"Why can't you just dress more girly sometimes," Chloe stated as she entered my front door to take me out for drinks.
I was wearing blue jeans and a button down shirt with a tank top under it. "Well, why can't you?"
"Baby, I'm the butch and you are the femme," Chloe started and laughed. She took off her Yankee hat and ran her fingers through her short hair.
"I could be butch," I said.
"No, no. That would be virtually impossible. You're toooooo, you. Besides, you paint your nails," Chloe said.
Now, there are some people who believe that homosexual people live a certain type of "lifestyle." Um, not really in my opinion. How is a "lifestyle" defined? I've heard about living a wealthy "lifestyle" or a humble "lifestyle", but can you really live a gay one?
Like many other gay writers, I believe the gay lifestyle is a myth that justifies bias and there's not much difference between dating a man or a woman rather than sexual preference, dealing with discrimination and, of course, basic human rights. In my world, I am just like everyone else. I get up, I take a shower, eat breakfast, go to work and the gym and then later I meet my girlfriend who I am trying to have a relationship with.
On a daily basis there aren't rainbow flags waving, thump-a-thumpa club dancing, drug use, excessive vegetarianism, unshaved legs and armpits, sleeping around, or sexually transmitted diseases. Still, there are some people who think being gay is being those things or at least some. Some times it is about dancing and the thump-a-thump, the temptation and sex, but these desires are the same desires every heterosexual person faces on a daily basis with sexual preference excluded. Some see "a gay lifestyle" as being different and sinful. Granted, I listened to plenty of Tegan and Sara and suffered from the remorse of disappointment in myself and others disappointment in me after they found out or I told them I was into women. But I don't celebrate, "being gay every day" or live some lifestyle other than the one I've always had.
Still, there are those homosexuals that still want to live the dream (or horror) of the gay lifestyle, and one of those people, I think, would be Chloe. Chloe took me to Monster for drinks. It's really a guys bar, but she really liked being there for the atmosphere. And to tell you the truth, she got scoped out by the men just as much as she did the women in Henrietta Hudsons. She was often mistaken there for a boy even with her feminine looks. She had kind of a Justin Bieber-type look going on. She loved it because she wasn't in a,"straight bar," like the kind she worked in.
"You should have seen this creep last night," Chloe said to me as she sipped her Corona. "This dude was such a dick. He spent a good half-an-hour trying to buy this girl a drink, who was with her boyfriend at the time. That is soooo sketchy. The worst part though," she continued. "This girl was actually checking him out and going for the whole act. She was pretty and all, but come on! He's a dog and a skeeve!"
"Kind of like that action that is happening over there?" I asked pointing to the bar where one guy who was holding hands with another was most obviously checking out another guy who was also with what appeared to be his own boyfriend.
"Nah. This wasn't friendly scooping. This was raunchy," Chloe explained. "Anyway, it's just kind of expected that you will be checked out in a gay bar."
"Is it?" I asked. "So you want to be checked out tonight by a bunch of gay boys?"
Chloe laughed. "Oh yes, nothing more gives me pleasure. So which bar do you want to hit tomorrow?"
"It's always bars with you. Isn't it? Can't we see a movie or stay home and play Wii?" I asked.
"But what's the fun there? I have two nights off and I want to be out? Getting my groove on? I'm always on the other side of the bar during the week, so it's nice to finally be able to enjoy myself," Chloe said.
"I hear you, but its expensive going out all the time. Plus, I would rather spend quality time with you than be out in gay bars all the time. It's kind of dull."
"Whatever, Ms. I bumped into Regina Spektor last night at the Bowery Electric. You get to go out and listen to your music. Nah, this is the life. This is what living and being gay is all about. Being here makes me happy. This is our world," Chloe said.
"Chloe, this isn't the world. It's a bar," I said.
"But in this bar," she explained. "We are normal and we don't have to watch every move we make. We can just be ourselves," she said as she put her arm around me and kissed me. - Ruby
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