Neither earth nor ocean produces a creature as savage and monstrous as a DC transplant in FL.

It’s been almost two months now since I last stepped foot in the District and left to start an adventure down south. Really, really south. As far south as you can go before you hit communism, and reggae, and Carnival. After serious debating last December, I decided to put my love for my home, still fairly new at the time, of the District of Columbia on hold, and move to Tampa, Florida. It was, in every sense of the phrase, a power move. Or as my mother likes to remind me quite frequently over the phone, “Hunny, the thing young people do to get ahead and go places.” Places? Like Tampa, Florida? Why would I want to leave the one place I finally felt at home? And understood (ish)? And loved? DC! I had felt like I had just started understanding the round-abouts and copious Ethiopian eateries before I turned around, bent over, and kicked my own ass out. And out and out and out, twenty hours out in a U-Haul to be exact, to the nation’s phallic shaped, hurricane loving, blue-haired kingdom of Florida.

After the tears and the heart break, there was fear. I’d moved to new places before: everyone does. I even moved halfway across the world to Cairo, Egypt. But what separated Cairo and Tampa was, quite simply, language. While I seemed to be able to speak the language in Cairo, joke with taxi drivers in Arabic, order falafel with all the fixings like a pro, and get my way around the Giza plateau at 3 am slightly drunk (read: drunk), I found I couldn’t speak the language, my own native English language, in Tampa. I couldn’t help but be misunderstood. Upon returning my moving truck to the U-Haul center, I tried to make light conversation while the U-Haul employee swiped my credit card. “Nice weather, huh?” I asked, smiling, turning to look at the glaring sun shining in through every window in the room. “Nice?!” The bald and mustached employee cackled. “You must not be from around here, kid. This shit’s cold!” I immediately stood out. It was at this point that I shrank to the size of a mouse, scampered under a pile of cardboard boxes, and wept until my friend, claiming to be a delivery boy from Mr. Chen’s Organic, lured me out and back into Florida.

Similar scenarios seemed to play out over and over during the course of my first month here. I got my first speeding ticket, offended the internet install guy with a Hezbollah book that I was reading, and generally pissed everyone in Tampa, especially myself, off. Why is Whole Foods (or as I’ve heard it referred to here, “The Health Food Place”) so much more expensive here? Why should I have to defend my own vegetarianism and active lifestyle in the workplace? And aggressively? And then feel embarrassed about it? Why didn’t my apartment building goddamn recycle? Why can’t I find a suitable gym with younger clientele? Why have I gotten so unbearably whiney lately?

I annoyed myself into oblivion at every chance I could. I found myself even knit-picking the color of the ocean where I can swim and run shirtless. Right now.  In the winter! For some reason, it just wasn’t blue enough. Believe it or not, I was arguing with that gorgeous, mind-boggling amount of life sustaining water that for millennia has covered the earth and will continue to do so until the end of everything! I was, essentially, bickering with infinity itself. And as result I despised everything and anything. I furiously bought tickets for weekend trips, as many my salary allowed. Tampa and I weren’t off to a good start.

But, despite it all, I’m determined to make this work, even if it’s temporary. If you’re from the area and know its secrets: I’m ready to listen. Despite my belligerent, bottle-of-wine-alone-on-a-Friday-night attitude: I’m determined to like it here, damn it. And there has been progress. Just last weekend a friend took me to the Sunday market at the local Thai Buddhist temple. After admiring the beautiful architecture of the temple itself, we meandered through the crowds of locals, many of Thai, waiting in line for steaming bowls of noodle soups, curries, fried yucca and plantains, tofus and fish sauces and coconut everythings.  I put my face up to every wok I passed, inhaling deeply and letting the warm sun and palm trees take me to a country where I’ve always dreamed. Floridian magic. And I couldn’t stop grinning ear to ear.

So, Tampa, if I may, let me re-introduce myself. I’m ready to live in your city. I can’t say I’ll love every minute. And I can’t say I’ll stay, for my heart still lies in the nation’s largest federal office park way up north. But for now: let’s go to the beach.

And I promise I won’t argue with it this time.

Come visit me in one of these! (Photo by jng03)

Dear Readers,

I’m really sorry for the sporadic posts over the past few weeks. The holidays aside, the past month has been pretty crazy for me. I was recently offered a job in Tampa, Florida, in the line of work I have been trying, desperately, to get involved with for almost two years. I initially turned down the offer, convinced I was not ready to leave DC, my new home, for the sunny, swampy Everglades of Florida. I’d take pandas and elephants at the DC zoo to alligators and flamingos any day, thank you very much.

But when the job was offered again, a few weeks later, with a bumped up salary and other benefits, I had to stop and reconsider. Since I have no concept of Florida other than a trip to Disney World when I was very young, I convinced myself that I couldn’t possibly make an informed decision until I had experienced Florida, if just for a weekend. On a whim, I bought a ticket to Tampa and headed down. Despite being massively hungover from my office holiday party and the escapades that followed the night before, I miraculously made it to my flight the next morning and nursed the Worst Hangover Known To Man while soaring high over Virginia, the Carolinas, and other southern states. The thought of natural Floridian electrolyte-rich coconut water kept me motivated as I connected flights in Atlanta.

Being the frumpy, awkward Pennsylvania native that I am, I ended up walking out of the Tampa airport into the eighty-three degree and sunny Tampa “winter” in boots, dark jeans, a sweater, and an exhausted grimace and squinty eyes.However, despite being initially horrified at being taken to a piano bar my first night (all white customers with a black Santa light up doll that some wild animal women thought was deserving of lap dances. Ugh…), I found myself falling for the charms of the city. Anyone who knows me can attest to my undying love of all things fish taco, a commodity that is in no shortage in sleepy, humid Tampa. With each cafe con leche in a cafe in Ybor City, I found myself more and more interested in experimenting with Tampa, if just for a year. Florida was everything I was not accustomed to and it started to become more exciting as I found myself in more and more strange awkward situations.

