Charlie

In the summer of 1967, I went to Fire Island for a weekend with my friend Dale, who had just broken up with his longtime boyfriend, and was looking for some fun. We got a hotel room in Cherry Grove, and on Saturday night we went to the dance bar. I was tired and went back to the room, and was just falling asleep, when Dale arrived back....with Jerry, who was staying with straight friends in the Pines. I was not about to get dressed and go out again, so I tried to lie there unobtrusively while the two of them carried on in the darkened room. Afterwards, the three of us chatted pleasantly for awhile before Jerry left to return to the Pines. Many years later, Jerry was having a "friends with benefits" relationship in New York with my best friend Richard. I told Richard about that incident on Fire Island, and Jerry was amazed when Richard reminded him of it. He couldn't believe I could remember it in such detail. How could I not? It had made our trip to Fire Island a wild success for Dale.

However, one of his hashtags is #IvyLeague.

"Feels irrelevant" in the sense that no matter where I go or what I do, I don't have to be "out," because no one takes it for granted than I am straight (the usual default mode). People are sophisticated enough not to assume that because I wear a wedding ring, I must be heterosexual, as happens in most other places when I interact with strangers. In other words, I don't have to assert my homosexuality, because it's a non-issue.

Palm Springs is not a gay ghetto. The majority of the population is not gay. The difference is that the gay minority is large enough and visible enough that the rest of the population cannot ignore it, because it is spread out throughout the city rather than segregated in one neighborhood. Gay visitors may sometimes get the impression of a ghetto simply because the businesses that cater to gay tourists tend to be concentrated in certain areas of the city. Almost every straight resident has openly gay neighbors, every regular business has openly gay employees, and every regular business serves both gay and straight customers or clients, or they couldn't stay in business. It is the only place I have ever lived where my sexual orientation feels irrelevant.

I used to think that was what I wanted, too, but I found I am actually happier in a mixed gay-straight retirement community, where everyone is tolerant of one another. Although a large part of the 55+ gated development I live in consists of gay males, most of my friends among my neighbors are straight couples and women.

I am reasonably good at pronunciation in several European languages, so I usually try to learn how to say, in the local language, "I don't speak [insert language] well. Do you speak English?" Most of the time, they do. That doesn't work in Asia very well, unfortunately, since I don't know any Asian language, but there people usually assume I am American as soon as they see me, and often address me first, in English.

Thank you for posting this, Karl-G. Although I knew only three of them personally, it was still hard to watch.

What a fabulous smile!

No one ever wants to pay rate hikes for anything. It's a tough sell, especially if the service stays the same, and there are other providers.

My long time dentists in Philadelphia and Palm Springs were both old men, who retired and sold their practices to young men who were just starting out. Both young dentists are very good dentists, and the one in Philly turned out to be much better than his predecessor. It doesn't hurt that they are also attractive, though both are straight.

Back when I was an Earl, I was outranked by my dog Duke.

Did you say you were a Freudian analyst?

My father's last car was a new 1969 Impala sedan. He thought it was the best car he ever owned. He thought I was crazy to buy dinky little Toyotas in the 1970s.

We just got home an hour ago from the Kia dealership in a new Kia Soul. We bought it because our previous second car was getting too hard for us old men to get in and out. We had researched and then tried climbing in and out of a bunch of cars before deciding on the Soul, because it had the easiest access. (Our other car is an SUV.)

I have never been sexually attracted to my doctors, although most of my PCPs have been gay. However, I have had two dentists who really turned me on, even with drills in their hands. When I was a young man, I had an affair with a doctor who never treated me: he was a forensic pathologist.

Yes, it does, but it is hundreds of miles from Carmel (though just as expensive as a place to retire).

One of my dear friends, who had AIDS in the early wave of the epidemic, essentially starved himself to death rather than to face the potential physical afflictions for which there was no effective treatment at that time. He could not have done it without the active support of his partner and another friend. Although I could objectively understand his motivation, and knew that his supporters helped him out of love and respect for his desire to control his fate, I could not have done it myself. I have never felt suicidal myself, and can't imagine wanting to bring my conscious being to an end, no matter how dire the future. BTW, starving to death is not the easy or peaceful process some may imagine it to be.

One of my male cousins committed suicide at 29, by shooting himself in a motel room in Florida. Twenty-one years later, one of his younger brothers, then 42, committed suicide in the same way. I was aware that both had been physically abused by their father when they were boys, and they led passively self-destructive lives as adults before they finally took the guns in their hands.

But be sure to buy chains for your car, if you want to drive south in the winter, because you may not be able to get over Mt. Ashland without them.

Another guy who is just posing and probably wouldn't now how to hit the ball. No one has played with that style racquet since before he was born. However, I would be happy to teach him.

Interesting that although both have hardly ever posted on this site, both showed up on the site within a few minutes of one another yesterday, but only one of them posted here. Sounds like some networking going on.

Winter in Chicago is summer in Australia and New Zealand.

This is the second ad I have been directed to recently that mentions availability in Hackensack, NJ, something I don't ever remember seeing before in an ad.

How would your photo identify you as not a cop? Besides, a real cop would probably send any photo that he thought would entice the provider to continue the interaction.

One of my closest gay friends left Center City Philadelphia and retired to a very small town on the Oregon coast, where he had more than a quarter century of wonderful retirement. It all depends on your personality and what you want out of life.