The other day I was driving to the gym in rush hour traffic, when a song came on my shuffle that caught my attention.
Normally the overcast winter sky and parking lot, known as the express way, absorb all of my attention from the music that's playing, but the chorus to one song grabbed my attention. The lyrics of the Kelis classic, "Circus":
"Come join our circus where we all wear masks
Lie to our fans and expect it to last"
"Could it be that the jig is on us?
Masquerading like we are the one"
"Can you blame us?
It started as fun"
Grabbed a hold of me.
The song was hitting on some emotions I had about the place I called home during my formative years, Washington D.C.
When I first moved to DC in 2006, like any college student I was so engulfed by my day to day activities on campus that the city just served as a backdrop. For years I just used it like a movie set more than anything, for the memories formed by my college experiences. I didn't mind it.
Then I graduated.
As my friends started to migrate north to NYC and disperse around the nation for new jobs and grad programs, I found myself having to branch out and meet new people. At the time I was "quasi-out", so I thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know guys on the scene and "network", the word Washingtonians substitute for "meet"(they're so pretentious), new people.
I quickly realized that my college experience was the thing that I loved and not the places where those memories took place. They became cold and distant, and before I knew it I began to resent them along with the people patronized them more each day.
Everyday someone new would remind me that landing a job right out of school wasn't the end of the constant interviewing. The frequent and annoying "what do you do? where'd you go to school? Where are you from?" questions made those hours where people filled bars after work anything but "happy" and polarized my feelings about the DMV.
So I backed up and tried something new; the gay world. If that didn't complicate things, I don't know what else could've.
Paranoid about going to a gay bar, I began meeting guys the best way I knew how, online. If you've read any of my previous posts or tried "looking for friends" on the channels that cater to gay men, you know how a lot of those experiences ended up.
I began bed hopping, not because I wanted to initially, but because guys would blur the lines of friendship. They'd acquiesce to my request to "meet up", but only in the night hours and often in their bedrooms.
I became annoyed and started to lose faith in the "lifestyle".
Was this really for me? Am I "gay" or just a homosexual? (sometimes I think there's a stark difference)
One day a guy that had been asking to hook up with me on jack'd invited me to a threesome (we weren't "compatible" so he found a bottom to join the mix) and I went. Afterwards, we struck up a conversation about what we did for a living. Since I had just fucked one of them stupid and had my tongue up the other one's ass, I felt obligated to at least spend some time talking to them.
To my surprise, we had a lot in common (or so I thought).
We were all young, college-educated, working professionals in the area that attended HBCUs. "YES!" I thought. Finally, some people that are "normal" and I can hang out with. They both knew other "discreet" gay men in the city and hung out in different circles that I initially thought would be a good fit for me, so I was elated.
It didn't take me long to scratch below the surface and realize that we were just as different as we were alike.
My relationship with the bottom in the threesome fizzled out because I discovered he was more interested in increasing his body count by spreading eagle, laying on his back and sucking off every "good guy" in his sight. Plus after a few times hitting that, I was over him. (Later I found out the guy even gave me a fake name..I can't stand that shit).
The other top was much cooler. He invited me to house parties, usually in Maryland, thrown by professional black guys as a way for me to meet people.
Call me judgmental or clairvoyant, but I picked up some vibes in those places that the only difference between this form of "networking" and making a trip to Glorious or the Crew Club, was the filler convo before the fuck.
The first night I went, I met a guy that was boasting about his job, giving me a roll call of his accomplishments and ended the conversation with "so are you a top or a bottom?" I told him I needed to grab another beer and walked off. The next guy I met asked me "where'd you get your masters?" The fuck? I just told you I'm 22. Were you listening or too busy staring at my crotch after overhearing me tell the other guy I'm a top?
Annoyed, I hopped in my car and went home. My new top friend assured me guys were different in "another circle", so a few weeks later, I threw on some clothes and went to another party in a less posh neighborhood.
Same set up. "Good enough" looking guys, educated, but they also left a sour taste in my mouth at the door. I noticed that almost all of the guys were wearing the same outfit. The gay uniform I call it. Fitted caps, tank tops to expose their post-college and post DC relocation workout progress, beaded bracelets, cut off shorts and gym shoes. They all were wearing variations of this outfit, regardless of their age. Not being into that sort of look myself, I felt out of place, but I went in anyway to grab a drink and get to know people.
When I walked in, I noticed that guys were staring at me. Did I do something? Did I miss the memo to dress like an off-brand Trey Songz?
It wasn't any of that. I was a new face, well to some of them at least. I could feel their eyes scanning me as I walked around the town house and by the time I left, I had been eye fucked to the point of ad nauseum.
Unfortunately, I didn't drive to that party, so I had the pleasure of watching my ride socialize with the R&B crooner lookalikes and after a few drinks, I found myself doing the same thing. Guys were asking me, "are you on facebook? What do you do? Do you know him?" A whole set of uncomfortable questions that let me know nothing about them other than the fact they were nosy. They were a bunch of educated, gossip types that I found more repulsive than the debutantes at the last gathering.
I had never felt more alone.
My friends who loved to discuss current events (and kept up with them), had gnarly senses of humor, diverse style and life experiences had gone off and left me in a bubble. A bubble full of guys that let their resumes and their looks define them.
The only commonality we shared was our sexuality and, for some of us, a prior hookup.
I began to wonder why these guys who looked different, had gone to different schools and were from different regions of the country all acted alike. Why had they all assimilated to the "DC standard"? Why were they so hopelessly vapid and pompous? I'm sure they hadn't always been this way, so why the change?
Then I had a friend I met that I didn't have sex with (boy can I count those on one hand) break it down to me.
Its like transferring to a new school in the 10th grade, you come in as a "nobody". When everyone is trying to be like someone else, or in DC's case the "perfect guy (physically and professionally), you try to do the same thing.
Guys had moved there and drank the kool-aid. They boasted about the things that made them fit in and simultaneously hid and altered the characteristics about them that made them unique.
I found it to be disgusting. Why weren't you good enough before?
What was wrong with the skinny bookworm that didn't have any tattoos? What did you like doing in your sparetime before you lived in the gym and the rooftop happy hours? What did you talk about before memorizing your resume as an acceptable substitute "icebreaker"?
It was like a circus, a caberet or masquerade ball where everyone was required to where a mask and they all had to be from the same store and vary only by color. A circus where it was more important to walk the tightrope of financial instability to "wow" the crowd when your rent was paid late. A cirucs where the daring act of diving through a ring of sex-filled of fire was worth the risk if it made you the man at the end of the night.
Well I was always afraid of clowns, never liked the smell of fire or wild animals and I waned to the ringmaster of my own life.
To close, DC in a sense raised me. Its the place where I became an adult, had my best years yet and formed some lifelong friendships in college. It gave me my first professional job and exposed me to the things that some of the circus acts that moved their post-college dreamed of their whole lives.
I appreciated it, but it the time for me to leave was long overdue. It depressed me, made me question the value of my individuality and brought out some of my ugliest tendencies (learning to be judgemental, the feeling to need to "one-up" people every once in a while and fuck non-stop in the process).
I managed to break through all of those habits in the end, except for the last one (which is why I started this blog).
DC showed me what I was made of, but it took me leaving to appreciate who I was again.
After walking a few tightropes, jumping through the rings of fire and making it out of the lion's den, my encore wasn't accepting the clown uniform; but mastering the perfect disappearing act.
I climbed in my box, that came in the of a U-Haul, turned out the lights and never looked back.
- CGN
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