On the day I was to depart Tampa for DC, I found myself in the airport, sipping coffee next to a retired couple, while I smiled, ear to ear with the thought of returning to DC and to the life I love. But as the engines roared and we rushed down the runway and upwards, I had to reconsider. Moving to Tampa would be an adventure. It would take me out of my comfort zone and throw me into a life I cannot even try to understand. I had never turned down adventure before, and now wouldn’t be different. My new job would promise a foot in the door to a career, a real career, with money and promotions and opportunities, the majority of them being back in DC.

After arriving back in DC and riding the empty metro into the city, I took the long, windy, cold escalator up and emerged into December in Dupont. I braced against the chill and thought back to Tampa, weird and silly and different. With a heavy heart, I made a decision.

So there it is. I’m moving to Florida. I still have a hard time saying it out loud. My friends have pointed out my excessively heavy sighs after I mention anything Florida. It pains me, really truly pains me, to leave my home. But I’m determined that it will only be for a year, at most. A year at my new job would set me up for a perfect transition to DC, with a career and hopefully a pretty solid tan.

So Tampa, get ready. This is going to be a fun year, damn it. I look forward to seeing what being single is in Tampa.

And as for you, DC, you haven’t seen the last of me. I’ll let you have this year to rest, but get ready. I’ll be back before you know it. And it will be awesome.

Love,

Kareem

PS – Expect posts from Florida. And if any of you know anybody in Tampa, please hook a brother up! See you soon, DC. I love you.

"Shoes v. Boots" by Bogotron

Most people who know me are fairly aware of my technological illiteracy. As my friends became fluent in Facebook culture, I struggled to understand the “trash” feature of my Gmail account. For me, computing formulas is the equivalent of solving climate change. My coworkers can easily agree that Excel and I haven’t been on speaking terms for several months now. In short: technology and I don’t get along and I’m fine with that.

Thankfully, I have come to understand the basics to certain programs. I can’t imagine utilizing any other search engine than Google. Similarly, I can’t fathom using any other online social media tool than Facebook. Home for Thanksgiving, my aunt, who tends to post upwards of forty posts (I am not exaggerating) on Twitter daily, and links them to Facebook, tried her best to persuade me to sign up. When it comes down to it, I just don’t care what Joe Lieberman has to say about this or that (online or otherwise) and I don’t care to know what everyone is doing at every moment of everyday. Send me an email or, like I’ve advocated in a previous post, call me on the phone. I waste enough time labeling my emails and accepting special requests on Facebook than to be Twittering about how I’m labeling my emails and accepting special requests.

The great thing about Facebook is that, while you are restricted to seeing only your friends’ information, posts, and pictures, they usually don’t adjust the privacy settings, letting you view pretty much any content of theirs you would like to indulge. Just one click and you can virtually keep up to track with all of your friends without even interacting with them directly. It is free, unlimited, online friend-on-friend espionage and it is fun.

But like when discussing the concept of cloning in Jurassic Park, just because we can (i.e. spy on our friends on Facebook), does that mean we should? No other time have I been more aware of this than recently. For the past several months I had been, for lack of a mutually agreed upon term, seeing someone. We saw each other fairly regularly each week. We went on dates, went dancing, made pancakes, and watched the Golden Girls while cuddling on the couch. To me, that sounded like dating, and to be honest, I was pretty excited about the prospect of finally meeting somebody who seemed sane and into me. What started as a summer fling continued, leisurely, into the fall, leading me to believe that this might be something. “Guy” met my twin brother, my friends, and invited me to his birthday dinner with his close friends. So far, so good.

Everything was going well, until after a date of noodles and tea, we headed out to a bar. Walking up, Guy stopped in his tracks. He turned away from me and said we couldn’t go inside. After a few minutes of prying, he pointed out that his ex’s moped was parked outside the bar. Things would be ‘uncomfortable.” I wondered, for a minute, if I should offer to leave, but quickly told myself to fuck off. This was my man, ex and awkwardness be damned. Instead, we ended up sipping manhattans in a basement bar across the street, as Guy moped around, watched Superwoman on TV, and texted his friends to come across the street and visit him. In sum: lame.

The weekend came around and Guy invited me to go see an old horror film in Maryland. While initially pissed that he introduced me as his “friend” to his old college friends, I quickly got over it by way of a beer and watching Count Orlok’s eerie shadow ascend the staircase to a live soundtrack. We rushed back into the city afterwards to meet up with friends at a dance party, where I attempted to pull off a last minute costume of young Fidel Castro, drank bourbon, and shook my ass all over the place. It was really fun, a lot of my friends were there, and we spent that night back at his place.

That night, before bed, tipsy and exhausted, I tried to gauge Guy’s prospects for what was going on between us. Were we together? Was he seeing someone else? (“Uhh,” was his distinct answer to the later question). He said we could talk about it the next day, when we were planning on hanging out. The next morning, Halloween, he woke me up as he left for work, dressed as a character from Star Wars. Standing in the chilly, rainy, early morning in front of his apartment, he leaned in to me, costume helmet tucked under one arm. For a kid who was once incredibly and unmeasurably obsessed with Star Wars, this was as wonderful as it got. Little did I know I was being dumped by a Clone Trooper.

A couple days went by, and I never heard from him. I knew he was busy working a couple jobs, so I brushed it off. By Friday, a week from when I had last seen him, I still had not heard from him. I should’ve assumed the worst, but being an optimist and with the fairly recent memory of a Clone Trooper’s kiss still on my lips, I texted Guy, the most reliable way of getting in touch with him. “Hey Guy,” I wrote, “I haven’t heard from you in a while. I hope I didn’t upset you (?). Hope all is well and let me know if you want to talk.” Or something like that. He texted back saying that I hadn’t upset him and apologized for not letting me know before he went “silent,” He said was going out of town to clear his head and that he’d love to talk and hang out when he got back.

