Dear reader,
Last Saturday, I had a choice to make. My post-work plans had been cancelled and I was presented with two deliciously bleak options: I could revert to my usual fallback – vape myself into a puddle alone while catching up on The Real Housewives of every known discernable city, or go out with that 42 year-old plastic surgeon I’d been texting for the past month or so. Naturally, my appetite for adventure with a side of awkward sex led me to the latter. Arranging meets which I have no real intention of actually going on with the middle-aged gay population of the city has been a pass-time of mine for some time now. However, this was one of the rare instances in which circumstances were lining up just right: I’d cancelled on him once already (essential), he wanted to go for a drink before anything else (yum), and he was Irish (just a Guinness for me please!). We agreed to meet at a bar he liked near Trongate and that was that – I locked in.
In the evening, I waited for him to get there first and upon my arrival we began acting from a familiar script. Within the first minute or so it became easy to categorise him within a genre of gay men who those of us dwelling regularly in the depths of Grindr know well. They are the rich, cultured single men approaching middle-age who dwell in Shawlands or Dennistoun. Being well-educated and without family, they have a high-paying job and a large disposable income. They are severely cultured, have travelled everywhere and love to invite you last minute to a show at the Tron when their ‘friend’ unexpectedly can’t make it. Personally, I’ve had nothing but harmless experiences with these types in our mutual exchange of goods. In regards to this particular case, initially, his awkwardness and sparse eye-contact came as an unwelcome surprise despite this almost always being par for the course. I remembered something a fed up otter once wisely illuminated – ‘there’s a reason these guys are single and old’.
As conversation progressed, I started to sense a genuine surprise on his part that I was not in fact a lobotomised bimbo and could indeed hold a conversation. Most people would be immediately turned off by this reaction, right? But not me; impressing condescending men was my specialty! I probed him on being a doctor for what felt like an eternity and asked him about what it was like to live in New York. In fairness, most of this was actually pretty interesting. Was I enjoying myself? I didn’t miss a cue, spotting his silver Rolex and fawning over it languorously in a performed fit of admiration. While silently patting myself on the back for what seemed a genius move, I wished more dates were this predictably formulaic.
A couple of free artisan cocktails later, he made the inevitable move of inviting me back to his place. I obliged mainly because I was dying to know how big it was (his hallway, that is). He proceeded not to disappoint here. The enormous apartment was decorated with an eccentric minimalism which positively reeked of lived-in luxury and style. Affronting geometric patterns were offset by mint green accents amidst walls adorned with expensive art and photography. It was the most aroused I’d felt all night. But then he began kissing me, and I was hit with the disheartening realisation that I’d probably missed my window to ask for a tour. I peeked at a garish, brown cow-print chez long perching in the living room like some kind of stately alien creature and asked if we could move through there – “I’m just warming up is all” – so I could sneak a better view. Trying with all my might to reciprocate his advances with anything that resembled genuine interest, my eyes continued to be drawn back to those sexy paintings. Was that a Bacon hanging next to the loo?
Eventually we made it to his gigantic bed and started going through the motions. I knew what I had to do. A particular word hung in the air like smog – daring one of us to make it known. I took the baton, it was my turn to release that notorious, ecstatic, dreaded expression: “Daddy!”. There’s a surprising amount of power locked within that simple phrase. Few things can kill the vibe more than labelling a man this way if he wasn’t expecting it, especially those bearing particular insecurities around their age. Not the case here though. In some ways, voicing this dynamic out loud felt like what the whole night had been leading up to. At least now, what could easily seem a nebulous, uneasy encounter between two strangers with 20 years separating them can be patched up neatly with a label and easily filed away – the natural completion of an age-old ritual. We carried on like this till I got bored and pretended to be asleep. Classic.
On the way home the next morning, I – perhaps delusionally – proclaimed myself an “(a)sexual anthropologist”. Feeling rather satisfied after this painless, passionless endeavour, I wondered why I didn’t do this more often.
Yours queerly,
a fed up twink
Xoxoxo
Author: Fergus Kane [he/they]
qmunicatemagazine.co.uk 