These days I’m going out pretty often. I've been seen out at gay bars more often than Margaret Cho... If I’m not in school pretending to get educated, I am at work. If I’m not at either of those, I am generally out and about meeting people. I seem to be making up for lost time I assume. My true entrance into adult-hood, bars, really growing up, has been much different than others I know. Instead of putting a toe in the water, I dived straight into this social pool. Actually, my action can best be described as a belly flop, one of those ones that while funny to watch, sounds painful and makes all the water jump out of the pool and soak all around. Most people seem to get inducted into this scene slowly, via a fake ID and years of fermenting one’s young liver in cheap alcohol that resembled rubbing alcohol. For me, being the late bloomer that I am, I have developed that nurturing relationship with the scene a little later and much faster. I have this odd feeling like I have a lot of catching up to do. I feel like the kid that got Mono in high school and missed a semester as a result and stayed out of the loop until graduation, but I was just a loner instead. One day, out of nowhere I am just there working right in the middle of a huge gay bar, in the middle of everything. While my post-teen counterparts get their pick of nights to go out Thursday-Sunday, these are when I generally have to work. I have never done the whole lets meet up and go out every Saturday night thing. My times to go out are the opposite of the norm for kids my age. Every week I do though end up going out, just not on that particular schedule. Actually, I go out pretty much any time I am not at work, school or sleeping. My days off are different every single week. My nights out are always different. Now when I do have a weekend night off, I have no idea what to do because I am so out of touch with the land of the living.
The Leo in me loves the attention that I get when going out and being seen. It makes me feel like a star, when I have lived my life as a shadow. Being noticed is so surreal that it makes me feel not necessarily attractive, but more so that it makes me feel like a different person, a character much cooler than the me who I know. I have never been known for being the attractive guy. I have never felt like him. I am also comfortable with the reality that I don’t have to be that guy. Some things in life would come too easily for me and often my words wouldn’t be taken seriously. In life there are often two types of people, we all have met them, the pretty peeps who rely on their looks to get by and the brains. Sometimes, a brains type can become the pretty type, but they work for it hard, they work to get noticed and acknowledged. The strategy as to how they live their lives is much different. People admire the brains for their character, their charisma and more so their words are taken more seriously because we all understand their struggle.
Now, when I go out for some reason I am getting noticed for working at the bars. I assume it’s because I have no shame, I will talk to anyone and not censor what I am thinking. I can pretend that I get noticed for me, but it’s more because they recognize me from the bar. There are complete strangers who treat me as though they know me and it’s odd. It’s a mixed bag of feeling adored and being skeptical of these stranger’s motives. The question remains, is it me or something else they are looking for? It’s like all of a sudden this all is happening and I don’t get what’s changed. My character hasn’t changed, just my outside has and my confidence level is higher.
(to be continued...)
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