How does any of this have to do with Facebook and computers? Several days passed and I never heard from Guy. After a week or so, I decided to check his Facebook page to see if Guy was still alive or if I really was just getting the cruel cold shoulder. I found my answer instantly: various pictures of Guy had been posted, wearing a shirt I had given him as a present, while he hung out in Chicago with his moped driving, shaggy haired ex. This was his trip to “clear his head.” In otherwords, he was going on vacation in hopes of forgetting me.

I was pretty upset for a while. Guy was goodlooking, smart, and charming, a trifecta hard to find in many guys. But he’s also a coward. He clearly lacked the basic human courtesy to let me know, after several months, that he wasn’t interested in me. I should’ve read the signs: his messy apartment (overflowing litter box), bag of trail mix for dinner, and focus on drinking. Guy barely had his life together and, unfortunately, I got caught up in his mess of an existence. The only thing that saved me was Facebook.

This post is really long and I apologize. I was initially nervous about writing this, wary of the repercussions or feelings of Guy. But fuck him, as a friend eloquently pointed out, he should’ve known that when he started dating a writer of a singles’ column. There are a lot of morals of the story here, but I’ll pick one, and Guy this is for you: open source online media is, in fact, open. In other words: accessible to the public. I wonder if that even crossed your mind when those pictures were posted. I should be angry at you, or at your ex, or, more importantly, that I lost a really awesome t-shirt.

But really, I’m just glad I got out when I did. A truly bad [Facebook] romance.

problems, but a bitch surely

is not one. Give thanks.

Fork in the River by Hans Bruesch

Hot dentists like happy teeth.

Those of you who haven’t been living under a rock somewhere west of central oblivion are probably sick of hearing about health care reform. On the radio the other morning, I listened to a news piece on a band of traveling tea party conservatives, weaving their way across the country in an attempt to undermine the current administration’s efforts to patch up what is, honestly, a defunct, unfair, and twistedly expensive system that is an embarrassment to both the American people and the rest of the world. If I open another newspaper and have to read about Congressman This or Senator That rebuffing wackos at committee meetings or arguing with news anchors on the pros and cons of the current system, I’m going to be sick. Health care, ironically, makes me feel really, really unhealthy.

Despite all the messy politics, I’ve found assurance in one simple fact: I am extremely attracted to medical professionals. This is not a new development. In my short and colorful little life, I’ve had the pleasure of dating one such individual who worked on the gastro-intestinal floor of my university’s hospital (God bless his ill-fated Crocs: the only time I can honestly forgive anyone for wearing such unfortunate footwear. If only I could chronicle the liquids that passed through those neon gummy holes!).

Much like our tax system, computers, and how to pilot anything (airplane, rocket, boat, manual car), I know very little about the health and medical sciences. I couldn’t tell a mitochondria from a nucleoid. I can vaguely remember that chromosomes are involved and that I usually take a couple ibuprofen to cure an especially noxious hangover. If I was a doctor, I’d probably resemble something like this. Yet something draws me to those in the medical field. I’m not sure where this certain attraction comes from as I am usually scared to death of hospitals and buckle at the knees at the first sign of blood or anything other than the usual bodily fluids. I can’t remember the last time I was at a hospital and I definitely can’t remember any personal doctors or medical professionals that I’ve been attracted to.

Up until now.

This past summer presented a massive overhaul for my mouth. Having returned from living abroad with a poor water system, I soon discovered, after a quick visit to a dentist, that my teeth were a microcosm of our nation’s health care system: broken, albeit coffee stained and with a slight chip in my front right tooth. After x-rays, poking, prodding, gum bleeding, and a lot of sassy “mhmms” from the dental nurses, I had my prognosis: several cavities, out with all four of my wisdom teeth, and one root canal. Had I received this news from my old family dentist, an aging testament to the last several decades of American dentistry, I would’ve been reeling and fairly pissed off. In other circumstances, all of that would’ve sounded like a whole lot of work, time in the chair, grimacing and gauze. Thankfully, the dentist delivering the dark news about my mouth modifications is incredibly attractive. Dreamy-eyed and sighing, I nodded and smiled. Grinning ear to ear like a schoolgirl, I made four more appointments for the next few months, signing away any extra money I’d be making over the summer to drilling, pulling, cutting, and crowning. I floated out of his office on a small cloud, which delivered me back to my office before my stupor broke and I realized the hellish dental ride I was in for. Anxiety set in and I counted the days until my mouth, one of the most prized possessions for an avid foodie, would undergo massive reconstruction.

I stepped in the door that first day of my dental makeover and already I was rosy cheeked and smiling. My dentist led me back and got down to business twisting, adjusting, and clamping. All while I stared up and counted the tiny chest hairs going rogue and sneaking out of his slightly unbuttoned shirt. Unlike as a child, when I would kick and scream during even the most basic of teeth cleaning sessions, I was now melting into my chair. I wondered if anyone else enjoyed getting a root canal as much as I was then.

The last appointment with Dreamy Dentist was pretty upsetting and I’d like to think the feelings were mutual. As he pulled out my last wisdom tooth (no laughing gas for me, I got to witness firsthand the birthing of my ginormous canines), I think we couldn’t help but mourn the end of our summer together. We talked about meeting up in yoga class, since we both attend the same studio. My mouth filled with bloody cotton, we made small talk and he walked me out. We set up an appointment for a regular cleaning a few months in the future, but I think we both knew it wouldn’t be the same. While I am certain this is all in my head, I can’t help but entertain the notion that we had spent a summer together and my crush had evolved into something of a friendship of sorts. And while I know there is little chance we’d ever meet up outside of his floride-soaked dental world, I liked to think we had connected in some way.

It is also more incentive to floss the hell out of my teeth until our next appointment.

Also while discussing healthcare reform.

This has been a long time coming, text messages, but I need to be completely open and honest with you: I hate you.

