Robert David Sullivan

Why You Will Be Single With the Wrong Person

“IT’S one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us. We go to great lengths to avoid it. And yet we do it all the same: We marry the wrong person.”—Alain de Botton, “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person,” New York Times, May 28, 2016.

But it’s OK, says de Botton: “We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning.”

I don’t mind being single per se, but must I be single with myself?

I know I can’t meet all my needs and satisfy my every yearning. That’s asking too much of myself. But a kind word and an unexpected squeeze of the shoulder would be nice now and then. I’ve lived with myself long enough to know when I simply need to hear, “I’ve got this, babe,” but instead I get angry and resentful at my silence, muttering, “What am I mad about this time?”

I secretly want to be surprised with breakfast in bed. Am I so out of sync with myself that I have to ask for it?

I always remember my birthday, but do I remember my birthday? Never. All I ever get from myself is a few crisp $20 bills, a day late, to spend on “anything I want.” I spend it on toilet paper and other household goods just to spite myself.

The sex is boring. I suggest spicing things up by bringing another person into the mix, but in the end I’m always up against cold feet. Is it jealousy, insecurity? Perhaps. I’m no great prize, but there have been plenty of prospects who have headed for the door when they finally meet myself.

I don’t want to give up yet. Perhaps a trip with myself is the answer, if I can think of a vacation itinerary that isn’t just about what I want. My chief concern is the cost: When things go south, I always end up in a separate room from myself. That kind of relationship just isn’t sustainable on a single income.

How to be gay without being gay

I recently wrote a post called “Better to Stay in the Closet” on self-esteem issues, and several gay men told me they’ve had similar experiences. Others have been curious about sexual abstinence. Almost no one has to be celibate, they say—certainly not in 2016, when there so many people looking for love on Scruff and OKCupid and SeniorPeopleMeet.com. “I’m sure you’re somebody’s type” is the buck-up-it’s-not-so-bad statement that many of us have come to dread. Based on responses to my personal ads, I’m the type for guys decades younger who live overseas (surely I’m the first American they’ve contacted) and men at least a decade older whose dogs have recently died.

After dating sites, the helpful suggestions devolve to include anonymous sex in very dark rooms and getting over any hang-ups about paying for someone’s company.

With all these options, some gay men wonder how anyone can go for years without sex. I have three explanations, none of which are working for me right now.

Better to stay in the closet

Recently I noted on Facebook that I came out as gay about 25 years ago and that I would have been better off staying in the closet but going to the gym. A couple of people told me privately that this was an offensive, and perhaps too private, statement, so I took it down—but I can’t say that I regret it.

“Ask your doctor if So-and-So is right for you” say the pharmaceutical ads, and I should make clear that my advice to myself is not necessarily right for gay men born in a different time or in different socioeconomic conditions. If I had been born 10 years later, or into a more privileged family, I probably would have come out in high school (certainly by college) and figured out things out with the support of peers my own age.

Instead, I came out in my late 20s, at first in a strange city, and already felt like a tired old queen. This was in Washington, D.C., where I joined a group for twentysomethings and was self-conscious that I was about to age out of it, and where I went to dance clubs (like Badlands) a few times by myself and was too intimidated to approach the mostly younger guys in T-shirts.

David Sedaris was my best friend for one afternoon

We’re coming up to the 20th anniversary of my friendship with NPR favorite David Sedaris, which led to one of my most-read pieces of writing: an interview that appeared in the February 1997 issue of the “One in Ten” gay-and-lesbian section of the Boston Phoenix (both, alas, extinct). I spent a winter’s day with Sedaris, starting at his SoHo apartment and accompanying him as he visited a taxidermy store and went food shopping (at different places).

The interview happened just as Sedaris was getting extremely popular, after he read his memoir of being a Christmas elf at Macy’s (“SantaLand Diaries”) but before he switched his focus from short pieces of fiction to short pieces of autobiography. He invited me to visit after I sent a rather obsequious fan letter (full text below) in the fall of 1996.

