The two reprobates to the right are my best friend Gary (left) and I. Yesterday we decided to meet up for a couple of beers at 6pm. As per usual, the couple of beers turned into what felt and tasted like a couple of gallons and resulted in me rolling (literally) home at around 1am this morning! Above all other things, Gary and I know when its time for a fun night out, and one thing we know better than anything when we do have one, is how to laugh!
You see, Gary gives me licence to be as free thinking and outspoken as I like to be. He lets me go, no holds barred, and we're often able to turn a dark subject into a thing of comedy! The results can sometimes be hilarious. But for onlookers, it can be quite daunting!
Last night we hit the gay heart of London, Soho. The home of the freakishly daring and daringly freakish! Compton's, London's oldest gay pub and one of our favourite haunts is no exception to this. Gary had been chatting on the phone to his partner in Zurich before arriving. Dieter, his beautiful boyfriend was returning home from a weekend at his parents where his mother had announced she was dying and that it would probably be the last time any of her children saw her. Understandably he was upset.
But there is also another way of looking at it. Dieter is 44, and his mother 78. She's getting to that time when life does end and so should not be unexpected. I'm not trying to belittle death, its just it is a natural thing and comes to us all. We both accept this and therefore it was not really a heavy conversation for us!
However, the eavesdroppers and onlookers that also inhabit this certain little piece of fagland couldn't help but overhear our conversation. Its was when we hit the 'age' thing that the conversation took a turn.
I suddenly dropped into the conversation that as we were now both forty, we had offically entered our 'heart attack years'. We both giggled and remarked how we were also middle aged. Yet we still think and act as teenagers! I feel more like a 19 year old now than I did when I was that age! Odd isn't it that we should desperately try to grow up when we're young and at this one, refuse to let it go!
The true comedy in it though was the looks on the faces of all the surrounding queens. You see, I think 40ish would be an average age for Compton's. That sudden flash of horror as realisation of their own mortality dawned had us in fits! It seemed to set the tempo for the evening for us.
And it didn't stop there. It was a funny old night, and for someone who claims to not get enough sex, and who doesn't date often, I counted 6 ex-dates/boyfriends/shags all within the first 30 minutes. Now London is a large city, and the gay scene is thankfully quite diverse and widespread, but another friend and I did work out that the whole rule of 'six degrees of seperation' thing is actually reduced to just one degree in gay London. I just wish they hadn't all decided to come out on the same night to the same bar!!! Still, I'm not one for hiding my light under a bushel, and I've never been backwards at coming forwards. So I had to say 'Hello' to all of them and do the obligatory introductions! It never fails to amaze me, the predatory nature of some gay men. Within minutes, they were all chatting each other up!
A quick escape saw Gary and I heading up to the Kings Arms, home of the Bears, to see friends. Now this place needs to be noted for a couple of reasons alone. Firstly, this quaint old pub just off Oxford Street is tiny. Yet it is the desired venue for the largest of all gay men, Bears! Get 60 of them in there, and the place is packed. Now a bear is something of a mystery to most gay men. When I was growing up and setting my stall out in the kingdom of gay, a Bear was a man of a large frame, with a good body shape, not over muscled, and hairy and bearded. Nowadays, it just seems to be an excuse to be fat. And I'm not talking overweight here, I'm talking obese. HUGE bellies, ones that can enter a room at least three minutes before the remainder of the owner.
Now I like a larger gentlemen, but not this size. I mean how on earth are you (a) ever really going to be able to share a standard sized double bed, and (b) ever going to afford the grocery bill unless you're sitting in a bloody good salary bracket? I was even once affronted by a bear website user who had the nerve to say I was too small and slim to be a member of the site. Cheek, it is after all a site for Bears and their admirers, the latter I most definitely am. Now this man was one of the type I mentioned a few minutes ago. His profile photgraph happened to have a picture of him sitting on a sofa; topless. I therefore casually pointed out to him what a Bear was, and that I assumed his interpretation of exercise was opening the refrigerator door! Funnily enough, I never heard from him again.
The second thing worthy of mentioning about the Kings Arms is the size of the loo! This urinal would normally accommodate two average sized men, but with these guys in there, its one at a time! Now imagine the length of the queue when the bar is busy and they're all guzzling beer like there is no tomorrow. Still, that in itself can have its advantages, its means skinny old me can slip in there and not have to plait my legs.
One great thing of note last night though. David.
David and I have been chat buddies for quite some time. We're both on the back end of a relationship failure and as a result, hurting from it. Last night saw us actually being able to say hello in the real world for a change. What a lovely man he is, tall, dark and handsome, killer smile and lovely with it too! I am happy, I have a new friend.
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