When I first signed up for a cellphone back in high school, I purposefully purchased a plan without text messages. If I remember correctly, I couldn’t even receive them (or send them). If somebody sent me a message, that would be a dime (or so) of theirs they threw down the telecommunications drain. I remember in high school my friends would come up to me in the hallway and say, “I sent you, like, three texts during class this morning. Where WERE you?” At which point I would tell them, matter-of-factly, that I don’t (nay, can’t and won’t) receive text messages. Then I would laugh maniacally and walk off down the hall. My logic at the time was that since I was paying for my own cellphone bill (which was a significant amount of money a month for a middle-class high schooler, something like $40 a month), why would I jack the price up to pay for snippity little digital notes when I could just pick up my cellphone or home phone and simply call my friends directly? Please note that this was at the dawn of the jacked up cellphone craze, before iPhones, Blackberries and other Smartphones. I was skeptical that text messages were just another fad that would probably fade away in time. Little did I know they would, instead, in a matter of years, monopolize the informal personal telecommunications market.

I entered college text-free, happy to be on my own and exploring a new world. I got along pretty well, calling my friends and family, keeping up regular communications by way of my college email address and, later on, Facebook. During my second year of college, I left to study abroad in a country where cellular communications is set up very differently. Instead of purchasing a lengthy and costly plan, all you need to do is buy a cell phone, any cellphone you want, and then purchase a sim card with a personal phone number, which would be installed into the phone. Instead of buying “minutes” as we do here in America, you simply add money to your phone’s chip by way of prepaid cards. The upside to this system was that you could receive both calls and texts for free, unlike in the US where you are charged for any form of communication going in and out of your mobile. In addition, text messages were much, much cheaper than making calls, so most young people I knew relied on text messages to communicate. For the first time in my life, I was forced to face text messages and their complicated and mysterious culture. Over time, I learned to enjoy texting, moving my fingers across my battered Nokia with ease. I started replacing whole words with single letters (“are” became “r”, etc.) and soon enough I could’ve set up a whole meeting between a friend and me, in a cafe, for two hours in the future, all while sitting in class and taking notes. I was converted.

For most young people these days texting is the medium for the majority of in-direct conversation. When I visit home, my younger sister is constantly churning out text message after text message, whipping her phone out and aggressively typing an emoticon-filled 25 letter response in less time it takes me to realize her phone is out at all. While my texting skills are no match to hers, I have found myself depending on text messages as a way to secretly commune with my friends and family, whether it’s at work, during a movie, a bad date, or simply on the bus. I have to admit: it’s fun, convenient, and safe.

But I have to put my foot down.

Everyone has their pet peeves. A friend of mine despises when her coworker clips his nails during their meetings (understandably…ew). Another friend hates people who are reliably late. For me, I despise those who find text messaging the only viable means of communication. I know some friends with whom I’ve only ever communicated, aside from face-to-face interactions, by text messages. And this drives me nuts. To me, text messages seem to be a cop out, a dangerous way to “advance reality” and put a pause on communication with another person. As opposed to direct telephone calls which involve one party making the call, the other either receiving or not, you are in complete control with text messaging. No direct interaction with the other person needs to be acknowledged, not a word uttered. For instance, it requires minimal effort to merely receive a text, erase it, not respond, and say you never received the message. One could say that this could be applied to any of today’s endless forms of communication, from emails to Facebook messages to that inane chitter-chatter-Meghan-McCain-loving-waste-of-time that is Twitter. But text messages are the most mobile way to indirectly communicate with another (although this is changing as Smartphones with data packages become more widespread).

Text Messaging Culture is political and confusing. There are myriad reasons why a recipient of a text message may not respond to its sender. There are myriad reasons the sender can imagine as to why that person hasn’t responded. Some people shun long text messages. Some people prefer them. I have a friend who sends messages that usually span three texts, with each message arriving randomly to my phone, probably out of order. “Robert and his boyfriend – way then to the concert where I’ll meet up with – I’m going to stop by Safe-.”

Ugh.

I am not saying we should do away with text messaging. That would never happen. Instead, I am calling for a redefinition of when to use and when not to use text messages. Whole conversations should, in my opinion, never be expressed through limited character typed-out messages. Yes, you can text me to let me know that Whole Foods is out of organic bananas. No, I will not discuss President Obama’s fiscal policies and his chances at re-election by text message. Don’t text me if grandma is on her deathbed. Please text me to let me know you are running late, be there soon!

Oy vey, TNG. What do you think? Is there a need to redefine when it is appropriate to call and when it is appropriate to text message? Am I being unreasonable? Will text messaging eventually take over actual direct phone calls, leading to a world where all mobile communication takes place in limited character notes?

Caution signs in a hallway in Vatican City, 2006.

I will try to keep this article short and sweet. It will be direct and it will be preachy. You have been forewarned.

Over the past few weeks, a common theme has woven itself into my conversations with my friends. Specifically, my friends who are in relationships. Most of my friends are in various stages of a relationship, whether they’re about to get together (on the brink of the “State of the Union (SOTU)” as my friend likes to call it), just got together, or have been together for quite some time. While I can assume that most of these people are fairly happy with the current states of their love lives, I have been approached a good many times with the same concern: the battle to maintain one’s individualism. This may be because I write a “singles” column or have a chronic case of the single-itis: who knows? Maybe, like my twin brother’s junior high girlfriends, I just have the perfect shoulder to metaphorically cry on. Maybe while my friends are indeed satisfied with their relationships, they see me as an outlet to entertain their currently retired single lifestyles. The question on the minds of several of my “taken” friends seems to be something along the lines of how does one preserve his or her individualism and at the same time reconcile it with one’s current relationship? Let’s talk about this and get it all out in the open.

