How I Spent My Gay Pride Day

I was working out at the gym this morning and they were showing Boys In The Band on the monitors. An odd pic for Gay Pride Day in San Francisco, but with a certain aptness for me. Whatever my issues with gay culture these days, watching that film's depiction of the desperate self-loathing and fear in those men makes the freedom that I have feel very precious. Given my advanced age, I remember what life was like when the love that dare not speak its name really did not.

Later in the day, I was on my way to spend some time with a man whom I much like. A fitting way to mark that freedom, I think. I got into the subway and the direction I was travelling in was the opposite of most. His house is west from here, the Pride parade is east. So a hundred gay men were standing on the other side of the station, heading away from me. Or me from them.

I have been hitting the weights with some vigor the last couple of weeks and it shows. Got my hair cut a few days ago. Had on jeans, sunglasses and a nice-fitting grey T shirt. I was, if I do say so myself, worth a second look. After all, I wanted to please the eyes, and more, of the fella I was going to see.

With me on the platform was a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence. Why s/he was heading away form the party I did not know. But s/he had on a particularly annoying getup: the combo of nun and drag queen that they all sport nowadays, plus, s/he wore a Catholic school girl's uniform. We got on the same car and I was aware that s/he was checking me out. Then we got on the elevator to ascend to the street and s/he stood right next to me. Again, I was aware that I was being cruised. And I decided to ignore her.

I try to be a decent guy about being cruised and to treat men who find me attractive in the way that I want to be treated when I show interest....unless a man is a jerk about it, you can decline but show respect...but today, I made a choice to ignore this one. A man dressed up like a nun/dragqueen/schoolgirl holds no allure for me, on any level.

Instead, I met an actual man, a real man who knows who he is, whose company, to put it mildly, I deeply enjoy. That is what this day is about for me.

Having a homosexual orientation is nothing to be proud of in itself; it's not an accomplishment, just a fact. But neither it is anything to be ashamed of, and I am proud both of my own success in overcoming the awful shame I felt as a young man and of those who helped make the world a place where I could do that.

That is the meaning of this day for me, one of the great miracles of my life: men loving men.