I can’t find his invitation—it was definitely handwritten, not digital—but I remember thinking that it was a golden ticket. Here was a chance to buddy up with someone who was part of the literary scene, the gay scene, and the New York scene. A triple threat! I got even more swell-headed after Sedaris was friendly enough to spend so much time with me on that day in New York.

Haunting the gay bars of Boston

My good friend Peter Muise just wrote about the possible haunting of Boston's premier (and only) drag bar, Jacques, at his New England Folklore blog. 

Never one to overlook a productive way to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon in New York, I naturally began the task of choosing a place to haunt after my untimely death. A gay bar fits all the criteria: a place of unspeakable heartache and pain, where it always seems to be late at night and any pale, wrinkled figure will prompt shrieking among the occupants.

My preference would be to haunt the Napoleon Club, where the love of my life once excused himself to use the men's room and then somehow vanished from the building without my seeing him. (At least my ghostly powers would enable me to discover whatever secret passageway he used.) Alas, the Napoleon Club met a fate worse than going straight: It was converted into condos. It would be a waste to haunt whichever philistines how occupy the space.

I could haunt the Eagle, but really the worst thing that happened to me there was being told the significance of each and every flag, pennant, and motorcycle-club patch on the walls. I've been told that my yawns can be pretty disturbing; still, I think I should aim higher than that.

Downstairs at the Paradise is another option, thanks to its brief experiment with "underwear parties" in the '90s. As I recall, the club waived the $10 cover charge for anyone willing to leave most of their clothes at the coat-check booth. This meant that the most exposed patrons in the place were also the cheapest patrons. Younger patrons (which included myself at the time) kept to the dance floor, fully clothed, while several older, flabby men in G-strings nursed their wine coolers at the bar. It was a surrealist enough scene for Twin Peaks (or maybe American Horror Story), but not traumatic enough for me to want to haunt the place.

There's the Ramrod, which now refuses to use its leather-bar name and goes by its dance-club incarnation, Machine. I did go to its infamous "back room" a few times, even complying with the shirts-off dress code. But the only action I experienced there was when a friend twisted one of my nipples, in kind of a pity grope. I heard that things got more intense after 1 a.m., but the subway stopped running at 12:30, so I never really found out. I guess I could haunt the MBTA general manager's office over that.

That leaves me with Club Cafe, also known among my friends as Club Snub. Indeed, I had many experiences of spotting someone I knew there only to have him look away and suddenly remember that he had something to do on the other side of the room. At least three times, I ran into guys at Club Cafe whom I had no idea were gay. These encounters were not the beginnings of beautiful friendships, as I never saw any of them again.

Club Cafe was also where someone I had dated a few times asked me to meet him one night, saying he had something very important to tell me. On my way to the bar, I played out various romantic scenes in my head, all ending with my joy that I would never again have to walk into Club Snub alone. After we got a table for two and a couple of Cosmopolitans, he told me the big news: He was pregnant. 

Yep, it was all a practical joke. Now this is a scenario right out of Carrie, something a ghost can really work with. So if Club Cafe is still standing after I go, look for me there, dumping gallons of cranberry juice upon the head of anyone who breaks a poor guy's heart.

Photo by Elmer C. on Yelp. 

 

 

10 reasons for me to feel Gay Pride

It’s Pride Week in Boston! So far, I’m spending it in my apartment getting headaches from the backhoes tearing up a parking lot on the next block and the six-year-old boy upstairs stomping around as if his apartment were carpeted with smoldering cigarette butts. I’m also waiting for confirmation that I’ll actually be paid for an editing job, and waiting for information about my dad’s health.

And it’s getting hot. Fortunately, the New Kids on the Block tell me it’s OK to go commando if I use the right toilet paper. I don’t think they really know why men wear boxers and briefs. (Zippers have something to do with it.)

But I promised to be positive about Gay Pride. What am I thankful for this year?

1.) I’m old enough for people to think my lack of a husband is due to ACT UP–era objections to marriage as an assimilationist and patriarchal institution. (That’s not it. At all.)

2.) The website Hotties on the T! is a thing.

3.) Gay bars in Boston have Quiet Hours for people who don’t look good in tight T-shirts. It’s just tough to be productive when I’m drunk by 4 p.m. every Monday.