Being in a relationship is great. I’ve been in them before (or so the fables claim). They are an awesome time to engage in the greatest experiment humanity has been toying with since we swung out of the jungles and went all bipedal up in here, which has led us to such joys as texting while driving, and cheering on Lady Gaga while she screams at our president. Relationships allows one to negotiate his or her being with another’s, many times resulting in a beautiful chemistry only obtainable with the aid of the magic of our advanced cognitive abilities, found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. Love is truly the most nature-defying emotion out there and for good reason. What other living beings, besides humans, make it a point to go to great lengths impress their colleagues? Some birds, for instance, may have spectacular foliage and a special dance to attract their mates. This is all well and good; but, to me, nothing beats some of the foliage I’ve witnessed out and about, such as along 17th street on a Saturday night. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’d love to see one of the drag queens from last week’s high heel race go head-to-head with a peacock. May the best man(ish) win!

But I digress. Even though relationships and courtship may be fantastic, it seems many of the people I know engaged in this sport are finding themselves concerned with what has happened to the individual qualities that make them unique. Can someone still be completely different, while still entertaining a serious, committed relationship with another person? One of my friends expressed his concern over him and his boyfriend being addressed as “you guys” in emails and texts. What happened to just Tim? Cal? Fred? My friend fretted that with adoption of “you guys,” he had vanquished his rights as an individual. Another friend confided that he is worried that, having been in a relationship with his boyfriend for several years, many of his friends have started mixing him and his boyfriend’s stories up. From their families, to hobbies, jobs, and personal tastes, he worries that his friends have managed to mix the two up, like an unintended martini of sorts, and poured themselves a big glass without asking permission. Up and with a twist, thank you very much.

I am not going to try and act like a couple’s counselor. I am in no position and have no sort of authority to attempt a feat such as that. But let me just say something: if you are in a relationship, even if you are very similar in many ways, as person A and person B, you are still very different. I’d even go so far as to say that differences are some the best things about meeting others and maybe even eventually dating. If we were all gay clones (“glones,” as a friend and I recently coined a group of eerily similar-looking, presumably gay, guys walking down the street), life would be rather dull. A relationship does not spell the death of one’s individuality. I have been attacked, through this column, as promoting the single life as the only true way to be an individual. This assumption is dangerous and wrong. While I strongly advocate for my single comrades, I have to say that relationships are some of the best times to develop one’s individuality. When else can you take such a close look at yourself as a person other than when you have another evaluating you in hopes of a long term union?

OK, so that didn’t end up being short or sweet. At any rate, it is important to draw lines. If you feel your individuality is being threatened by the person you are relating with, put it out in the open. Nobody needs me to tell them that transparency is the key to a successful relationship. Embrace your individuality, especially when you’re in a relationship. Only you have the power to kill your own distinctiveness, if that is even possible. What do you think, TNG readers? Do you feel like you grow more when you are single or when you are in a relationship? Is it valid to be worried about your selfhood when engaging in a relationship? Can the fight to preserve one’s individuality threaten a relationship? Should the two even be at odds at all?

When I was younger it was much easier to tuck myself away and hold off until April. Growing up in a newly built suburban neighborhood, it was easy to get into a winter routine of going from home to school to work to home. Without a car, it was almost impossible to get around. By the time I was seventeen and the glory of the first year of driving had faded, I found myself more and more inclined to just stay at home rather than take the two minutes to bundle up and scrape the frost and ice off my grandfather’s hand-me-down Honda sedan. Living the American dream, our house had no less than four television sets, three computers, and one lonely and neglected piano. Add a best friend, my twin brother, who lived across the hall, a younger sister just asking to be teased for sport, and two fairly lenient parents, and you have a recipe for extreme winter separationism.

Today, I live a very different lifestyle. I don’t have a car and I don’t plan on buying one anytime soon (although I love me some zipcar!). Instead of living in a self-contained suburban two story house with the perk of a finished basement, my home is itself the basement of rather old Victorian home turned apartment building. I have bars on my windows that work to complement my climate-induced prison. The plates on which I usually eat dinner are larger in size than the screen of my roommate’s second-hand television, through which we are stealing cable. My twin brother lives miles away in another city and my sister is caught in the throes of high school, too busy to socialize with her older un-hip brothers. I cannot find a piano to play for the life of me. All of this cries for a change in lifestyle that, despite my best efforts, I seem to be avoiding. Instead of taking the subtle hints that I strategically placed around me in my new adult life, this dog apparently will not learn new tricks. Over the past week I’ve found myself prey to several new television programs that are now back in season. This has resulted in me hunched over my computer, watching Jim and Pam’s wedding from The Office over and over and cursing my unreliable internet connection at the first sign of any buffering. In the last three days, I’ve made an unhealthy number of runs to my local market to pick up sugar, butter, and then more sugar, as I’ve all of a sudden turned into my grandmother and need a tin of cookies ready at all times. The other night, I simultaneously made a huge pot of lentil soup, three meals worth of penne with Italian soy sausage and spaghetti sauce using homegrown tomatoes, and pumpkin muffins. In fact, this was on a Tuesday, when I am usually exhausted from work and the gym. What has gotten into me?

For now, it seems I’ll have to just come to terms with the fact that I am actually a hybrid raccoon-man and need my seasonal confinement. You may see me out and about, hording baking powder and the occasional case of beer. You might see me scrambling down the street, clutching the latest Economist magazine and a half eaten bagel and coffee. I will probably be excessively bundled up and muttering about how I’m missing that new episode of House Hunters. But seriously, how about you, TNG citizens? Do you have a tendency to go brown bear and hibernate? Or do you find the fall/winter seasons to be the opposite: a time for increased socialization due to being confined indoors? Is it better to be single in the winter or in the summer? What is the best way to escape the nest? Do you notice a significant change in lifestyle as the temperatures drop? Do you have any advice for those wishing to break the hibernation cycle? Would someone please save me from making yet another batch of goddamn muffins?

