Not in Kansas Anymore

Ok, let me set the scene. I am just settling in for the evening. Shiner in hand, listening to classic rock on Pandora. Just seems like one of those nights, you know?

I wrestled with my "voice" for this thing. How should I sound? It would be great to sound clever, intelligent, and witty at all times, but I can promise this will not be the case. So, just a little disclaimer, get over it now. I figure I will just be myself and write the things that I think. I am the only person who is even going to read this thing anyway, right?

However, tonight I want to share with you an experience that I am sure many people out there have not had the pleasure, or perhaps pain, of experiencing: Going to a small town gay bar!

First, let me say that I have copious amounts of respect for small town gay bars. People that open small town gay bars in the south assume a certain amount of risk and certainly face societal pressure that owners of straight bars do not. I have nothing but love for these people. For the rural gay community a small town gay bar is vitally important. Sometimes you just want to hang out with gay people and not worry about outward impression. There is a certain amount of calm about being with people like yourself, and that's not gay, that's human. That said, let's make fun of them, shall we?

Just to make sure that you have the right picture in your head, please refer to the picture at the top of this post. A little larger, mind you, but you get the idea. Here in East Texas, perhaps the gays are trying to camouflage their bars so that the Evangelicals (evees) can't so easily identify which ones to picket. In fact, a small town gay bar is not for all gays. If you're a gay from a major metropolitan area, use caution. You are not in Kansas anymore.

The main reason for this is that the gay community is about as homogeneous as the straight community. So, when there is only one gay bar within a 50 mile radius, suddenly there are people all crammed into one bar that really should never be under the same roof.

First, gay men and lesbians do not like the same music. You know you're in small town gay bar when the jukebox appears to be in some sort of bipolar episode. "Cupid's Shuffle" is followed by "My Sacrifice" by Creed and then Britney Spears precedes Kid Rock. Lesbians love sweet guitar rifts and gay men just want to be able to rub up on each other to a techno beat. I think that God intended this all along and gets a real kick outta seeing the scene play out from his fabulous throne in the sky.

In fact, not quite appreciating the dynamics of the situation after my fourth beer, I turned to the lovely lesbian sitting next to me that I had just met after a Pat Green song came on the jukebox and said, "God, what straight person put this song on?" To which she replied, "I like this song." Of course she did.

However, gay men and lesbians, particular in small town gay bars, know that they have to share and be nice. Let me set the scene: A very well kept gay man, with toned muscles, plucked eyebrows and a skin tight button up, is cohabitating in a bar with a butch lesbian, dawning the latest flannel, unbuttoned, with white cotton undershirt. It conjures images of the Lion and the Lamb from biblical days. Not to say that a small town gay bar is like heaven, there are no members of the local Church of Christ present. I'm just sayin'.

Ok, so gay men and lesbians need their own bars, or at least separate nights. But, even with this adjustment it would not solve the quirkiness of small town gay bars. Now, I really don't know anything about lesbians and don't claim to, but gay men come in all varieties. All shapes, all sizes, different fetishes, different desires, differing levels of masculinity/femininity, differing appreciation for leather, cock rings, body hair, bondage, etc. You get the idea. So, in a small town gay bar, the leather daddy's, drag queens, metro gays, preppy gays, macho bisexuals, trannies, and confused straight people all gather under one roof. You can only imagine how
the situation is ripe for comedy.

One thing that I have learned is that gay people do not like each other. We cry for tolerance and then meticulously judge each other. This is intensified in a small town gay bar because you know, given the small sample pool, that somebody done slept with somebody. And that somebody is now with someone else, and the first somebody is not happy about this. Watch out! A bitch about to get hit. This tension, while not overpowering, is present.

Small town gay bars are also lacking in something that makes their larger city counterparts more desirable: lots of hot men, some with their shirts off. However, there is always someone who seems to think that, even though they are not adequately "working it", they can show up in skin tight clothes meet some other scene kid there and then do the dirtiest dancing to Cher, while no one else in on the dance floor. Now, if you are genuinely hot you can get away with this. But, you really have to be sure of yourself, or you turn into "that guy" really quick. And there are always those guys at a small town gay bar.

Another thing that will happen with a fair degree of regularity at a small town gay bar, is you will get hit on my someone who is far to old to be hitting on you. I used to be slightly bothered by this, but I have now come to accept this as something that is just going to happen. Most of these people are totally harmless, but they will attempt to booty dance with you inappropriately if you give them even the smallest of opportunities. When you are over 35, a small town gay bar is not a good place to try to meet someone 15 years your junior. But, it never fails. Maybe they don't know about the Internet.

The other thing that you find in many small town gay bars, or in particular a regular bar that has a "gay night", are straight people that are trying to access the situation that they find themselves in. Given that the gay bar in a small town is often camouflaged, straight people do indeed sometimes wander in. And, when you are not expecting it or looking for it, it might take a few minutes to figure out what is going on, and that you have made a mistake. Now, I am not taking about straight people who come to the gay bar with their gay friends. No, we love you people. I am talking about the couple who looks like they live just outside the city limits and have come into town to get their woman drunk so she'll be more complacent when he has sex with her later. These people react one of two ways. A) They never figure it out and wonder why all the women look like construction workers or B) they do figure it out, and they leave.

Now, what is very fun is when you are going into the bar just as someone who figured out what is going on inside is coming out. You don't get the friendly head nod. Oh, no, you don't. It is more like they look at you like you are some form of foreign life form. Not necessarily in a hateful way, but just in a way that says "I had no idea you people lived here."

But, we do live here. So, thank God for small town gay bars. Without them, those of us that do live here would go insane. And, if you ever get the chance and feel like you're up to it, you should go to one. Its not pretty, but its real. And you can't ask much more than that.