Jun 26, 2017

My Embarrassing Date with the Teenage Farmboy

Long Island, September 1997

Friday, September 12th, 1997.  The end of the my first week of classes at Setauket University, my 10th day in New York.

10 days after moving to West Hollywood, I found a gay bar, a gay gym, and a gay church, I had about a dozen friends, and I had been on about four dates.

On Long Island, there are no gay bars, gay gyms, gay churches, gay anything.  There is nothing in walking distance of Setauket University but a hardware store and an Indian restaurant.  Unless you want to take the train two hours into Manhattan, you're stuck on campus, where all of the events and activities are for undergraduates.

I've met about 50 people: roommates, fellow graduate students, undergraduates, faculty.  But only on who is "openly" gay.

After 12 years in California, where I rarely saw or spoke to a straight person outside of work, I assume that all of the men are gay, except for those who mentioned wives or girlfriends, or who asked me if I had a wife or a girlfriend.  But we're not going to come out to each other in the Straight World and risk a homophobic assault or a stupid question like "Are you the boy or the girl?"

The only "openly" gay guy is Jesse, the 17-year old farmboy from Ulster County who I met while in "emergency housing" in the freshman dorm (see Trapped in a Dormitory with Freshmen).

10 days without talking to a gay person other than Jesse the 17-year old. No gay friends, no dates, no sex except for that night with Jesse.    I latch onto him as a beacon of hope, and ask him out, in spite of our monumental age difference.


Mistake.  Most embarrassing date of all time.

1.   Dinner at the Indian place, down a country road with no sidewalk.  You dress nicely for a date, but Jesse shows up in a white t-shirt with stains on it, short pants, and shoes but no socks.  I am embarrassed to be seen with him.

Then he orders the hamburger platter.  At an Indian restaurant!

The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

No comments:

Post a Comment

No offensive, insulting, racist, or homophobic comments are permitted.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...