Photo by Hans Bruesch

It is clear after this weekend’s National Equality March that a new and potentially powerful grassroots movement is growing in the US. We saw glimmers of this movement following the passing of Prop 8 in California and we see it every now and then, usually in the form of reactions to unfortunate hate crimes or controversial legislation. If you were in DC this past weekend for the march, you were among thousands who descended on the nation’s capital to rally and press the current administration and society for change. Walking through the crowds of brightly dressed advocates, I could ascertain specific issues people had come to support. There were couples, ranging from young to old, urging for marriage equality across the country. There were protesters calling for an end to the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Others came to express their concern over the lack of protection for sexual minorities in the workplace, others for changes in immigration policy. But underneath the controversial social issues in which the majority of the movement is caught up, there is a more basic concern that must be addressed if we hope to advance as a community and as a movement. If we truly want to achieve equality, we must recognize that for some, gay marriage and serving in a military are almost unimportant when their very lives are at stake. For some LGBTs around the world, the basic concept of survival, of living to see the next day, is being threatened.

Last Friday, the day before the weekend equality festivities started, my friend who works for Equality California sent me an article from New York Magazine. In it, the author depicts in graphic detail the horrific anti-gay atmosphere that plagues Iraq, specifically the capital, Baghdad, where people and organizations have manipulated sexuality as scapegoats in order to maintain the status quo in the face of mounting public pressure. Matt McAllester’s article showcases a scenario where not only are sexual minorities in Iraq being exploited to legitimize the sectarian militias that arose after the fall of Saddam Hussein, but more alarmingly these minorities, specifically homosexual men, are being systematically killed off.

This is not just a series of random hate crimes like we still see in America today. Instead this constitutes a loosely organized and targeted killing of an entire people. Faced with a calming of tensions and a relatively stable central government, these militias have turned to murdering single gay Iraqis as means of continuing their status quo as forces with which to be reckoned. What began as a smattering of relatively unrelated anti-gay murders has now turned into a full-scale gay massacre. The article stresses how the militias focus on networking, extracting names, addresses, and telephone numbers of fellow gay men from their victims, before usually raping and murdering them, leaving their destructed bodies in the streets as a warning sign for all, a grotesque variation of the business card.

Thankfully, the New-York based Human Rights Watch caught wind of the growing violence against gay Iraqis and has begun an experimental evacuation program for some of those threatened, providing a means for some of them to be transported to safe havens both inside and outside of Iraq. Unfortunately, this small effort is not enough, as the militias expand their networks and gay killings multiply. More efforts need to be taken to ensure these individuals safety and not just by private watchdog organizations like Human Rights Watch. We must call upon the Iraqi government to recognize this crisis and punish those who promote the mindset that leads to pogroms against sexual minorities in Iraq. We must call upon our own government and its forces currently stationed in Iraq to work to recognize the gravity of this situation, one that shakes the very foundations of humanity, and protect those citizens who fear for their very lives the minute they step out the front door. Most importantly, we must call on each other, as a community striving for equality, to protect our gay brothers and sisters who are fighting everyday to survive.

That is what I found myself marching for on Sunday. Equality not just for the right I have to marry my future husband. Not just the right to openly serve in the military. These are all very important and necessary if we hope to shape a world where nobody is judged or discriminated against due to their sexuality. But, for me, marching for equality meant sending a message to both our country and the world.

I marched for those who still cannot even leave their homes for fear of being kidnapped or worse. I marched for those who still receive notes threatening their lives, and who watch the corpses of their friends and family pile in the streets unable to even retrieve their remains for fear of being targeted themselves. I marched for the victims’ families, mothers and fathers watching their children be exterminated. Among the myriad of rights we deserve as human beings, the most basic is that of survival.

The gay rights movement has evolved dramatically over the past half century and I am excited to see what the next years bring, both for our country and for LGBTs across the world. That said, I fear we have a much longer road ahead than we may realize. For as long as any sexual minority is being targeted, whether it’s a random act of hate in a DC neighborhood or the wide-spread slaughter of gay men in a city on the other side of the world, we can never reach complete equality. I only hope that as we work to improve the rights of LGBTs in this country, we realize that there are others around the world in tragically dire situations that need our help.

But as I write this, thousands of feet above this region of romance, this continent of intimate compassion, I find myself in a very different world. Thousands of feet above the star-crossed lovers having their first kiss in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and miles away from the sweet whispers of young love wafting from a Viennese wine bar, I am trying to drown out the couple behind me. With the roar of the plane’s engines reminding me of my impending journey across the Atlantic, I can’t seem to escape the consistent argument that has plagued two of my fellow passengers, an assumed married couple, since we departed European soil two hours ago.

It all started with the gate being too crowded. Austrian Airlines had overbooked their morning flight from Vienna to Washington and the waiting area at the terminal was a buzzing overcrowded hive. Whole families sat cross-legged on the trampled carpet waiting to board at the earliest convenience. Unfortunately, my flight is made up of mostly middle-aged to older couples, many returning from group tours. They yell to each other, shouting across the terminal, complaining about this, commenting on that. “Hey Cheryl. CHER-YL!” one balding American man belts from his seat near the ticket counter. “Look at this!” He gesticulates wildly, waving his hand in a broad arc to encompass the room. “Ridiculous! What were these Austrians thinking? Good job booking this flight!” Cheryl, overweight and lounging in her tracksuit with thick make up, clutched her passport purse and scowled. Behind them, I check to see if anyone is reacting to this embarrassing excuse for diplomats, a role everyone takes on when leaving their home country, a philosophy in which I firmly believe. The airline staff is too busy dealing with other impatient and complaining passengers. I roll my eyes on their behalf.  Shortly thereafter we board the plane and to my chagrin, Cheryl and her assumed husband sit behind us. We take off and the two instantly return to their bickering.

