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July 2008
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My Recent “So-Called” Gay Life

warm upNow that I’m back in Weimar, it’s time to pause and reflect.

First up, you’ll be happy to know that I have no plans to go any further than 30km from my flat for approximately a month. I fully intend upon enjoying everything Weimar has to offer: Thüringen Bratwurst, Döner, and its quiet parks.

The only thing really lacking will be a gay life, but that’s something I’ve lived to the fullest, at least for me, in the past week or so, and it’s worth some public reflection on some aspects of it—both on Bloomington and on Weimar.

My gay life in Bloomington was interesting the last week I was there.

Last Wednesday night I met-up with my old roommate, the filmmaker, and watched the drag show at Uncle Elizabeth’s. There were a couple of queens I’d never seen before plus one I remembered from my days of going to Bullwinkles. The bar is better set up than Bullwinkles ever was, and the drag queens were really quite good—I can honestly say that I enjoyed myself. Unfortunately I had to drag myself away because of an early alarm the next morning, so I was unable to see his partner who was returning from an impromptu vacation East.

I returned to E’s Saturday night, this time because I was meeting a friend I hadn’t seen in about eight years. Unfortunately it was a repeat of my experience on Saturday the 5th of July: The DJ was awful. Pressing play on an iTunes playlist does not make one a DJ. He’s officially the second worst DJ I have ever heard on planet Earth, the worst one being in Erfurt, where one could hear the pause between tracks on the CD player.

One thing that changed dramatically in Indiana is probably because of the downturn in the economy. While chatting on gay.com, three times guys explicitly asked me for money to sleep with them.

It also happened to me in person. One of the places I occasionally hang out has always had the undercurrent that prostitution was possible, but in the past it’s always been subtle and the subject has been danced around. This time it was far more explicit—with two young men making explicit offers. One got the message I wasn’t interested quickly, while the other interpreted my side-splitting laugh as an invitation to be more persistent and I had to explicitly tell him I wasn’t interested.

Overall the eye-candy in Bloomington was quite nice and even if I didn’t find the DJ at Uncle E’s to be remotely good, the bar had customers and Bartender Shane is a hottie.

Meanwhile, last night, and my first night in Weimar, I went down to Weimar’s gay bar, warm up. I’d made arrangements to meet a few friends there after seven, and when I got there, after seven, the door was locked, despite signs indicating that it opened daily at 6pm. Thankfully a few minutes after the two of us sat down on the front steps to await the third, the owner/bartender arrived and let us in. Over the next three hours two other friends arrived (Cathy and a colleague who needs a nickname), and we occupied a table in the corner.

Beside the bartender, the only other person in the bar was a friend of the bartender.

Hopefully this isn’t a bad sign—I’ll be the first to admit that I won’t be a frequent customer. I’ve never been a regular, frequent, customer of any bar, but I like having the option of stopping by and visiting a neighborhood gay bar. It’s especially nice since the bar is between the train station and my flat.

1 comment to My Recent “So-Called” Gay Life

  • Reko

    Thank you for your highly revealing commentary, although I’m still curious about the mysterious place where you occasionally hang out with a certain undercurrent.