You're Not One of Those Thoughtful Fags...

...but there is nothing you love more than to be sitting on the beach sending snarky picture messages to all your pasty New York friends as they sit at home, shivering, because their cheap slumlords have turned off their furnaces for the season. The only problem is that, for some Global Warming bullshit reason, Florida is actually chilly, while two of the New York Weather Fags (ABC & Fox) are predicting that it's going to hit 80 fucking degrees in the city this weekend! Luckily the clouds clear up long enough to sit by the pool for an hour at your parents' condo, and although it's a sad substitute for the glorious beach, the pool is at least protected from the raging wind so that you don't have to be wrapped up like a gay mummy (in 500 thread count Egyptian cotton, of course).

You're on your best behavior laying obediently on the chaise next to your Mommie Dearest. You're wearing a Straight-Friendly one-piece just like a good little Christina would, as Mommie Dearest yaps away about her latest wire-hanger debacle. Apparently her upstairs neighbor's toilet has recently caused a horrible leak and caused your Snowbird parents' ceiling to cave in. Since your Hobosexual Roommate is prone to causing these types of unnecessary leaks, you wonder if perhaps his Hobosexual Mother might actually live on the 16th floor? But this conversation grinds to an absolute halt when Mommie Dearest's absoulte dearest friend plops down onto the chaise next to you. Apparently, unlike your gossipy mother, her Floridian BFF, Paige Six, really likes to stir the pot. As far as you're concerned, it takes Two to Tango, but you shut your trap because you're on a free vacation and you think Paige Six is a hoot. So when Ms. Six invites your whole family out for an evening of Seafood and Reggae music at Conchy Joes, you quickly accept the opportunity to be her Deep Fried Groupie so you can drink gallons of Red Red Wine and mooch off of the Senior Set's pension plans, of course.

That evening, you all pile into Daddy Warbuck's gynormous SUV and drive over to Conchy Joe's which ends up being a bit of a schlep. But it's all well worth it when the Waiter insists upon seeing your ID before serving you a glass of Red Red Wine. Although you are absolutely thrilled, you find it to be a bit unnecessary when the entire table begins to cackle at the obviously Farsighted Waiter. You glare at Mommie Dearest who is actually choking on an Oyster Cracker that she accidentally inhaled while you were being proofed, so you bitterly move Mommie Dearest's glass of water just slightly out of her reach as you hand the Farsighted Waiter your not-so-new New York License. Ok, now you know you look pretty good for your age (you are gay after all), but does the man really have to do a Double Take as if you're starring in some Damn Doublemint commercial? Then the Farsighted Waiter, who is easily ten years your senior, throws your ID back at you while shaking his head in disgust as he informs you, "I'm actually two years younger than you," as if you have just been pre-qualified for Social Security. You bite your tongue and choose not to explain the difference between Straight Years and Gay Years to the Farsighted Waiter who probably hasn't seen any non-AARP Members since the Category 5 winds of Hurricane Andrew obviously impaired his vision. Regardless, being the youngest looking fag in the room is a nice contrast from feeling like a cent-less centenarian in the under-thirty-only zone you live in below Houston Street that you commonly refer to as Logan's Run.

After several jugs of Red Red Wine, the Reggae Band starts to play and they actually turn out to be pretty good. But what's really entertaining is watching your graying parents pop some Advil and drag all their combined aches and pains onto the dance floor in order to Shake Shake Shake Their Booty. Paige Six somehow drags her Sports Fanatic husband onto the dance floor, even though he's in dire need of a double knee replacement, and Kneeless Joe waddles in place to "I Shot the Sheriff" in the arms of his Drunken Deputy. Eventually, as the Pacemaker Patrons finish up their Blue Plate Specials, the whole dance floor quickly fills up, and, from the copious amounts of Advil you spy being popped by the greedy fistful, it is safe to say that a good time is had by all. Even you end up limping your way onto the dance floor, and with your Healing Hernia and your Balloon Balls, you practically fit right in with the Straight Senior Set.

Only you don't fit in. And not just because you're gay. You don't fit because all these Snowbirds have coupled up and mated for life. And you, my friend, are sorely single. Again. You look around the room and wonder if, decades from now, you'll have someone to retire and grow gray(er) with? For Christ's sake you just noticed (and quickly plucked) a gray fucking chest hair! Or will you wind up living your Golden Years watching Golden Girls reruns from your Craftmatic Adjustable bed? Alone? Or *gasp* even worse, will you be so relationship-ly destitute that you wind up spending the rest of your days wearing Depends Undergarments in your Home-Sweet-Hovel arguing with your Hobosexual Roommate over whose turn it is to replace the Polident? This last pathetic image seems to make you shiver, until you realize that what you assume to be your emotions shaking this deep-seated fear out of the darkest recesses of your Cajun Blackened Heart, the vibration is actually coming from your cell phone in order to alert you of a new text message from your Boy du Jour: the Playwright in Shining Ardour, Mr. Write.

During the drive home you have a total interstate text fest with your Non-Jewish Jew and you tell him all about how you are driving down to West Palm tomorrow so you can ask The Four Questions during Passover with The Ex's family (even though The Ex won't even be there). You find it extremely sexy when Mr. Write practically orders you to pack up your bags and, "Come home! Someone else can ask the 4 questions." But the contrary Shiksa in you immediately taps back, "I only have 1 question to ask of you: Why is it that on this night a bitter aging fag would give up the increasingly rare opportunity of being the youngest boy in the room?" You click send and wait patiently for a witty response from Mr. Write, but you are jarred out of your Four Question Fantasy as well as your car seat while everybody in Daddy Warbucks' Gas Guzzler partakes in a collective chorus of, "OH MY GOD!" You look up as Daddy Warbucks skillfully swerves off the two lane road in order to avoid running over an oncoming motorcycle that has just flipped over and is sliding its way toward your over-sized 4WD along with the leather clad couple who are also tumbling toward you on their way to become one big collective speed bump. Luckily, Daddy Warbucks (who thankfully hasn't had a drop to drink) somehow maneuvers his Beige Behemoth and completely avoids what could have easily become yet another Retiree Roadkill statistic. You all jump out to help the poor people who are somehow still alive even though their Harley has shed a few key parts down the road, including it's Handlebar.

Somehow you are the one who ends up calling 911, even though you are thoroughly drunk and have absolutely no idea where the hell you are. After slurring a few unintelligible "Um, I dunno's" to questions that you are ill-equipped to answer, Paige Six grabs the phone from you and informs the dispatcher where to send help. The Bloody Driver is obviously in a state of shock as he seems to be pacing back and forth and worrying more about his Handlebar-less Harley than he is about his Wailing Wife who is inspecting the various cuts and scrapes covering her dark Bain(daged) Soleil legs through her now-shredded jeans. To calm him down, Mommie Dearest tells the Bloody Driver that you will move his Handlebar-less Harley out of the middle of the road, which seems completely reasonable until you and your Healing Hernia attempt to lift the damn thing. Although you haven't been allowed to go to the gym for over a month, could it be possible that you have lost that much strength? Or, please God, is the Handlebar-less Harley just ridiculously heavy for one drunk gay boy to lift? Luckily the police show up and "I Shot The Sheriff" ends up helping you roll the Scrap Metal out of the road.

Before you leave the scene of the crime (without ever being asked to make any sort of statement or to leave any contact information) you are happy to see that the Bloody Driver has finally stopped worrying about his Scrap Metal and has sat himself down to console his Wailing Wife. And then you pop back into the SUV with the Straight Senior Set and begin your drive back to the Ocean Front Condo. Paige Six immediately begins to spin the simple story into the biggest thing since Hurricane Wilma thrashed through the state of Florida and Bamm Bamm'd everything in it's path into tiny little Pebbles. Meanwhile, when you finally remember to check your phone to see if Mr. Write ever responded, you find yourself equally pummeled by the Category 5 text message you have just received from Blonde Beard. He's obviously received the Shutterfly Photo Book that you spent days making for his 40th birthday in order to document your entire relationship. As you read his words, your heart sinks even faster than your non-relationship did after you stupidly dropped the L-Word on Blonde Beard. The message simply says, "Got your gift. Thanks, it was very thoughtful." Anyway...

You're Not One of Those Fags Who Fucks Over His Friends Without a Condom...

...but when you wake up on Friday morning and begin receiving overly inquisitive IM's from Jet Blew about your interest in the Jackson Heights Co-Op, you begin to wonder if, at the very least, he's going to supply you with some lube as he fucks you over:

JetBlew: what are you thinking about the apts?
You: morning! i really liked it! how about you?