Two hours into the flight, the couple has poked and prodded at each other to no end. Cheryl’s seat isn’t reclined enough. Cheryl’s husband’s television screen isn’t working properly. Cheryl doesn’t want to watch the stupid new Terminator movie being shown. Cheryl’s husband’s beer doesn’t taste right. I am close to turning around and terminating their marriage: a citizen’s divorce. Cheryl flags down the flight attendant and needs another coke, please. “Danke shon,” she projects her horrific German skills above and across the seats. I am reminded of a conversation I had with a close friend before my trip. As we walked home from a party, she reflected on our mutual friends and resigned herself to the idea that she could see some of them getting married and settling down “just to do it.” She said that she could see many of them settling down in a decade or so, just so that they could.  Marrying just because nothing else was going for them. While I kept silent during most of the conversation, careful not to mention anything that might offend my friend, I couldn’t help but recoil at the thought. What’s the point of settling down if not for love?

Cheryl and her husband seem to be trying their best to cement my view. While it is not my place to question their feelings or history together (it is quite possible both of them are actually in love and enjoy their constant bickering),  I can’t help but notice the couple’s intensely negative body language. I really can’t help but wonder: Are they seriously in love? Did they get married and settle down “just to do it?” More importantly, for how many people is this scenario the case? Does society’s pressure concerning marriage have something to do with this phenomenon, and if so, what fate does this spell for those gay couples for whom marriage is now an option?

I reach desperately for my headphones and close my eyes. Cheryl is going on and on about something or other. Her husband just can’t get comfortable, his “damn seat won’t recline enough.” I feel for the poor soul bearing the brunt of his adjustments and the flight attendant who is constantly being called upon by Cheryl. I turn up the volume of my music player as Andrew W.K.’s “Long Live the Party” blocks out the maddening couple. The guitar and singer’s shouts drown out the Terminator movie, the plane engines, and Europe below.

For some, those married and settled, some might say that the party might be over. But for me, being single means soaring at an incredible speed across the blue oceanic expanse below. For me the party has just started.

Martyr's Square, Beirut, Lebanon, 2008

Lebanon defies stereotypes. Simply put, this country is infectious. The antithesis of the Middle Eastern stereotype of sand dunes and camels, Lebanon is mostly lush green mountains and valleys dotted with incredible cedar trees, olive groves, and vineyards, all with the backdrop of the strikingly blue Mediterranean to the west. Once called the Switzerland of the Middle East, Lebanon unfortunately has been plagued by violence and tribal-like unrest since its civil war that lasted from 1975-1990. Any tensions hung over from the decade and a half of conflict broke free during the 2006 Summer War between Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shiia opposition group, and Israel.

Yet despite the quarter century of country-wide conflict, Lebanon is at the forefront of gay rights in the Middle East. No other country even comes close. Like most Middle Eastern countries, homosexuality is technically considered illegal, but barely enforced. What sets Lebanon apart from the rest is the organization Helem, the first and only Middle East LGBT organization. Meaning “dream,” Helem was founded in the capital city of Beirut in order to further the rights of Lebanese homosexuals, as well as gay communities in other Arab countries. As stated on its website, it is an official, legal organization under Lebanese law, a feat almost unheard of in other Middle Eastern countries. With a regular publication, “Barra,” and various programs that aim to help and protect gays in Lebanon and the Middle East, Helem is making leaps and bounds in raising awareness of LGBT rights and issues in Beirut and elsewhere, including publishing guidebooks for parents with LGBT children translated into Arabic and psychological counseling and HIV testing at their community center in Beirut. This is quite shocking in a region where to even speak about homosexuality is completely taboo.

In general, Lebanon is the exception when it comes to openness in society. Walking down a street in downtown Beirut, you will find young women in spaghetti strap tops and designer jeans, passing robed Shiia clerics, passing blonde European tourists, passing groups of men clad in Hezbollah T-shirts. Lebanon recognizes seventeen religions in a country smaller than California. There are Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shiia Muslims, Druze, Greek Orthodox, Baha’is, and even some Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus. There are mosques built next to malls built next to churches built next to dance clubs.

Lebanon is one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East, and I think that it is because of this diversity that opportunities for sexual openness came about. The number of bars and clubs in Beirut match, if not exceed, the number of similar establishments in big European and American cities. Not only are most bars and clubs gay friendly (ambiguous, almost), but there are more and more gay-oriented clubs and spots becoming available to gays in Lebanon. A recent New York Times article specifically highlights Beirut as a gay traveler’s destination. The article mentions one club in particular, Acid, located in the hilly Beirut district of Sin el-Fil, as the one, true gay bar of the Middle East. Having traveled to Beirut and experienced Acid myself, I completely agree.

Like most clubs in Beirut, Acid doesn’t really start to fill up until, at the earliest, 2 am. As an avid morning person, the prospect of a night out at Acid would require every ounce of strength I could muster. Located on a bend of a tall hill overlooking the twinkling city and still waters of the Mediterranean, one feels like they are reaching the top of a biblical mountain in order to receive a divine commandment. And that commandment is to have the most fun night of your life.  Entering the enormous club, you think you have stepped into the hottest dance party in New York or Paris. Leaving religion at the door, LGBT’s from every corner of the country come to this one spot to mix, meet, and dance until late into the morning, long past sunrise. An open bar and some of the best dj’s in the region make Acid one of the most popular spots for both gay and straight Lebanese.

As Beirut throbs to the cacophony of inter-faith gay mixing at Acid and other bars, along with the chants from Helem’s gay rights advocates, rural Lebanon is a much different place. While the city is generally open to those with different beliefs and lifestyles, drive two hours northwest into the Bekaa Valley, near the border with Syria, and you will find broad highways and country roads littered with billboards and posters of Hezbollah martyrs and prominent Lebanese and Iranian clerics. Once through the vinyards and mountains that act a sort of geographic barrier between urban and rural Lebanon, one discovers a completely different country led by conservatives and grappling with life in areas affected by years of war with neighboring Syria and Lebanon. While Lebanon’s cities may be becoming the answer for the country’s gays, it’s countryside, like most other parts of the world, still lags in terms of proper education and opportunities for community and diversity. Many extremist organizations, like Hezbollah, are feeding off this backwardness and while they may not be able to stop Acid or it’s never-ending flow of mixed drinks, it can most certainly influence those who have no access to the opportunities provided to the urban elite on Lebanon’s coast. This growing rift between urban and rural Lebanon could result in a change of politics in both the cities and countryside, as Hezbollah and other conservative political organizations vie for more and more prominent posts in Lebanon’s confusing coalition government, and for more rights in its fragile constitution. The growing influence of such institutions could very well determine Lebanon’s long-term future, whether that be the continued refuge for many gays across the Arab world or a mini Arab Iran, bound by Islamic law (sharia) and strict social laws.

