I
recognize my dismay this week at seeing Fire Island celebrants
forgoing social distancing and face masks goes beyond a health
concern. In any other year, similar pics would still ruffle me. Oh,
the frivolity! The shallowness!
And,
yes, in any other year, they could snap back, “Envious much? Looks
like someone doesn’t know how to have a good time.”
If
the retort stings a little, it’s because there’s some truth to
it.
No
one has ever thought of me as one of the fun gays. And never ever has
a gay stranger asked to have his picture taken with me—And here
I am with a hottie. A real sweetie, too!—in
an attempt
to boost his
likes on Instagram.
Of
course, I’m way past Fire
Island prime. My Best Before date would have been somewhere around
1992. A few spritzes
of Carolina Herrera cologne might have masked
any sour milk stench until 1995.
It
wouldn’t matter
how much tinkling I did with a time
machine.
At no time
have I fit
the
Fire Island brand.
I’m more
of an Island of the
Misfit Toys kind of guy. (If
you think I’m putting myself
down, read this,
my second most-read post ever...after the one about Ricky Martin,
coincidentally
a
quintessential Fire Islander candidate.)
I’m
pretty sure if I’d ever shown up in
my twenties
or thirties
to board the ferry to Fire Island, they’d have
refused
my money and kindly suggested
I spend my day at the Long Island Aquarium instead. A
different
kind of otters.
Penguins,
too!
Let the overload
of cuteness
assuage the
pain of
It Gay denial.
Yes,
even in my prime, I’d have been better suited for a spot on my very
own Arctic ice floe than standing poolside in a Fire Island crowd,
asking the frenemy beside me, “Do you think if I chew this ice cube
it will make my abs look less defined?”
Abs.
As if.
It’s
a little too
convenient
for me
as an “ancient”
fifty-something
to roll my eyes
at the waxed
and buffed
thong strutters
and say the
party boys have
their
priorities out of whack.
Morning
selfie,
stepping
into the shower.
Low-fat smoothie. Work.
Another
smoothie. Tweets
about the Kardashian
du jour. Work.
Tanning
appointment. Gym. Post-gym selfie.
High-protein,
low-carb
dinner.
“Real
Housewives
of...Salt Lake City”??
Resting-in-bed
selfie.
Nighty
night.
God,
even
without Trump and the
coronavirus, 2020 seems
like a
mess.
Still,
back in the day, my life wasn’t all that different. Sure,
we had “The
Real
World” instead
of “Real
Housewives”
and photos had to get
taken
to the drugstore
or little
drive-thru
huts to get
developed.
(If anyone pointed
a camera
toward themselves
and pressed
the button,
they
would have looked
utterly
ridiculous and, dare I say,
vain.)
There
was no shortage
of gym divas who madly
tanned and toned between circuit party weekends. I attempted
some form
of parallel
play, showing up without fail to Sports Connection for step
classes, a weekly ab-cruncher session and extended weight workouts.
My abs stayed
absent
and
my butt never
bubbled.
For all my curls, I never managed to coax a bicep to come
out, come
out wherever
it was. My impressive leg press load failed to add definition
to my chicken legs. It was all pain, no gain.
If
I couldn’t muscle up, I figured I could at least lose my love
handles. The quest caused me to have a falling out with Ben. And
Jerry. (I might not have turned my back had I known that they’d one
day discontinue Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.) My fridge was full of
nonfat products and six-packs of Tab. For a while, I think I was
personally responsible for a resurgence of celery in Southern
California produce sections. Num-num.
Alas,
the love handles loved me too much.
If
weights, twelve hundred sit-ups a day and nonfat cottage cheese had
done what they were supposed to do, I might have become a different
kind of gay. I would never have fully crossed over—always a geek
and never a pill popper (rarely even Tylenol for a migraine)—but I
might not have stood out for all the wrong reasons when I was It
Gay-adjacent. I might have gotten a little recognition for all the
time I’d put in and all the sacrifices I’d made in pursuit of the
body beautiful.
I
realize how sad that sounds. Pathetic even. I’d come off as so much
more evolved if I claimed I’d always focused on what’s inside and
if I’d easily accepted my body, flaws and all, never tearing up as
Christina Aguilera sang “Beautiful,” never once calling Janis
Ian’s “At Seventeen” My Song. But I’m committed to being
honest on this blog, even when it exposes the ugly parts of me (and,
here, I’m talking about what’s inside). Truth is, I wanted to
look good. I wanted to be looked at. My goal was always to find love
but I thought, if I looked hot, I’d have options instead of
defaults and booby prizes.
My
friends crammed in extra sessions at the gym in the weeks leading up
to the annual White Party in Palm Springs. I silently marveled at how
their extra sets added the right kind of bulk while my body stuck to
status quo. As they headed for the desert, I stayed home, sticking to
my line that I couldn’t handle the heat.
Peripherally,
I knew gays who showed up at Halloween balls dressed as shirtless
firemen one year and gold body-painted Adonises the next. My most
memorable gay Halloween party costume was as a Crayola crayon. I
rocked it in head-to-toe yellow felt.
Even
on ordinary Saturday nights at Rage or Studio One in West Hollywood,
there’d come a point when the It Gays would send each other stud
signals and shed their shirts to show off firm pecs and washboard abs
glistening in sweat. Yes, their sweat was sexy. The stares they got
were just rewards for all the time they’d put in. I served as a
harsh Wall Street lesson: not every investment pays dividends. I kept
my shirt on. Always. Once my pit stains got big enough from decidedly
unsexy sweat, I’d slip out and walk far too many blocks back to my
car alone, trying to shake that pesky Janis Ian song from my head.
Who
knows what may have happened if my body had ever become Fire
Island-worthy or even Friday night Santa Monica Rooster Fish-worthy
(a spot for the non-West Hollywood gays). I’d struggled with an
eating disorder for a decade before moving to Los Angeles and coming
out. The gay scene didn’t cause my condition but it certainly made
things worse.
Sometimes
I wished I could somehow magically wake up and be straight. Among
other things, it would have meant feeling safer walking alone at
night, having less fear about getting AIDS and not having to edit my
mannerisms. More than that, it would have taken off so much of the
pressure to look a certain way in order to be looked at in return. It
would have meant Fire Island never being on my gaydar and maybe a few
photos of me lying shirtless by some Club Med pool, downing another
Budweiser with one hand, proudly patting a Buddha belly with the
other.
Blech.
No Club Med. And no Fire Island. At fifty-five, I’m still adjusting
to my own little island. Sometimes it feels good knowing my supposed
prime is in the past. For many of us, “It gets better” gets even
better with age.