Then there's this really long pregnant pause which is weird since he's the one who IM'd you first. Eventually he writes:

JetBlew: yeah... are u seriously considereing?

It was bizarre that you ran into JetBlew at the Wednesday Open House, but suddenly you realize that he's not just doing a friendly follow up after your coincidental meeting because suddenly you have a sinking feeling that your friend is fishing for information in order to beat you to the punch of buying the apartment. You decide to play it cool and make him work to get the information out of you.

You: yeah, i think i'm gonna head back over today to take some pics

There's another really long, very pregnant pause before Jet Blew gives birth to his ulterior motives...

JewBlew: which apt are u leaning towards
You: i dunno. probably A
JetBlew: K
You: ok? or you like K? is that the big one?
JetBlew: thats H
You: this conversation is worse than "who's on first." are you serious about the apt, too?
JetBlew: yeah
You: about H?
JetBlew: about H and A. getting mortgage rates now.

With that you realize that you better get your gay ass in gear because you want this apartment, whereas Jet Blew was just dragged along to the Open House by one of his Flight Attendant Friends during an extended Lay Over! And now he wants the same exact two apartments that you are interested in! So you immediately get on the horn and call Daddy Warbucks to discuss the possibility of him sharing his good credit to help his Number One Gay Son get a good Thirty Year Fixed Rate smack in the middle of a fucking mortgage crisis. Since you've tip-toed around this conversation before, you don't expect it to go very well, but either Daddy Warbucks has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or your Mommie Dearest has started brow beating him into submission with Wire Hangers down in Florida, because, get this, your retired father agrees to sharing his good credit, his good name and his illegible signature on your mortgage deed. You are in such shock that you'd probably start to cry if you weren't already too busy racing to Queens on the F train in order to forge Daddy Warbucks signature on the dotted line so you can get enough Honey Roasted Peanuts (at a fixed 5.75% rate) before Jet Blew even finishes his Beverage Service and returns his seatback to the upright position. Although Jet Blew definitley picked the wrong fag to fuck with, may the best fag win!

Your head is spinning when the painfully slow-talking, extremely Whiny Real Estate Agent (who is one Co-Op Board Approval away from the Annette Benning character in American Beauty) puts you on the phone with the Monopoly Banker in order to get Pre-Approved by someone who has absolutely no interest in how cute you look in your form fitting G-Star T and your new Se7en Jeans (which you seriously consider returning to Loehmann's since you obviously can't afford them any longer). However, when the Monopoly Banker informs you that you have passed Go! and are pre-approved to collect $200, you almost faint.

You begin to hyperventilate over going into thirty years of debt in order to live in Queens (thank God it's the Queeny Gay Latino Barrio), but when Annette Weining's Assistant interrupts your panic attack to inform her slow-talking boss that Jet Blew is on the phone, your hand immediately starts writing down a number so big that your head can't even count that high. Annette Weining looks at the number and a smile takes over her face as she winks at you and informs her assistant, "Take a message. I'll have to call him back after we've finished this deal."

On the subway ride back to your Home Sweet Hovel your inner-Martha can't think of anything but plush fabric swatches, crown molding accent colors and whether or not your big ideas for your tiny apartment are following the basic principles Feng Shui? Or perhaps they're just plain old Faag Gai? Meanwhile, you are running late for your date with Blonde Beard, but you are excited to tell him all about the Co-Op that you just *gasp* bought. Only when you get to his place, Blonde Beard immediately pops open a bottle of Cabernet and hands you a Solid Dark Chocolate Easter Bunny that he spent a small fortune on at Li-Lac. And even though you are slightly pissed because you know your fat ass is going to eat the damn thing in one fell swoop (probably without bothering to swallow) you are touched by his adorable gesture which is almost as sweet as the Bunny's deliciously pointy ears. Then Blonde Beard tells you his good news about getting a pay raise at his brand new job, so the two of you decide to go out and celebrate on an expensive dinner which he can now afford even though you no longer can.

