For 20 years all of my friends and neighbors, the guy on the next treadmill at the gym, the couple ahead of me in line at the grocery store, everyone I passed on the street was gay. I got my news from The Advocate. I bought my books in a gay bookstore. I went to a gay church.
Now I'm living in Dayton, Ohio, in the midst of the Straight World. There's one gay bar, on the other side of town, and no gay organizations except The Friends of the Italian Opera, a closeted group of gay retirees. The nearest gay neighborhood is an hour's drive away.
I'm not adjusting well. I have no friends except a "straight" Friend With Benefits. I stop going to the gym, and gain weight. I'm so depressed that I seek out psychological counseling. And I have a series of crazy dates with sleazoids and jerks.
But tonight will be different. It's a blind date, arranged by Clintin (who I hooked up with last February), so I haven't actually met him yet, but he sounds great: Remy, 36 years old, a history professor (specializing in 19th century America), who lives in the gay neighborhood of Germantown in Columbus.
His photo isn't great: long, weasley face, villain goatee, pale skin, skinny chest matted with black hair. But I'm willing to overlook those defects.
Ok, I have high expectations: we'll become boyfriends, I'll move in to his house in Germantown, and commute to my dreary job in Dayton, and get my life back to normal.
The uncensored story, with nude photos and explicit sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood.