The bar, the club, and painful realizations

So another weekend has gone by. Friday night was spent at TryAngles, bar of choice for gays seeking social interaction without the thump of bass-heavy music drowning out all conversation like you find at clubs. Some drunks still attempt to dance on the small floor, but that's mostly for the entertainment of people watching from the sidelines. One of the funnier things is a new "LED chat room", where a series of monitors are placed around the bar. You setup a chat name and use your cell phone to text your anonymous messages to the bar patrons. Very, very entertaining, and a brilliant conversation starter. It's like having gay.com right there at the bar! Speaking of which, I met Delaney for the first time after probably years of chatting with him on gay.com. Crazy how I can know someone without ever actually having met them. We connected a bit, so maybe something will develop from it? Maybe… although I'm still wanting to ask Fredrik out. Hey, I can do both, right?

Andy, however, is off-limits which is unfortunate. Andy (aka Alexander the Great) is a gorgeous, beefy 20-something with dark blond hair and an incredible sense of confidence. I was smitten with him from a distance, and made no attempt to hide my interest. With the help of Delaney, John and Brady, I was able to talk to him and his two friends whose names already escape me. We dubbed him Alexander because I thought he looked what Alexander the Great might have looked like. As the night wore down, and he headed for the door, I stopped him to get his number. His response was both disheartening and uplifting: "Sure, but you should know that I'm straight."

Straight? I have such an incredible gift with lusting after straight guys. What are the odds of hitting on a straight guy at a gay bar? He was accompanying his gay friends, which was impressive. He must feel comfortable with himself to be thrust into an environment like that. Still rather upsetting, but it wasn't as much of a bummer as what happened Saturday night. At least he had his hetero-ness to excuse the rejection. That I can accept without feeling personally rejected. Saturday night at Club Babylon, though, I ran into Ken, a guy from my gym from years ago who I only recently discovered was gay. I asked him if I might ask him out sometime, and his response was a knife to the heart. He was kind about it, as he always is, but even his politeness couldn't hide the wounds it caused. He hedged and then said he didn't want to come off like an asshole, as he tried to find a way to put me down kindly. I helped him do it by apologizing for asking, then avoiding him for the rest of the night. I proceeded to get truly trashed, dancing my ass off and shutting myself off from the world. Rey sent me a text at the wrong moment, to which I responded with a harsh comment, a result of having been just rejected by a guy I really liked.

I drove home from the club, which I really should not have done. I was well over the legal limit, and as I walked from my car to my house, I proceeded to throw up whatever alcohol was in my stomach. Good timing, but I'd still rather have not consumed so much alcohol.

As a sidenote: at what point do you give up caring about someone you love? Is it possible? I need to move on. This grief will last a long time I think. I wish it could be shut off like a light switch. I've stopped caring about Matt, so that's a good thing. I'm almost done caring about David too. But Rey? I don't know how long it will take before I'm done with him. As I told him this weekend, he and David actively work against each other, making sure each is as miserable as they are. I told Rey to get away, to break up from his dependency on David. But he's been friends with him longer than I have. And I'm sure he will just continue. It will take something big to disrupt. Even David working to get Cody away from Rey wasn't enough. Rey is such a beautiful person, inside and out, and it hurts to know he is willfully putting himself in a place of perpetual unhappiness. I wish him well, and I hope he figures things out. He deserves happiness, as we all do, but I wish it for him more than anyone else I know.