But it's early and your BFF is out having Happy Hour Cocktails with a few of your *gasp* Straight Friends, so you butch it up and navigate your way through the Fratty NYU neighborhood to The Dove Parlor where you order a nice big glass of wine that even comes with it's own little extra carafe because, get this, the glass isn't big enough! Even though the place is straight, they definitely know how to put the Happy in Happy Hour. As you toast Blonde Beard you realize that you have stumbled upon a momentous occasion as this is the first time that he is meeting your BFF. You, of course, are chatting it up about your new Co-Op with whoever is sucker enough to listen to you. Out of the corner of your eye you notice your BFF as he goes in for the kill and begins to interrogate Blonde Beard, who, you are noticing for the first time, is painfully shy. Even though you just asked the Straight Couple who recently relocated from L.A. a million probing questions, you begin to ignore them because you are dying to eavesdrop on the first round of BFF vs. Blonde Beard. Since you have to pretend that you're interested in what The La's have to say about La La Land, you only get to hear a few highlights of the amusing dialog: like when Blonde Beard tells your BFF that you guys are celebrating tonight because you've both had great days and your BFF (who texted you incessantly about his shitty day) literally says, "I'm so happy for you," while he puts his index finger into his mouth and feigns an impressively realistic gagging reflex as if he were a seasoned, seventeen year old Bulimic cheerleader.

After you leave and begin to wander aimlessly and equally reservation-lessly through the West Village in search of a nice restaurant without a long wait *ha!*, you kind of laugh when Blonde Beard tells you that he thought your BFF was a little mean. "He's a lot mean!" you chuckle, "That's why we get along so well!" And then you tell Blonde Beard about your BFF's shitty day and that he was just teasing and most likely a bit jealous. Eventually after circling the neighborhood, twice, and giving your name on the wait-list of every restaurant you pass, you both decide to go back to your first choice, Market Table, because your hour wait is already practically half over. You wind up killing the remaining thirty minutes having another delicious glass of celebratory wine next door at BarFry. Perhaps it's all the wine, or maybe it's your good fortune, or even your extremely attractive dinner date, but the Braised Lamb Shank with Gouda Gratin is honestly the most delicious meal you've had in over two years. Afterwards, as if you were wondering whether Blonde Beard was indeed the man for you, all your questions are answered when he decides to forgo dessert and order, get this, a delicious side of delectable French Fries. And as if that wasn't good enough, Blonde Beard ends up paying for the entire meal and poo-poos you was you try to hand over your ailing Visa card. Your day is now officially perfect. And you haven't even had sex yet.

Your Literary Lot of friends calls while you're waiting for the waiter to return with change asking if you guys want to hook up. But after a quick conversation you realize that, ultimately, you boys are not willing to travel East of Sixth Avenue and since the Lit Lot isn't offering to travel West of The Bowery, the four long blocks dividing your improbable rendezvous seem even more impassable than Fifth Avenue during the Gay Pride Parade. Meanwhile, you're not losing any sleep over it because you've got a nice little buzz going and there is lots of dirty gay sex to be had with Blonde Beard!

As usual, being naked with your Bearded Boy is amazing and you get lost in his kisses as he holds you tightly and whispers things into your ear that you can't comprehend because he's got you in one of your frenzies. And you want more. You want to be closer. To kiss more intensely. To feel his heartbeat through the salty perspiration of his soft chest hair. You want to be much closer than is physically possible. The intensity of the moment takes you away. The perfectness of this amazing day has your guard down. Your desperate need to be closer to this man who bought you a Dark Chocolate Easter Bunny takes you to a place that you haven't been in a very long time. A place that is so insanely intimate, yet equally terrifying. And when you find yourself in the eye of your sensual storm, it is the undeniable calm that ultimately produces your panic. Because that is when you realize that Blonde Beard is inside of you without a condom. It is a sensation you haven't experienced since your Endless Relationship ended over three and a half years ago. You both attempt to enjoy the awkward moment, for it lasts no longer than it takes Blonde Beard to reach across the bed for an easily accessible condom, only once you are separated by a layer of latex as well as both a physical as well as an emotional layer of fear, you attempt, unsuccessfully, to deny it. Even though it only lasted a moment, you weren't ready for this to happen yet. And now you have been fucked, however briefly, literally and figuratively, without a condom. Needless to say, you are freaked. You feel like an idiot because you're not even really drunk. And you're not exactly sixteen. You know better and yet it still happened. How did that happen? Anyway...

