Gay Club Jet Lag

Good morning, Brooklyn. I’m hungover. Who can say they’re surprised? Last night was a cute night out with my friend David (gay David, not straight David, for those of you familiar with the latter). I went to House of Yes for the first time in a year and it’s still as disappointing as I left it. It’s become something of a queer zoo for straight people but with almost no queer people. I saw a few resilient lesbians, and behind me, a group of boys from Ecuador out on their friend’s birthday begging me for poppers. Eli Escobar was DJ-ing, so me and the boys started chanting “¡Maricones! ¡Maricones! ¡Maricones!” in hopes that he’d hear us and play something for the community. 

He eventually played “Let’s Have a Kiki,” and I lived- that is until I looked around and saw a bunch of straight people making out and grinding on each other. They didn’t even know the words! You should all know by now how I feel about seeing straight people at the gay club, but then again, is House of Yes even a gay club? Wikipedia calls it “LGBTQ-friendly,” but doesn’t explicitly call it a queer nightclub. To be fair, the first time I heard about it, the venue was sold to me by a straight man as “The gayest place on earth.” Clearly, we have different definitions of what that looks like. I’ve been sold a lie. 

Regardless, I’m awake by way of hangover, and I figured I might as well embrace it instead of rolling around in bed, in denial of what’s happening. I’m feeling very writer-ly right now, typing at my computer in front of the window with a hot cup of black coffee steaming next to me. Unfortunately, grey clouds block my view of the World Trade Center, so the fantasy remains incomplete. We can’t win them all, I suppose. 

Which brings me to the topic at hand. Since I’m feeling my Carrie Bradshaw oats, I figured why not talk about my romantic affairs? Something I find fascinating (see: nosey) about the human condition is that inquiring about other’s love lives is socially acceptable. Say you’re catching up with a friend you haven’t seen in a month or two. You can bet that, unless there’s an action item that brought you together, within the first fifteen minutes of meeting up they’ll ask you some variation of “So, are you seeing anyone?” And sometimes, the tea you’ve gathered to discuss is the answer to that very question. 

I tend to be private about my dating life. When people ask, I have to stop myself from telling them to mind their own damn business. I take dating very seriously. One of my goals in life is to have a big, nasty wedding and to be able to say the words “My husband.” Of course, I’m only 23 and the dating scene in New York is a wasteland so I unfortunately don’t see this happening soon. Sigh. They should rename this place Loser Man City.

I took a break from dating this summer, the longest I have had in three years. Before that, I developed the mindset that if I wanted to find love, I needed to take it where I could get it. In other words, that beggars can’t be choosers. If that loser man asks you on a date, you say yes. If that loser man asks you on a second date, you say yes. If that loser man asks you to simply “hang out” don’t question it, just show up. Because who else is asking?

That’s not to say that every man I’ve dated is a loser, but so far, I haven’t found myself in a relationship. One would think I’d be a hot commodity, “How are you, beautiful Eduardo of EduardoisBeautiful, still single?!” Great question. I find that most men my age aren’t looking for the same things as me, such as being in a relationship with dates, and commitment, and the meeting of the friends, etc. At least, not the ones I’m attracted to. Hm… Am I the problem? I’ll worry about that later. 

Logically, I know that Love Takes Time. Mi diosa Mariah Carey said so, and she looks absolutely gorgeous in that video too. In the prison of my mind, however, there’s a pressure to find my husband as soon as possible. I fear that he may get snatched up by someone else before I meet him, or perhaps I’ll spoil my virtue before we cross paths. Maybe I need to take some notes from Mariah and stand in the waters of Coney Island wrapped in a bedsheet to get the message through my head. At the end of the day, though, I’m a Charlotte to my core. My desire for love and a big white wedding cannot be contained.

The pressure to find love comes from many angles. For one, I’m afraid of becoming a stereotype of the endlessly single gay bachelor. I know there’s some internalized homophobia to resolve there, but it doesn’t change the fact that I yearn for a closed, monogamous partnership. In a way, I want to prove to society (and perhaps also to my parents) that love and success are possible for gay people.

And what about my parents? They were set up by friends, and by the time they married, my mother was 28 and my dad was 30. It’s bewildering to hear my mom recount their love story because, by the standards of their generation, they were late to the party. She once told me that her elders half-jokingly and half-threateningly said that whoever wasn’t married by the end of the decade would be single forever.

Curiously, the weddings in my generation of the family also began at the start of a decade, setting in the fear of the family curse. This prophecy doesn’t exist anywhere other than in my own brain, but what can I say? I’m superstitious (see: OCD) and I’m afraid that if I don’t get married by 2030, I’ll be single forever. It’s 2024. Tick Tock. The clock is ticking.

On top of this, two of my siblings are married to people they met in college. Last time I checked, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and honors, but no boyfriend. I look at their relationships and wonder if I already missed the window. One of my other siblings met their girlfriend in medical school, and they’re thinking about moving in together in a year. Is grad school the answer then? FML.