4.) There is so much on TV now that no one expects me to watch the shows with gay characters.

5.) When I want to experience a vibrant gay neighborhood, Montreal is just a few hours away.

6.) I know all the sassy words that are acceptable in Words with Friends.

7.) The “dating” app Scruff makes it possible for me to pre-emptively give dirty looks to guys in my building who would ignore me if I texted them.

8.) As a member of the LGBT community, I personally know several DJs who play music I can stand, and several actors who aren’t trying to live out Entourage in real life.

9.) My Facebook feed is full of fantastic photography. And I’m mostly referring to flowers and architecture.

10.) Trivia contests are a low-cost, no-fuss alternative to circuit parties.

 

Recent writing: The Odd Couple, Veep, and the Koch brothers

I'd be delighted, and ever-so-slightly monetized, if you'd check out my recent work at the A.V. Club and America magazine.

The A.V. Club's "TV Club 10" feature has my appreciation of the 1970s sitcom The Odd Couple, and in particular Tony Randall's performance as Felix:

Randall adds the “manic” to Felix’s depression, and the character crashes hard whenever his enthusiasm leads him astray. (“You always go too far,” Oscar says near the end of several episodes.) Felix can be described as a prototype for the ’90s metrosexual—he must have been a pioneering consumer of moisturizers for men—but his character is even more predictive of how chatty society would become about anxieties and neuroses. In his less hyperactive moments, Felix is candid about his hang-ups (to use a word from his era), a trait that bewilders Oscar but would be considered normal today.

Also at the A.V. Club, my review of the third-season opener of the HBO political comedy Veep:

Veep is can be seen as an argument for libertarianism, since it scrupulously avoids presenting any public official as being concerned with anything other than holding onto power. Last season, for example, the show gleefully revealed that one of Selina’s principal rivals, war hero Danny Chung, was just as petty—but even less disciplined—than the vice president. At the same time, the Mayberry Machiavellians of Veep (to steal a phrase from an appointee of George W. Bush disillusioned by the constant political strategizing in the White House) don’t seem to have much influence over how the country actually runs. Maybe the Leslie Knopes in local government actually help citizens, but Washington is just a sideshow.

And my regular blogging at America magazine has touched on such topics as Jeb Bush and immigration reform, the launch of Ezra Klein's Vox.com site and his musings on politics and stupidity, and the problems of relying on charity to reduce poverty.

Last week, I also wrote about the Koch brothers, big money in politics, and the ouster of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich over his donation to an anti-gay-marriage campaign in California:

Free speech was clearly the loser this time, but Mozilla seems resigned to the outcome. Andrew Sullivan has a predictably heated response: “There is only one permissible opinion at Mozilla, and all dissidents must be purged! Yep, that’s left-liberal tolerance in a nut-shell.”

As a supporter of marriage equality, I have some admiration for the lightning tactics used against Mozilla. What we have here is hardball politics as practiced by the National Rifle Association (and, yes, by the Koch brothers). The campaign against Brendan Eich is similar to the NRA’s battle against President Obama’s nominee as surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, for the sin of tweeting in favor of gun control after the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. The strategy is the same: No compromise, no mercy.

 

 

Growing up gay with "Match Game"

My latest for the A.V. Club is a look at the history and the must-see episodes of the 1970s afternoon hit Match Game. From "10 Match Game episodes that hit viewers right in the blank":

[Brett] Somers sat in the upper tier next to, and mock-sparred with, Charles Nelson Reilly, who also joined in 1973 and continued through a 1990-91 revival. Not concerned with being recognized as gay, Reilly was a role model for a lot of youngsters who didn’t yet realize they needed one. In contrast to the misanthropic Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares, Reilly was a “good gay” who winked at the audience and looked genuinely sorry when he didn’t match contestants. When the question is about a “really weird” woman who “keeps her husband in a blank,” Reilly responds with “closet.” In another episode: “You know you’re at a really wild party when you see a blank in every room.” Reilly writes, “chains from the ceiling.” Reilly frequently complains that Somers copies his answers; Somers gripes that Reilly takes too long and dresses like a slob. (“Charles Nelson Reilly isn’t wearing any socks!”)

