Crossfire

I had a date last night.

This guy replied to my personal ad a couple of weeks ago. He was the first person to respond to my ad in a couple of months, if not longer. His pictures didn’t look that great, but he seemed intelligent and intriguing and he was Jewish, and those are all pluses with me.

We e-mailed and instant-messaged and set up a meeting. Twice he had to postpone it: the first time it was because he’d partied too much the night before, and the second time, I don’t know why. I was ready to throw in the towel, thinking to myself that if this guy breaks two dates in a row, I don’t know if he’s someone I want to meet. But I figured, what the hell. So last night we met up for drinks. He was going to meet a friend for dinner afterwards, so we had about an hour.

He was much more attractive than his photos made him appear. He’s got some of my favorite characteristics: short, dark-haired, Jewish. He’s only an inch taller than me, and he was wearing glasses and has a nicely-developed body. He’s 22. Physically I felt an electrical charge, which has never happened to me on a personal-ad-inspired date before. It was exciting.

There are some drawbacks. He smokes (after we left the bar he pulled out a cigarette). He makes a lot of money and works in the corporate world (for one of those big financial firms). He seems pretty outgoing and outspoken and forthright and kinda backslappy.

I dislike cigarette smoke, I make little money and don’t really see myself as a corporate type, and I’m softspoken and hesitant. He’s very Type A. Type-A people get to me.

There was something really exciting, though — and this may sound strange — but it was his politics. He describes himself as a conservative/libertarian along the lines of William F. Buckley. He’s done lots of reading and has tried to eliminate all inconsistencies in his political thinking. So he’s against the death penalty, and he thinks abortion is murder. Low taxes are a given. He supports the free market and dislikes the idea of subsidies of any kind. And he’s against rent control. He thinks the Constitution should be strictly interpreted. (For myriad reasons, which I learned in law school, that’s pretty much impossible today.) He thinks that practically every law Congress makes is unconstitutional. He thinks the federal government should stay out of everything except national defense and maintaining highways.

I asked him what he thinks of the religious right, and thankfully he doesn’t agree with them at all. He says they’re not actually conservative. They want the government to stick its nose into all our business, and a true conservative wants the government to stay out of all our business.

My immediate thought upon hearing that he was a conservative was, “Oh, jeez… what a loon.” How could he be gay… and Jewish… and yet conservative? But it turned out to be incredibly stimulating and enlightening. He gave me lots to think about.

I’m not the flaming liberal you might think I am. When I exit the realm of identity politics, things get kinda wishy-washy. I’m less ideological and more pragmatic. But whether based on ideology or pragmatism, I do believe certain things, and I find Alex P. Keaton’s beliefs here to be overly ideological and kind of heartless.

Oh, can you see it? We could be like James Carville and Mary Matalin. Like Nick and Nora. We could exchange sharp and witty repartée and then roll around in the sack. Ooooh… I bet political disagreements make for very hot sex.

On the other hand… his personality. He seems to have a sarcastic and cynical streak, and I’m more understanding and sensitive. He’s corporate and I’m more touchy-feely. And then there’s the money — I can’t afford the same social experiences he can, restaurants and so forth. And I’m kind of directionless right now, while he seems to know what he wants and to go after it. I felt kind of spineless next to him.

He doesn’t seem to know any of this about me yet. He really seemed to like me, and he wants to get together again. He’s going on vacation to Prague next week and he said he’d send me postcards if I gave him my address. I suggested we can see a movie when he gets back, and he’s already thinking about what movies to see. This morning we sent each other simultaneous e-mails saying that we enjoyed last night. He wrote in part:

Good meeting you yesterday. Smooth chatter is always wonderful. Y’know those situations where both people bark awkward contrived remarks? This wasn’t one of them (as far as I can tell ;)

So, I’ve written all this, and I know that someone will tell me to relax and not think about it too much and just go with the flow. It will probably be Sparky, and he’ll be right. I know, I know… but I’m me, and this is what I do. And I have to blog, after all.

From the Salon

Two interesting gay-ish pieces from Salon.com:

Coming out of the closet — to be straight. “At the age of 28, after eight years of dating women — that is, never having dated men — I realized that I wanted to be with men. And that, in fact, I had never wanted to be with women — not sexually, anyway.” (The writer is a woman.)

Nellies need not apply. “This is an absurd cruelty that gay culture plays on itself. We encourage effeminacy with one bejeweled, manicured hand but slap it down with the callused, unjeweled other. Few of us want to have sex with guys in dresses. Especially the guys in the dresses.”

The Play About the Baby

I saw the play about the baby last night.

What play about what baby?

No, no, no. I saw The Play About the Baby last night. By Edward Albee. You know, the guy who wrote Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 40 years ago? Yup, he’s still alive and kicking.

The play’s message wasn’t very original, but it was a pleasure to watch. Terrific use of language, and some hilarious moments to counter the pessimism. Marian Seldes was a real treat. And there was nudity. An incredibly cute, fresh-faced young guy — buck naked. Well-hung, too! (There was a naked woman, too, but I didn’t really notice.) During the rest of the play, the guy wore just a pair of blue jeans with a hole in it and a white t-shirt, and his feet were bare. Very sexy.

Unfortunately, my theater curse kicked in. When I see a play or musical, there’s almost always an understudy in an important role. (Just ask Mike.) This was only a four-character play, and yet the most important character was played by a standby. He was terrific, though. I wouldn’t even have known he was filling in.

It’s so annoying, though. This happens almost every time I go to the theater. In Tick, Tick… Boom!, the lead actor was out. (And there were only three actors. Again, the standby was terrific, though.) In Ragtime, Brian Stokes Mitchell was out. In Rent, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal were BOTH out. (I wanted to scream.) When I went to see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Nathan Lane was out, so we exchanged our tickets for another performance. When we finally saw the show, Nathan Lane was there, but another main actor was out. I’ve reached the point where whenever I see a show, I’m paranoid that a major actor’s going to be out. It’s a good thing I don’t have a ticket to see Madonna in concert, because she’d probably be M.I.A.

In one of those New Yorkish experiences, the actor Edward Norton was in the audience last night. (No, not that one.) I recognized him in the lobby during intermission. He was wearing a gray pullover tucked into a pair of black pants and he was with some woman. My friend CanadaGirl came out of the restroom, and I moved in close to her and whispered, “Do you know who Edward Norton is? I think he’s standing over there.” Of course she turned around and very obviously looked over, at which point he and his date/friend/girlfriend walked out of the lobby and presumably back to their seats. It wasn’t a very big theater, and our seats were up in a box, so before the second act began I scanned the orchestra seats and found him. During the second act I kept looking down at him because I wanted to see how a well-known actor watches other actors. Whenever I looked down he was sitting with his right elbow on the armrest, his face resting in his right hand — his thumb and his middle finger holding up his chin, and his index finger lying along his cheek — with a bemused smile on his face. I guess he enjoyed it. And from some websurfing for this post, I learned that he’s acted in one of Albee’s other plays, Fragments.

I’d be such a starfucker if only it wouldn’t be so totally and completely humiliating. It’s kind of pointless, anyway, considering that famous people are just people, just as normal or abnormal as anyone else.

Which brings a thought to mind: Have you ever wondered if famous people read blogs? What if Michael J. Fox or Tom Cruise or Madeline Albright or Al Gore sits there in front of a computer screen, just clicking away? What if there’s some famous closeted gay actor out there who can’t start his day without catching up on the doings of the gay blogging circuit?

After all, celebrities surf the Web, too! Right?