When I first moved to L.A., I signed up for an acting class where I met my first group of friends. All aspiring actors, and all moving to the city around the same time, we found solace in each other’s company and friendship in a city where it’s hard to come by. Everyone in my class was straight – and at the time, so was I.
Over the years, we all kept in touch, catching up over lunches here and there. Lorelei, a gorgeous, slender, bombastic, spitfire Brit, was one I always was both enamored of and amused by because of her infectious hilarity. She had that Julia Roberts quality, where from afar, you had the feeling that if you just met her, you know you’d be instant friends. Well I did meet her, and we did become instant friends, much to my excitement.
As she and I had brunch one day, she, on a total whim, looked down at her phone, read a text to herself, and as she bit into a chicken pesto Panini asked, “Do you want to go to the Razzie Awards with me tonight?”
Come again?
“Do you have tickets?” I asked.
“No,” she admitted, “but I have an in.”
The next thing I knew, we had changed into clothing that was a tad dressier, and were standing outside of an old, Deco theater in Downtown L.A. where the ceremony was taking place. (If you don’t know, the Razzies are the anti-Oscars; they award people for the worst films of the year.)
“And let me tell you,” she pronounced as we walked to our seats, “I have the perfect guy for you who you will just LOVE.”
No sooner than she said that, the “perfect guy” she mentioned walked up to us and extended his paw for me to shake. He looked to be about eighteen years old, with a greasy, Justin Bieber-esque jet-black mop above his face, a horde of acne scars, and mismatched socks. I knew it was the anti-Oscars, but c’mon, dude.
“Wazzup,” he snarled, looking down at his shoes the whole time.
Now. I’m not one to judge solely just based upon appearances, contrary to what you might have heard, but after the kid’s unfortunate visage, the “wazzup” salutation (which went out of style in 2002…or was it ever in style…?) and his general disinterest in, well, life, I decided right then and there I was too, disinterested.
And then it hit me. Straight friends, bless their hearts, have the unfortunate tendency to set up their gay friends with other gays, just because they know two gay people. Forget chemistry. When they hear about two homos, they turn into heat-seeking missiles, desperate to link up two entities who might not have otherwise found each other. The truth is, it’s a small gay world and the two singles being set up have probably spotted each other on Grindr. And it was probably within the last two weeks.
Straight people don’t hate gay people, they just don’t understand the dynamics of their relationships. Hell, half the time I didn’t think I understood gay culture either. It’s confusing! It’s hard to keep up! Who’s slept with whom? Who’s sleeping with whom? Who wants to sleep with who that you can’t want to sleep with also?
