By Mark Marchillo Odd Man Out
Being single and gay in this town means you’re more than likely one of two things: Loveless and happy, or loveless and hapless, like Lonely Girl 15, or the Strangler! series’ “Dinah’s Diary” on Myspace.
Ah, to be the former, rather than the latter. But alas, what fun is there in being happy? I mean, where’s the drama in that? And you know how we boys love drama! It’s like an old Bette Davis movie without the tragedy of it all; the love that went away, the loneliness, the peril! I dunno about you, but my tragedy is at least entertaining to me. Hey, I gotta have something! I spend daily moments in front of a full-length mirror making eyes at the scrawny boy-toy has-been staring back (thankfully I watched “The Secret” so I know how to be in love with myself). It ain’t much but it does strangely comfort me when there’s a “mirror friend” to reflect all the pangs of sorrow and solitude. I’m grateful that I love me, if only.
I think when you’re by yourself so much in a big metro like Los Angeles, or even a town like Santa Monica, you have to invent ways of being alone and being good with that. We’re alone so much here, in our cars, at the computer talking to cyber friends who don’t really exist … we’re inherently left to our own devices. And for us more than the straighties, because, well, I tend to look at my life and figure that, being gay, I may be alone for a long time. It’s just the way for us. The house, wife and 2.5 kids elude. Gosh I envy lesbians.
So. Single and gay. Not such a bad thing, really. There’s a lot of freedom, and comfort in that freedom pounding the bar floors on a Saturday night. As I walk through the bumping shoulders, melodic cat calls fill my ears and I realize how colorful our world is, how genuine it can be (at times), how liberated. It’s just sex, sex, sex all the time. We’re men — gay or straight, the picture doesn’t change much. And there’s a brotherhood amongst the singles. We’re such a plenty that there’s a reverberance of support group togetherness burrowed in all of us unattached souls. In lieu of the old marrieds and their relentless questioning about any new girlfriends in your life, we tend to acknowledge the single factor and embrace our fellow solo artists. Here! Here! Sometimes it’s good to be the gay.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 20, 2007. Read the original PDF.