One night when I was in Prague I mustered up the courage to go to a gay bar, something I am terrified to do in the United States, much less in Eastern Europe. But I was so plagued by my non-functioning gaydar that I felt I needed to go to a place the sexuality of whose denizens was not in question.
I selected the most innocuous-sounding establishment I could find, which was a video bar called “Friends.” As it was early in the evening, there was only a handful of people there, some of them quite attractive. I realized with delight that two of the most attractive guys in the place were openly staring at me, eyes brimming with admiration and excitement. The possibilities were countless: which one of them was interested in me? Or were they both interested in me and preparing to fight over me? Or was a threesome worthy of a Bel Ami video in the offing? Clearly I had made the right decision in coming here. My existential loneliness would be quieted for the evening, my doubts about my suitability as a human being assuaged, and I would find brief but joyous companionship in an affirmation of the universal brotherhood of man.
Then I realized that they were staring at Madonna singing “Holiday” on the TV screen above my head.
I gulped down a hot chocolate and fled.
so wait, lemme get this straight (so to speak): you’ll go to orgies, you’ll make porn, you’ll let pretty much any stranger who comes along stick his dick in you, but you’re afraid to go to a BAR?
i love you, but i will never ever understand you!
Yes, well, you see, at an orgy or a porn movie, there’s basically no chance you’ll be rejected, as it’s the nature of the event to be all-inclusive.
Not so at a bar.