You're Not One of Those Fags Who'd Move to Massachusetts Just to Get Married...

...you are a New Yorker! And being a Single New Yorker trumps being a Married Bostonian any day of the week. Even at a Sunday Tea Party hosted by Paul Revere at the Blue Whale. Well, perhaps you'd swap one of your Fire Island weekends to go to that party. But you'd go as a Single New Yorker! And you'd definitely steal a kiss from Paul Revere when his Hubbie was busy at the bar ordering (overly taxed) Long Island Iced Teas.

You're actually not in any rush to find a husband. Even though you had been in a relationship since the Dawn of Gay Man, after that endless relationship ended you thought you'd end up in another one right away. But you didn't. And three years later you're pretty damn happy about being single. You've learned a lot from dating the lower half of Manhattan (uptown boys are just too much of a schlep), and you're pretty content with trusting that one day there will be a boy that is meant for you (downtown). But since you are busy getting back at Blonde Beard who can't seem to walk away from his laptop long enough to log off of Match.com, you agree to go on another Revenge Date with an Exotic Island Boy that sought you out on Connexion.

However there's nothing Exotic about trudging through the damn wintry blizzard to meet your Island Boy at Bar Veloce in Chelsea. And when you arrive, the place is packed. With straight people. It never ceases to amaze you how quickly those people who are allowed to get married can take over and baby proof the neighborhoods that the fags (who are unworthy of that sacred institution) spend years gentrifying. But you digress. You and Exotic Island Boy end up going to three different places before settling on Le Singe Verte on Seventh Ave. You sit down at the bar and Exotic Island Boy is certainly as cute as his online photos, but the date starts off on an odd note when he starts pretentiously throwing around his wine knowledge and giving the Bartender a hard time. The Bartender quickly puts an end to the endless stream of grape-related questions, and offers sips (probably just to shut him up). Four or five tastes later, Exotic Island Boy finally makes a choice (one from the menu that he didn't even taste) and then he actually has the gall to order dinner even though your explicit plan was "to grab a drink." You decline to order dinner (partly because you can't afford it, but mostly because you are defrosting a chicken breast at your Home Sweet Hovel and you hate to waste).

Exotic Island Boy's constant patronizing behavior to the Bartender, coupled with a four year conflict between his online (39) and in person (43) ages, help you quickly navigate your way to the phrase, "Check please!" (although you were much more polite than that...) And you schlep your way back to the subway through the inch of snow sludge that blankets the city. You get in the workout you skipped in order to meet Exotic Island Boy during the six flight ascent to your Home Sweet Hovel, and you quickly boot up your PC with the hopes of finding an email from Blonde Beard since you've literally already forgotten about Exotic Island Who?

Only instead of finding an email from your Future Ex-Boyfriend, you find one from your Actual Ex-Boyfriend who is busy directing a movie in Texas. You had emailed The Ex to ask about his Dad because you heard that he was very sick and had been hospitalized. This is his response, "i think tomorrow is going to be it. very sad, but not unexpected. i think the funeral will be in nyc, because he wants to be buried beside my mom."

Jerry the Hugger had been diagnosed with prostate cancer during the first Gulf War, and although he has gotten much older, you were pretty sure that he'd make it through Gulf War II, but it is highly unlikely that we will pull out of Iraq by tomorrow. Tomorrow. This is a man who drove you crazy during his endless visits when you lived in Pacific Palisades. The Ex (who never went to his office on the Studio Lot) went to work every single day of Jerry the Hugger's visits, leaving your unemployed ass to entertain his father all day long. And two narcissists sharing one house was one narcissist too many. However, you were younger and Jerry the Hugger had been a highly skilled narcissist long before you could even say, "Me!" So like a Bear and his fuzzy little Cub who he picked up at The Eagle, you ranked much, much lower on Darwin's narcissistic evolutionary scale. When it came down to survival of the fittest, Jerry the Hugger could eat you up for breakfast and shit you out before you ever got a chance to change the subject back to you.

Even though he drove you absolutely insane during his extended visits to California, and even though you learned more about Busby Berkeley musicals that you never wanted to know, and even though the man's hugs sometimes bordered on sexual harassment, there is one thing that is absolutely sure. This man, your boyfriend's father, welcomed you into his family with open arms. Jerry the Hugger loved nothing more than to introduce you as his Son-In-Law, even though there were no laws that would have legally bound you as a member of his family (not even in Massachusetts at the time). Your own parents never returned the favor to your Ex. Even after living together for the better part of a decade, your Boyfriend was not asked to be included in the family photos at your brother's wedding. And suddenly you begin to cry. Suddenly you want nothing more than to be held in Jerry the Hugger's tight grasp while eagerly listening to him teach you all about Busby Berkeley. It doesn't really matter that there was never a piece of paper that legally made you Jerry the Hugger's Son-In-Law, because that piece of paper never really mattered to Jerry. Your Father-In-Law. Anyway...

