Throw on Your Best Cardigan and Celebrate Fall 2011 with the Gays of ILX

What's the gay sports bar called? Nice work, Dr. M.

There's more than one.

ah! Happy belated, corey!

yeah happy birthday dude

hb corey!

happy birthday, corey, and congrats, Morbs.

Oh man, guys, awful date story:

Was talking to this dude on Scruff, he is redheaded and bearish and way cute, and we both seem to be into each other and we're texting back and forth all day, and we make plans to get dinner around 4 and "see where it goes". I text him at 2 just to verify the time/location, and he calls me and asks if I can just meet him at his place at 6 and we can walk to the restaurant (vegetarian soul food!) from there. Okay, no problem, just text me the address. Which he doesn't. So I text him again at like 5 asking where I'm meeting him, and then I call him at like ten of 6, and he doesn't pick up. So I just sort of wander around and then find a park to sit and read in, and finally at 6:45 I call him again. He picks up, he's so sorry, he just got in and he left his phone at home, here's his address, give him a few minutes to straighten up and swing by, also something about his friend coming over to hang out. I go over, it is now 7, he lets me in and it's him and his friend sitting on the couch watching TV (where there's a show that, according, to the DVR, has been paused at the 20 minute mark). Him and I talk for a bit, he seems nice but maybe sort of dumb and juvenile and into his own affectations and bad at being funny (Dylan McDermott's ass was on screen at some point and he felt the need to point and yell "man-butt!", or he would drop an obvious one-liner and then say "but ANYWAY" and then laugh at his own joke). So instead of, like, getting dinner, we sit around with his really boring friend and talk about whatever and then head to a bar to meet some other friends of his. Boring friend at apartment leaves, dude and I chat for a few blocks and meet his friends at the bar (I think it was 3 of them plus one's sister), and all get a table outside. Apparently he keeps the kind of company that thinks it clever and amusing to refer to the black female bartender as Shenaynay. I mean, I knew pretty soon in that this guy sorta sucked, but yeah. Ugh. So we're all sitting around talking, and by "we" I mean him talking to one of his friends and the other people talking to each other and me sort of just sitting there. This went on for about 2-3 hours. I jumped in a few times but I mean this dude was totally and completely ignoring me. Like, I think he looked at me maybe 4 times the whole night, and we had one conversation that maybe lasted 30 seconds and he kept sort of going "uh huh" and glancing away. I even left at one point to go get a slice of pizza because I was so hungry after the dinner that we never fucking had. I was pretty pissed but stubborn enough to endure it on the off-chance anything was going to happen (even though it pretty clearly wasn't). Finally we're all heading out and he somehow has the audacity to give me the big hug and the whole "have fun on your trip! Stay in touch! I'm in Philly a lot, I'll give you a call!".

Like, it's not that I'm pissed that I didn't get any D, because duh sometimes people just don't click. It's something that we were, you know, supposed to have established early on, one-on-one, at a 4pm dinner that would let me go about the rest of my evening. It's not that he was mean spirited, per se; he just seemed incredibly dumb and lacking respect and maybe bad at giving a shit about other people. I sort of really want to send him an angry text.

OMG LOLHUEG BODY OF TEXT sry

I can't believe you stayed as long as you did.

You didn't type that whole post on your phone, did you?

Yes. I did. I can't believe I stayed either.

I can't believe your thumbs held up long enough to post all of that!

I've been having thumb problems off and on for the past couple months - slight numbness, aches - and I'm pretty sure it's due to a repetitive motion injury from thumb-typing so much plus mostly using the track pad on laptops for mousing.

I'd have slipped out and just left

He was really, really cute though.

stevie, def tell him off

i mean, tbh, you're using the internet to date. get used to it.

(not that i don't empathize. just being realistic over here).

Stevie you should have gone to that DJ Dogdick show I texted you about- or joined me at Occupy Baltimore- but where cuteness is concerned all bets are off- "the beautiful ones they hurt you everytime" like Prince sez

also i want to apologize to you on behalf of Baltimore, I swear this town can be ridiculously fun but this weekend is just some kind of harmonic convergence of great weather but nothing truly rad going down

I am feeling the burn from a lol huge new tattoo on my other flank, holed up with papers to grade and lectures to write

yeah stevie, DJ Dog Dick would have been a better option.

the tat looks amazing, drew.

hbbdc!

