PALM PILOTS

I recently read Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton Lin (Back Bay Books, 2021) and several of his remarks have left me thinking about how much things have changed. It’s an app world now but do apps deprive us of experiences? Indeed, Lin asks, “Is it enough to have a gay bar in the palm of your hand?”

 

I’m an old fogey. Searching for men on Grindr or some other app feels like using the Sears catalog to pick a package of underwear or, to modernize thinks only slightly, browsing the IKEA catalog for a new living room chair. 

 

In truth, it’s rare that I shop for anything online. I don’t like Amazon. I also don’t like how things are presented, how I can’t try on an article of clothing first. (“You can just send it back,” friends say.) I’m an in-person shopper. I like the experience more. I appreciate seeing things displayed in an actual room. I like the element of surprise, finding and buying something that was not on my list. 

 

Books come to mind more than any other merchandise. I’ll sometimes order from Amazon or, when I’m feeling more righteous, directly from the publisher, when a local bookstore doesn’t carry a particular title. Typically, however, I ask the bookstore owner to order me a copy. I have a long list of BOOKS TO READ on my Notes app on my phone. (That’s an app I love as a writer!) Still, I discover new books in stores and follow instant whims, the new treasure suddenly shinier, the other titles still saved on my reading list. 

 

To be sure, there is a lot I don’t miss about gay bars. I don’t like that the space inherently fosters a drinking culture. I’ve known many gay people my age who have struggled with alcohol. If the problem didn’t start in gay bars, these places certainly didn’t make the addiction any easier to deal with. I also don’t like how I might spot a cute guy only to never establish eye contact. So often, it felt like people looked right through me or past me. 

 

Still, there was the music. I loved how people would rush the dancefloor when the deejay played Madonna’s “Vogue” or when CeCe Peniston sang “Finally.” I could freely dance on my own or drag some or all of my gang onto the floor with me. 

 

That was part of the good stuff. When we went to a gay bar it wasn’t all about picking up a guy. I learned early on the odds were much greater I’d be going home alone. A little attention might be nice but, if not, it was a social night with friends. Dancing, laughing, catching up. If I hadn’t constantly hoped for—i.e., obsessed about—a boyfriend, gay bars would have been the source of even better memories. I met some of my best friends at gay bars or made the shift from acquaintances to good friends. Something about smiling and sweating profusely together while staying on the dancefloor for a fifth song in a row—anything by the Pet Shop Boys—will bond you.

 

Lin’s question again: Is it enough to have a gay bar in the palm of your hand? 

 

Old fogey says no. It doesn’t have to be a gay bar—later I got really into a gay volleyball league—but there’s something special about actual instead of virtual queer spaces. Sure, my answer is part of a more general sentiment: “Get off your phone!” In a real queer space, you can’t curate your experience as much. And that’s a good thing. Just like I find treasures in a bookstore, you come into contact with people whose thumbnail profile pic you’d have passed over. Conversations occur for a range of purposes, not just about whether someone is hookup material or has boyfriend potential. 

 

I should point out that I’m an introvert. If I’d had an app for meeting guys back in the day, I might never have ventured to gay bars. It would have been more convenient. I’d have saved gas. I’d have been spared in-person rejection which is worse than online crickets or ghosting. I know gay bars have changed. They seem to host a lot of drag queen shows that attract straight women. I hear some of my peers complain about this, but gay bars are trying to survive and if serving brunch mimosas to Suzie and her seven besties helps pay the overhead, then bring on the drag brunch! It’s partly because so many gays are hooked on apps that gay bars have a different clientele. We’ve relinquished what was once almost exclusive territory.

 

I may be part of the problem, too. It’s not apps that are keeping me away; it’s age. I’m partnered and well-settled. I don’t need to tell a stranger my coming out story. I don’t need a ten-dollar glass of ice with a few drops of vodka. But, yes, I would still really love to dance! However, even in my heyday at the bars, sixty-year-olds were not the common patron. Gay culture has always had an ageist element. But maybe it’s the same in the general population. Sixty-year-olds aren’t the target club goer where dancing is a prime part of the entertainment.

 

My last venture out was to a gay pub which isn’t quite the same thing. I was there to attend a memorial for a friend whom I’d met thirty years ago at, yes, a gay bar. Good times, sadly all in the past.