Since none of my friends have successfully set me up with anyone (yes, Anike, I know you tried), it feels like dating apps are the only place to turn. It’s funny to think that people used to meet in nature. A meet-cute at a coffee shop, a drunk night at the bar, a forbidden workplace romance, or maybe even a bold hello on the subway. No internet involved. I’ve met a few people in the wild, so I know it’s not impossible, but just because you met in person doesn’t guarantee success. I met a guy at my 2023 New Year’s Party and that didn’t lead anywhere. I’ve exchanged numbers on a night out more times than I can count, but we know how that goes. He insists he wants to take you out on a date, but all you get is a “You up?” text at two in the morning a few weeks later, and even that kind of encounter only has a 50% success rate of actually happening.

So, it’s hard not to fall into despair when it comes to dating, especially when I look at the state of things. I’ve recently started to wonder if I’m taking dating too seriously. Shocking, I know. The landscape of modern dating encourages fast and loose entanglements often ending in romantic disappointment. This environment doesn’t quite align with my goals. Instead of getting frustrated and cursing the men around me, what if I sink into the filth and let myself have a little fun? 

Then again, what’s the line between letting myself have some fun, and doing things just for the sake of doing them? ie: taking what I can get, being a beggar, and not a chooser. No, I don’t expect to find my husband on H*nge (at least I hope not, for the love of god), but even so, I don’t want to abandon my standards. How does one balance knowing what you want and accepting that you might not get it? 

If I’m going to troll around on a dating app, I’d at least like to get on Raya and have my fun with men who have jobs. Can you believe that 19 referrals later, I’m still on the waitlist? 19! I also hear, however, that Raya is just as disappointing as the rest of the apps. So why bother!

Thus, I re-enter my nihilistic POV on dating which brings me to the conclusion that beggars can’t be choosers. That I, a beggar for love, must take what I can get and go out with loser men who don’t even want commitment. If I want a relationship, I can’t choose who I date, I just need to accept the affection of whoever throws it my way, and in whatever capacity they see fit. I love to date people I don’t like. It’s like I’m working for a promotion and if I just put enough hours in, I’ll get what I’m looking for. God is my boss and she needs to see me hustle so I can earn the relationship I’m looking for.

And yet, I’ve never been in an official relationship with a boyfriend label slapped onto it. I think deep down I know that this policy isn’t for me. It’s rather desperate, and at 23, I can’t let myself think that way. I have, however, been setting myself up for failure with a closed mind towards dating. In my adult life, I’ve had 0 boyfriends. Only intense, devastating flings no longer than a month with men of varying but questionable honor. My dreams and expectations encourage me to make bad decisions that I’m often confident I’ll regret. 

Over the past three years, I’ve made an active effort to date, knowing that if I want a boyfriend, I need to find him somewhere. Keeping myself laser-focused on this end goal has dimmed the possibility of finding delight, and making me hyper-sensitive to rejection. Sometimes, a bad date makes a good story. Sometimes, a failed relationship offers wisdom, and not just on dating, but on life, and the many quirks of humanity. 

Which brings up another question- what do success and failure even mean here? Though my delusions pray for it, I’m not going to find the love of my life and get married on the first date. In my romantic career, I look back on some of the second and third dates that never progressed and wonder why I went back. There was obviously some kind of connection, but I wasn’t feeling a romantic spark. Sometimes, a good hang is just a good hang. Could we have come out the other end as friends? 

A year ago, I would have said no. And yet, it happened to me. A January fling blossomed into a cherished friendship, and with a new perspective, I’d call that relationship a success. No, it didn’t evolve into what I usually expect (and never get) from my partners, but I knew that wasn’t the kind of relationship I wanted from him. Still, I knew that I liked him on some level, and now that we’re friends, I’ve learned something from it. When it comes to dating, what’s the point of deciding what will become of us before I’ve gotten the chance to know you?

So as I re-enter the scene, I have to remember a few things. One, it’s helpful to know what I want and what I’m looking for. Being specific will keep me from dating the loser men. Two, it’s necessary to have an open mind. Scheduling a date isn’t a guarantee that I’ll find love. But what if I find like? What if I have a beautiful evening that’s for one night only? If I end up with a broken heart, it’ll at least give me something to write about. 

It’s easy to get swept up in our fantasies of what we want our partners to look like, how we want them to act, and the kind of people we want them to be. This, of course, is mostly out of our control. We can’t decide who we’re attracted to, nor can we choose who we attract. My Russian Drama professor told my class in college that we so often choose people who don’t choose us and vice versa, but so rarely do we choose each other. These wise words from a class about late-1800s/early-1900s Russian depression ring true in 2024. We want Love at First Sight, but it often feels like the only way we’ll find love is in a hopeless place. 

In conclusion, I’ve redownloaded H*nge. I’m not going to go in expecting love because I know I won’t find it there (or maybe perhaps H*nge is the hopeless place about which Rhianna speaks??), but until my friends find me a man to set me up with, I encounter someone in the wild, or Raya accepts my application (I have 19 referrals, mind you), it’s a place to start. 

There’s always something to learn. It’s key not to lose hope. It’s necessary not to take romantic disappointments so personally. And it’s equally important to let go of expectations in a way that doesn’t compromise your values. If my dream is to bring a man to the function, why don’t I bring a new loser every week? Eventually, I’m bound to bring a loser that sticks. Adele said it best, Love is a Game, bitches. Why not try to have fun instead of being so focused on winning?

And look, the clouds cleared up and I can see the WTC again. See what a little patience can do?