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...