okay, i get it.
i’m young. i’m gay. i’m in london. it’s the summer. i’m single.
my life has been consumed by debauchery, clubbing, and drinking. after an all night session where everyone’s out till 7:00am, my mate michael will phone me, groggily, from his work at 9:30am to ask me…
“eric, so what are we doing tonight?”
at 9:30am. and the worst part is that it all feels perfectly normal. perfectly acceptible for the climax of each day to be a 8pm rondezvous where everyone drinks as rapidly as possible in order to loosen up the mojo for whatever club we end up at.
well, i love it. i don’t give a damn, and i’m not going to stop now. i’ve been far too adult for most of my life. always the good kid with the good grades. i didn’t drink or party or date in high school. even though i spent four fab years in LA and two in san francisco, i most certainly didn’t live big city life.
it’s not a sex thing, or a booze thing. it’s not an addiction problem or aimlessness. it’s really just having fun for the sake of having fun, pushing the limits of what i can do with my life, and i guess with my body.
what’s wrong with going to heaven on monday night? i’ve always felt like i’m above the “scene”, always felt like i didn’t need to experience the gay adolescence that i see so many people experience when they move to the “big city”.
but, after a lonely start to london life, it felt quite nice to purposely meet up with michael, greg, mark, andrew, ash, paul and happen to run into stryker, manny, john, mark, chris, and without spilling a drink meet new boys who were friendly and charming and fabulous.
that’s nice. and it’s mostly real. i would not be ashamed if my whole life was consumed with clubbing and pubbing. i would be ashamed, however, if my whole life was consumed with my sexuality. i want my friends to think of me as more than just gay, which, even though i work for a gay magazine and i lived in san francisco, now is the first time that i’ve felt self-conscious about my perceived flamboyancy or lack of identity.
i was dressed like a sailor last night, though. what was i thinking?