You're Not One of Those Emotionally Unavailable Fags...

...but you are beginning to worry that you might be dating one. Ever since you dropped the old "I'm falling in love with you" L-Bomb on Blonde Beard, something seemingly imperceptible, yet practically platectonic, has changed. For starters, your mood has turned to shit. And not just your run of the mill shit. We're talking diarrhea shit. And unfortunately for you, your Hobosexual Roommate has used up all the toilet paper. But, as usual, you're getting ahead of yourself.

You were feeling okay on Tuesday before your date with Blonde Beard, although your friends were taunting you over your use of the word "date." And to your dismay, they even started teasing you with the "BF" word to describe your budding relationship, which was absolutely ridiculous so you started to refer to Blonde Beard as your non-Boyfriend, because really, if this is one of those unrequited love things then you're not interested in getting anymore emotionally involved than you already are. Hell, over the past thirtysomething years, you've only told two other boys in the entire world that you loved them. Let's just say that when you use the L-Bomb, you mean it. But unlike the age old adage about the Chicken and the Egg, in your world the L-Bomb definitely comes first, with the "BF" term coming in second, albeit a near photo-finish. Meanwhile right now you're more like a gay Chicken Little who's still smack in the middle of the damn race, even though your sky has already begun falling (in love).

So you and Blonde Beard decide to go to his place (he still hasn't even been to your Home Sweet Hovel, which seems a bit weird, but whatever) and order some Burritoville Burritos (the cannibal in you chooses chicken) while watching something embarrassing on Pay-Per-View (Nancy Drew). The delicious burrito makes up for the lousy movie, but you're getting caught up in the unimportant (yet extremely embarrassing) details. During the movie you notice that you're not playing footsie as much as you did when you watched V for Vendetta last week. And after the movie, although you have (thank God) great sex, for some reason it seems a bit more rushed than before. And when you go to bed you feel like there's less cuddling than you've become accustomed to. And in the morning, Blonde Beard pushes the snooze button one less time before he hops out of bed. And on the M8 crosstown bus, he never once rubs his knee against yours. But the real kicker is that when you get off the bus at Sixth Avenue, you find yourself standing out in the rain with neither an umbrella (literally and symbolically) nor any sort of future plan to see each other again. And Blonde Beard always asks you about your schedule in order to make your next date.

Instead of working, you end up feeling sorry for yourself and moping around your apartment all morning. Everything annoys you, especially the dirty dishes that your Hobosexual Roommate left in the sink. Equally irritating is his week's worth of unopened mail that is overtaking the minuscule chopping block cart that doubles as your kitchen table. And when you hop in the shower you get really peeved that your recently purchased bar of soap has somehow disappeared into a shaving of nothingness even though you've been showering at either the gym or over at Blonde Beard's. In fact, you notice that the Hobosexual doesn't even own his own bar of soap! But the real kicker comes when you make your way over to the little teaspoon-sized basin that your landlord considers to be a sink, and you actually start to seethe from all the disgusting hair clippings that the Hobosexual has trimmed from his body and left blanketing everything. You are too old to be living like this. You need stability in your life. You need to live in an apartment where the hair clippings in the sink are yours. Or, at the very least, are Blonde.

Instead of writing you start flipping through Time Out New York to look for distractions. Only what distracts you is an advertisement for a new co-op in Jackson Heights where the studios start at $160k. For a second you worry that your Lasik might need a touch-up, but instead of dialing your eye surgeon, instead you find yourself dialing the Real Estate Agent about her obvious typo. The next thing you know you are headed out to the Gay Latino Barrio in Queens to look at real estate you can't afford even though it's Midwesternly cheap. Funnily enough, when you turn around from ringing the Real Estate Agents buzzer you are shocked to find your flight attendant friend, Jet Blew, who's standing behind you in the vestibule. You haven't seen him since the XXX-mas party last December when you hooked up with The Cellist; a period you now refer to as B.B.B. (Before Blonde Beard). Apparently Jet Blew is on a layover and saw the same ad you did. So you go upstairs and practically cry on his shoulder as you tell him all about your non-Boyfriend and your unrequited L-Bomb.