You're Not One of Those Flower-Power Fags Who Believes in Karma...

...but something is seriously off kilter and the gay YOUniverse seems to be taking it out on you in the form of leaks. Perhaps you've been dating too many Astrological Water Signs lately? Anyway. You go to your Storage Facility in Long Island City to collect your gear for an upcoming ski trip, and while you're rummaging around you begin to notice a slight drizzle. You look up with dread and realize that there is a slow drip, coming from the ceiling, that has actually formed a puddle around all of your precious crap. You find yourself wondering about the odds of your leak-prone Hobosexual Roommate renting the Storage Space directly above yours as you head down to the main office to make such a big stink that they have no choice but to give your cheap, but loud ass a discount, or some other freebie, just to shut you up.

Unfortunately the Elementary School Drop Out manning the office that Sunday is much more interested in slurping her Frappuccino while playing Scrabulous on Facebook, than she is concerned with your damp Karmic dilemma. She informs you that you can either move your shit to another unit today, or you can schlep back to Queens sometime during the week, duke it out with the manager, and then, of course, move your shit into another unit then. Either way you've got to move your shit so you decide to minimize your time in Queens and just get it over with now.

So you go back upstairs to your leaky Storage Unit and begin to throw boxes of your old forgotten crap onto a large dolly. It's been years since you've seen some of this stuff; years since you and your Ex broke up; years since you left your privileged much fancier Manhattan life and traded it in for your first Home Sweet Hovel, in Queens, which was so minuscule that you needed to rent this damn 6' x 7' Leaky Cubicle in order to store your crap. You remember feeling exactly like Eva Gabor when she had to leave Manhattan for Hooterville, "New York is where I'd rather stay! I get allergic smelling hay! I just adore a penthouse view! Darling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue!"

But your old fancy stuff isn't half as distracting as your box of photos is. You get sucked in to glamour shots of yourself during exotic safaris to South Africa, to your gut renovation of a 3,500 sq/ft Union Square loft, to your three-star Michelin Guide culinary tour of France, to Madonna's 35th Birthday Party circling Manhattan on a fucking yacht that with the cast of A League of Their Own during Madge's lesbian period where she was making out with Ingrid all night! It's almost hard to believe that these photos are from your life. Hell, at this point it's hard to believe that you used to live in an elevator building. The photos make you sad, but not in a "green-with-envy-I-can't-believe-I-used-to-be-so-fabulous" kind of way. You don't feel jealous or bitter of yourself, because, after all, you were the one who chose to leave the fabulous life that you had become very accustomed to. However, the photos make you sad mostly because you realize that you don't have anyone to take photos with anymore. Now when you travel, most of your photos are of you, solo, standing in front of something touristy. All the shots are blurry, poorly composed and off-center, taken from an unflatteringly close distance because you have to take them yourself with one pathetic, extended arm.

Although you are way happier now than you were during the last few, sometimes suicidal years of your relationship, sometimes you wonder if you'll ever settle down again with someone who can take a more flattering photo during life's more memorable moments? That's when you get a text from the London Lush confirming your date later tonight at Bamboo 52. You have completely lost track of time so you start racing through your move, basically throwing all of your carefully organized shit from the leaky unit into a one big messy pile where you will never, ever be able to find a fucking thing again. You rush home, shower, and somehow make it to the bar on time, which is completely barren that you could almost here an echo when you kiss the London Lush's cheek. He's as super cute as you remember, but that's probably because he's sooooo much younger than you. When they're too young they always end up making you feel too old, and you definitely prefer being the young, cute one! You are typically much happier living in denial about your completely humorless laugh-lines and your, get this, graying chest hair.

Although the London Lush is super nice and the two of you seem to be enjoying each other's company while sipping your Gay Cocktails, you're pretty much completely aware that you are actually on a Revenge Date that has little or nothing to do with the London Lush. Right now you'd much rather be out with Blonde Beard, but since he's still actively pursuing other boys on Match.com, you are definitely not going to put all your eggs into the Blonde Beard basket so he can whisk them into a fluffy frenzy before scrambling them on Teflon over medium heat... As usual, you have too many Mandarin and Sodas while watching Tina Turner and Beyoncé steal the Grammy Awards with, "Better Be Good To Me." Although you have a lovely time throwing back a few with the London Lush, you can't help but be aware of the bad timing because there is only one person on your radar that Better Be Good To You: Blonde Beard. You're not sure if the two of you will last long enough to share a few Kodak Moments, but you know you'd definitely give him a big, dimpled grin if Blonde Beard ever asked you to say, "Cheese!" Anyway...