight and probably the last person on earth that I'd want to sleep with (male or female). Anyway, I digress. What I was trying to say is that I didn't have to come up with any daytime activities because for the two nights he was here, we stayed out late, got drunk, and spent the following mornings and afternoons sleeping off our hangovers.

Along with some other college friends, we spent the first night in Adams Morgan and at the Black Cat. Fun times were had by all. Not wanting to do the same thing the next night, I racked my brain and came up with the idea that it might be fun to go to a gay bar. My friends are all aware that I'm gay, but they've never actually seen me in a gay environment, so I thought it might be a bit of a novelty for them. Turns out I was wrong.

Nothing bad happened. None of them were weirded out or anything, they just got bored. We started our night off at Nellie's, which I thought would be relatively unintimidating... somehow I couldn't picture my Republican friend feeling right at home walking around Town.

Things started off well. We went up to the roof deck, ordered some drinks, chatted, and giggled about who I thought was cute. As the roof deck filled up and their personal space shrank, we decided to move downstairs. After about 20 minutes I started getting restless. Everyone was upstairs, but I was stuck downstairs. One of my friends (the Republican actually) volunteered to come upstairs with me and serve as a wingman of sorts. After 30 minutes or so, we headed back downstairs to check on our other friends. As I walked down the stairs, I had high hopes of finding them immersed in conversation with some newfound gay friends. Instead, they were playing chess (thinking back, I wonder how the hell they even found a chessboard?).

Sensing their lack enthusiasm for our current venue, I suggested that we move over next door to DC9. While a pleasant surprise to me, we entered not knowing that it was Taint night and that the entire second floor was filled with dancing sweaty gay guys. After a brief trip upstairs, my friends decided to set up camp at one of the tables on the first floor… where they remained until they left. I ended up staying much later.

Why the long story? As you may recall, I wrote recently about the prediction a friend of mine made that I would soon replace my straight friends with gay ones. My ultimate conclusion was that while nothing would change with my closest friends, it made sense that most of my casual straight friends would be replaced by gay ones. Looking at this past weekend as my own little social experiment, I think I've already proved myself correct. While I love my close college friends and don't expect my relationships with them to change, I certainly can't rely on them to be my gay bar posse.