Even as a kid, I knew it was a silly show, but it was so thrillingly adult, in ways I didn't fully comprehend until later. Today I can knock out innuendoes like no one's business, but there's still no Match Game app on Facebook, so I'm stuck with Words with Friends. Meh.

Gay bars unlikely to benefit from any improvements to Boston’s nightlife

Slate’s June Thomas has a post titled “A Texas Ban on Gay Two-Stepping Shows Why We Still Need Gay Bars,” focusing on a case from that state’s 54th-largest city:

According to the Victoria Advocate, a gay couple was pulled from the dance floor of the Cactus Canyon on Dec. 20 and told that club policy prohibits gay couples from dancing to country music. Justin Meyer, 21, and James Douglas, 30, had already danced several songs without incident, but a manager intervened when the music switched to Dustin Lynch’s “Cowboys and Angels.” […]

Several [newspaper] commenters said that if gay men want to dance together, they need to go to a gay bar. Except, of course, that there isn’t one in Victoria. Indeed, there are fewer and fewer gay bars all across the United States. Back in 2011, when I wrote a series about gay bars, I reported that between 2005 and 2011, the number dropped from 1,605 to 1,405, a 12.5 percent decrease.

My recent conversations with gay men in their 20s leave me skeptical that the couple would even want to go to a gay bar. They may prefer a place like Cactus Canyon because they don’t want to be pursued by older — probably much older — gay men. I’d love to read about a gay bar opening in Victoria because of this story, but I wouldn’t consider it a wise business investment.

Making libertarian lemonade out of gay-marriage lemons

Marriage equality is advancing so quickly that there's no need to find a middle ground, or "third way." It's a done deal in nine states and and will eventually become the American norm.

So it's almost sad to see conservative libertarians try to spin things so that the attainment of civil rights can be used to reduce the size of government and restrict immigration to the US. The National Review's John Fund credits Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for raising the idea that government shouldn't have anything to do with recognizing marriages, traditional or otherwise. This sounds like a modern, secular position until Fund gets into specifics.

Lively debate on Boston nightlife typically takes place on Sunday afternoon

The debate over Boston's dull nightlife, and the possibility of improving it, has flared up again in recent weeks. The spark was the launch of the Future Boston Alliance, a group that advocates for a "loosened-up" city; it was unsurprisingly brushed off by the 19-year-old Menino adminstration. (Note to blog followers primarily interested in my Top 100 Sitcom Episodes countdown: This is not off-topic, as the depiction of community-building is one thing that interests me about sitcoms.)

This morning, on the Sunday of a long weekend when just about everyone with the means has fled Boston, the Globe's Dante Ramos weighed with an indictment of the "Boston bar buzz-kill":

Nightlife — the bars, clubs, and restaurants where people hang out after hours — is a major part of the image a city presents to the world, or at least to a crucial sliver of entrepreneurial, highly mobile workers who are prone to comparison-shopping among cities. Yet Boston’s anti-fun image isn’t just bad publicity; it’s written into the law. Happy-hour drink promotions are banned statewide under a Dukakis-era state measure meant to curb drunk driving. Another state law requires bars to obtain a specific license before they allow patrons to dance. Boston’s entertainment license application asks venues to quantify their dartboards and wide-screen TVs. The rules are enforced. At a February concert at the House of Blues, Boston police broke up a mosh pit they deemed insufficiently supervised.

Time for gay marriage foes to get the slippery slope treatment

The "slippery slope" argument against gay marriage just won't go away, despite the lack of any evidence that polygamy and bestiality have yet flourished in places with marriage equality. (@dbernstein mischieveously tweeted today: "& we're getting tired of waiting in MA".)

Slate.com's David Weigel just posted an old video featuring presidential candidate Michelle Bachman declaring that, after gay marriage, "group marriage, polygamy, and things much worse may not be far behind." And The New York Times recently posed this question to academics: "With marriage expanding in once unimaginable ways, what might the next stage in this evolution be?

But as marriage equality becomes the status quo in more states, and as the opposition melts down to the religious right, my question is: What is at the bottom of the slippery slope if we deny marriage equality?