Part 2 – And a gay old time was had by all…

Last time on “And a gay old time was had by all”, Natalie Chatalie pondered the conundrum “Am i just too old for this shit?” We left her at the bar after the home cooked meal, the awkward silences, the new and interesting people, and being drenched from a sudden downpour on the way to 2 Brewers in Clapham… 

The Bar continued…
Anyhoo, we did what was expected, bought drinks, found a free plank of wood to rest them on, stood around shivering in the aircon trying to dry out and attempted meaningful conversations with our new friends over the boom of the speaker system. “What’s that? You want to know if you can use Jif on dishes and pants? What? Ohhh, do I remember the dishy Geoff Janz? Ohhhh yeah yeah I do and no, no not dishy, sorry.”

A couple of times I got the distinct somewhat fuzzy feeling Malta was interested in me. The girl who prefers my hair clean, fluffy and poofy thought so too, and was none too pleased that we began chewing on each others’ ears for long periods to enable what passes for a conversation in a bar. This by the way is why I make it a rule never to engage in bar conversation with men over 60, as the likelihood of accidental ear hair consumption exponentially increases once the conversationee reaches his 7th decade. Not that most of you would have to worry about this. Men of a certain age in the straight world are usually found in pubs aren’t they, not bars, and there’s nothing louder than a bit of Sky TV or the local Morris Dancers to contend with there. Hazacazawhaaa? You’ve never seen Morris Dancers in a pub? Helloooo, have you never been to Hastings for the Jack in the Green festival? Well, put that on your bucket list then. It should be up there with meeting the Dalai Lama and going to the moon.

God where was I?

Oh Malta… yeah so I was just glad to have met someone I could talk easily to. Too often meeting new people is like being with the two Hungarian girls from earlier, a bit of an effort, and for some reason it’s often me making that effort and plugging the silence holes. But I don’t think he was really interested, as in interested… in my bits. He was kind of the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. He was down to earth, friendly, he’s a top class chef for fucks sake and I’m guessing a lot of girls would scratch their best friend’s eyes out so they got to see him first. Guys like that generally aren’t interested in girls like me, although they do like the fact I will quite willingly sit through a “Family Guy” and Simon Pegg marathon with them.

But what was just a tiny bit of a further clue was when he confessed he is questioning his sexuality and the immersion into the gay world is an attempt to try to figure himself out. So no, I think what he found attractive about me was the Melbourne factor and the fact I was just a small step ahead of him in the “what am I?” game of sexual identity. And maybe, just maybe, it was my strong, manly forearms.

The rest of the night
In no particular order the night unfolded like this- we dried out, found seats next to a buxom (fake) blonde and her gay best friend, I bought everyone lollipops from the scary woman in the toilets (whose job as far as I could tell was to hand out one sheet of paper towel to each visitor) and everyone of course proceeded to lick them lasciviously at each other, an old man who looked barely able to stand clutched his never ending glass of beer as he swayed from spot to spot trying to find something to lean on, a drag act came on stage singing Hakuna Matata and regaled us with his sometimes tuneful/sometimes not set which included a “best bum” competition *yawn*, Blondie’s gay best friend asked if Malta was straight to which we could only reply “he’s still baking his orientation pie”, and then a guy who took over the stairwell to dance his version of “I am super gay and I know it” showered us with a bowl full of sweeties in appreciation for our appreciation of his (Priscilla voice) faaaaaaaabulous (normal voice) routine.

Fun times!

But for some reason I just wasn’t feeling it. Yes, I was having a “nice” time, the people I was with are all cool and despite mixing cider, beer, JD and Jaeger bombs (ewww I hate them but they made me) I wasn’t reaching that level of inebriation required to make time disappear. Once the others danced off to the club section of the place for a boogie, the girl who educates my ignorant self on things like the Israel/Palestine issue and I called it a night and gladly (*?!!*) boarded one of the two night buses it took to reach our local late night pizza place so we could give the alcohol monster its grease fix.

So what’s wrong with me? That was a perfectly respectable Saturday night out. I should have been singing at the top of my head and chair dancing my bum off till the morning light. Have I reached a stage where I have to be drunk to enjoy bars? Am I too old? too boring? Too tired? Maybe it was just an off night. Or maybe at my age, since I’ve had nights out like that quite literally hundreds of times more than the other 20-somethings I was with, maybe there’s an expiry date. Maybe I’ll have to send the girl out to socialise from now on while I stay home being old, watching the latest episode of “The Great British Bake Off” and getting a decent night’s sleep.

Hmm… actually… that doesn’t sound bad at all, next week they’re doing celebration cakes… ding ding ding… sold!