The Real Estate is a nice distraction, and actually could make a really nice Home Sweet Home if your Daddy Warbucks would help get you out of your Home Sweet Hovel by co-signing the mortgage. You're pretty sure that no bank in their right mind would ever approve a loan for starving writer who's living off his Blah-Blah-Blog Income. Which, thanks to an advertisement you're running on Facebook, is actually Outgo. Especially during a national mortgage crisis. But you're too busy dwelling on your whole Blonde Beard situation to be thinking about anything that might affect someone else. Especially anything national. But when the hairy man in question sends you a text message informing you that he's on his way home from work and absolutely starving because he didn't have time for lunch, you take the opportunity to ask if he'd like to meet for an early dinner, even though you have no appetite.

You end up meeting at a loud, crowded, cheap burger place in the West Village, cleverly named Westville. It's probably not the greatest choice for the heavy conversation that you want to have, but the prospect of being dumped in a nicer, quieter, more romantic restaurant sounds equally awful and expensive. Not to mention so fucking cliché that you'd rather be dumped in a burger joint, if for nothing more than the sympathy that it would demand during your rehashing of the event. So when Blonde Beard asks you if you're feeling better you decide to take the opportunity and jump right into the source of your recent mania. Suddenly you feel like Mr. Sheffield on The Nanny after he told Fran that he loved her and then decided to take it back. Instead of humiliating yourself and bringing up the whole embarrassing situation again, you just remind Blonde Beard of the other night when you said that thing that he didn't respond to. And when he instantly knows the thing you're referring to, even though you've just given the lamest most vague description possible of the event, you instantly realize that indeed, it was a very big thing, for both the Plaintiff as well as the Defendant.

You feel immediately desperate. It's a place that you're, unfortunately, familiar with, but, thanks to lots of very expensive therapy, you realize that this situation has just triggered all of your Abandonment Tissues. Typically you are extremely confident in most any social situation, probably too confident for your own good, but whatever, it's who you are. However, since you were adopted, this sense of confidence can be dismembered faster than Lorena Bobbit could sever a penis with a blunt carving knife. And, right now, your confidence is M.I.A. As in M.i.a. Farrow and all of her adopted children who probably wonder where they came from and why their birth mothers didn't want them either? Although you are now old enough to recognize this pattern that has repeated itself throughout your thirtysomething post-adoption years, it still takes you off guard in that same breathless way that a kick in the balls will. But here you are, once again, watching someone, whom you may or may not be in love with, (Oh please, who do you think you're kidding with the "may not" shit?) watching someone you love begin his incomprehensible retreat. Away from you. "Anxious" is what normal people might feel in this type of situation, yet you find yourself feeling desperate. As in a sort of "Mommy, please don't give your two day old baby up for adoption" desperate kind of way.

You preface this irrational fear with your adoption back-story, which may be too much information for someone who's about to dump you, but whatever, it's a long enough story to prolong the break-up for a few extra minutes. And then you explain to Blonde Beard that, after you dropped the L-Bomb, that his behavior seemed to change. That his previous level of extremely generous portions of affection seemed to have waned after you unleashed the explosive L-Bomb. And this change has made you very uneasy. You brace yourself as Blonde Beard thinks about your accusations and prepares himself to sign the relinquishment papers and sever all ties with you. But then something drastically unexpected happens; Blonde Beard apologizes. He tells you that his feelings for you have not changed. He tells you that he wants to continue seeing you. He tells you that if his affection for you seems to have waned, that it is completely unconscious on his part. But the most interesting part of his apology is that you believe him.

Suddenly you feel like a big fat idiot (your appetite has obviously returned), but luckily that's when the waiter brings the burgers, so you get to be a big Gay-Fat idiot with a Cheeseburger Deluxe to boot. Which, of course, will only make your boot even bigger than it already is. But Blonde Beard's apology seems sincere and you are struck by how quickly he changes the subject to something unimportant. You realize that he's hastily changing the subject, not because he feels uncomfortable for you, but most likely he's changing it because he feels uncomfortable. Just because he wasn't ready for the L-Bomb doesn't mean he'll never be ready. It just means that he wasn't ready yet. And he's uncomfortable talking about it now because he's still not ready. But not being ready doesn't mean he's abandoning you. Maybe it has less to do with the fact that Blonde Beard is emotionally unavailable, yet more to do with the fact that you are emotionally un-fucking-stable. Anyway...