I got done at like 11 and I was gonna go but I was cold (t shirt/no hoodie/low 60's and windy) and my phone was about to die and I just wanted to go home

Also I was totally considering stopping by Occupy last night! Damnit.

thanks y'all — I spent it wandering around Chinatown and getting dinner with my friend D3rwin

happy birrrrrrrrthday, i brought a present for everyone. i hope you don't mind sharing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BvL-i--8Ws

hey, the guy from last night called! what an upset.

otoh, I think he may be a closeted Orthodox Jew.

guys
omg
look at what shirt my friend just bought me

http://www.bloodisthenewblack.com/shop/sc_images/products/7958_large_image.jpg

:D

Hey ilxgays,

Something interesting happened to me today at work. And by “interesting” I mean mildly uncomfortable. My co-worker was talking to another employee about our tumultuous year, and at some point he said, “yeah man, like men marrying men and shit. That’s why we had all those earthquakes.” And I’m sitting there trying to not react in any sort of way, which of course ends up in that subtle self-consciousness that broadcasts you to the world and thwarts any attempt at sneaking by touchy subjects.

Anyway, what on earth do I do here? My co-worker and I work closely together: we’re part of a writer/designer team, and we share a small office together and do all our work as one unit. But he threw down that “gays are the harbingers of death” BS. I mean, not even that gays are wrong, or immoral, or grody, but as the bringers of death, plague, and decay. I always dreamed of being an agent of the apocalypse, but not like this, man.

you're sure he was being serious? (i said that same thing as a joke after the east coast earthquake happened)

also how did the other coworker respond?

Well, he mumbled it under his breath, and he's a pretty discriminatory/angry guy. Hates Chinese people, too. Coworker didn't give a flip, I work in a pretty conservative office.

that is called "sexual harassment" and if you don't say something to someone else, you should tell him to cut it out because it is illegal

Wait – how is it sexual harassment? No snark intended.

are u serious? maybe u haven't worked in a corporate environment in a while. any offensive comments like that regarding sexual orientation are grounds for a case.

It's really my ignorance of harassment torts.

(insert joke).

i've been in this situation, and i did not keep my mouth shut.

It's called a "hostile work environment."

It all depends, like donna said, how loudly he said it and if a pattern of behavior exists. If I were donna, I'd confront him politely first.

yes, that would be the kind thing to do. but tbh all bets are off when something like that comes out of your mouth.

Probably the best way to deal with it is talk about gay shit all the time and as positively as possible (not sex acts, but just in society). Make him be the uncomfortable one.

^^

"more like gay marriage caused all those MIRTHQUAKES amirite?!"

Spectrum is burt_stanton fyi

also, the fact that Spectrum is also aware of said co-worker's hatred of Chinese people indicates a pattern of behavior

....

yeah.

Probably the best way to deal with it is talk about gay shit all the time and as positively as possible (not sex acts, but just in society). Make him be the uncomfortable one.

I work at an office – with students, whose privacy and rights are zealously guarded – and while I'm discreet about what I discuss an atmosphere in which your gayness is taken for granted is essential.

Well, it's a tightrope walk ... on the one hand, I want to keep making money until I get a new job. On the other, I'm always going to have this discomfort in the back of my mind working here. What makes it more difficult is that we're a team - he's basically my only real coworker and I spend the entire day with him. I'd confront him about it, but he's uber-Catholic, and so any rational or humanitarian arguments I could make would be going up against a lifetime of belief that likely props up his ego and self-identity.

My only solution, I guess, is to find a new job ASAP.

or not "props up", but makes up ... is, I suppose

and when you leave, don't forget to schedule an informative exit interview.

haha

Yeah, if I do say anything it'll be when I'm leaving. My biggest hope would be to help a change of perspective; we get along pretty well otherwise. But no sense in stirring up a big pot of shit when I need to keep cashola in my pocket... I'd rather not miss out on a trip to Europe just to show up some guy's ignorance. I don't like that this situation even exists, but ... it's the way of the world right now, unfortunately.

an atmosphere in which your gayness is taken for granted is essential.

OTM, and I'd add that a reputation for confronting bigots is good too. "Confronting" not meaning "arguing with," but not letting BS slide. Not that either things help in a situation where ugliness is already established - especially since you're planning on leaving - but still.