I left Lebanon over a year ago and I still cannot get it out of my mind. It is the exception in the Middle East. I think it is safe to say that Beirut, if anything, can almost definitely be called an oasis for gays in the mostly closeted Levant. But will this openness, thanks to Lebanon’s diverse society and plethora of religions, last? With the growing influence of Syria and Iran, both countries where homosexuality is not just outlawed, but strictly and many times violently repressed,  Lebanon is at a crossroads. Will it continue to be the beacon of hope for those sexually repressed in their own countries, or will it fall, it’s urban liberal joie de vivre a thing of the past, a geopolitical Abu Nuwas?

Allahu ‘alem (God only knows).

Felucca Sailboat Captain, Cairo, Egypt, 2007

What do you get when you combine the second longest river in the world, a whole lot of desert, a crossroad between Africa and Asia, and dozens of ancient pyramids? One of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East, Egypt is also one of the most famous locations in the world. I would bet there are not many people who aren’t familiar with the terms “pharaoh” or “sphinx.” Egypt embraces its ancient history steeped in rich civilizations, the results of which take the form of magnificent architecture that still stands despite thousands of years under the harsh North African sun. But contemporary Egypt is a much different place. The stepping stone for the Muslim invasion of North Africa in the seventh century, Egypt’s pharaonic culture of old has been replaced by an Arab, mainly Islamic one. Withstanding colonialism and other invasions, it would be safe to say that most Egyptians today identify with the greater Arab society, as was showcased in the Arab socialism movements in the 1960′s and 1970′s. But with the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981, Egypt was ushered into an era of “emergency rule” under the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, who still holds office today. I would argue that with the fall of Arab socialism, Egypt’s more open society was replaced by one very much repressed by its own government. From Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood to pro-democratic reformers, the current Egyptian administration’s strict rule of law has impeded social progress in many arenas, especially that of Egyptian homosexuals.

As I traveled throughout the Middle East, I was consistently told that Cairo, the capital of Egypt, is a gay city. With a population double the size of New York City, yet crammed into an area about the quarter of the size of Paris, Cairo is the definition of Middle East metropolis. Loud, polluted, and exhausting, Cairo can be a handful to those not accustomed to the large crowds and erratic traffic that defines the city. Needless to say, Cairo is not for the faint of heart. When I arrived, I couldn’t help but make comparisons between Cairo and New York City: both are the centers of their country’s media and entertainment, equipped with wild cab drivers, looming skyscrapers, and metro systems that, despite initial doubts, are actually functional. Cairo does indeed market itself as the hub of the Middle East; most Arabs understand Egyptian Colloquial Arabic through the various television programs, soap operas, and news outlets that beam out of Egypt. But unlike New York City, Egypt’s gay community is for the most part underground.

If anything, the gay scene in Egypt reminded me of a New York City where the Stonewall Riots happened, but the fight for civil rights, and ultimate recognition of homosexuals, did not. In other words, a twisted alternate reality of the American gay civil rights story set to a backdrop of pyramids and bustling souqs. Unlike most Middle Eastern countries, Egypt does not specifically label homosexuality as illegal, although in many cases it is treated like a crime and, if anything, is an extreme taboo. In terms of government, the Egyptian homosexual community is treated as a scapegoat to cover up for unsound political and economic decisions, corrupt politicians, or to assuage the growing resentment of the Islamist opposition to the current secular regime. The most obvious example of this was the Queen Boat Incident that took place back in 2002. After allegedly receiving tips that men were dressing in women’s clothing, the Egyptian security forces surrounded the Queen Boat, a riverboat nightclub and restaurant docked to the island of Zamalek in central Cairo. The police arrested fifty-two of the Egyptian party-goers, imprisoning them in facilities across the city. Many of the men were tortured and beaten. After a fairly publicized trial, about half were released and the other half were accused of defaming Islam, the religion of about 90% of the country. Some of the accused individuals even claimed to have been random citizens kidnapped by the police in the poor outskirts of Cairo and then accused of taking part in the Queen Boat affair. Liberal Egyptians point to this horrific act against the Egyptian gay community as the time when many Egyptians woke up to the idea of homosexuality in their society. This has been both a good thing in terms of creating awareness in Egypt of sexual minorities, but has also resulted in widespread condemnation across the country of gay people and any sort of political representation. Despite the horrors many of the Queen Boat victims have described since being released from the authorities, there has not been a movement to try and make the Egyptian government realize the rights of gay people in the country. If anything, the government has clamped down even further on any move to represent sexual minorities in Egypt, blaming human rights groups and NGOs of trying to import Western values into their society. Egypt’s stonewall has come and gone, but the country still lacks a conducive atmosphere to start any sort of momentum towards a civil rights movement.

But, like most of the world, gays in Egypt still live their lives, albeit without any guaranteed rights or say in the government. After the Queen Boat, Egypt’s gay community moved underground, meeting in pre-determined bars and apartments. I was lucky to find myself invited to a private gay party hosted at a neighbor’s apartment. In all honesty, before I arrived, I battled with my western stereotypes of what a “gay party” would be like: a massive sex-fest involving pent-up Middle Easterners. Why else would they all want to meet in private, in an apartment no less? These trepidations were immediately erased once I arrived at the party. The get-together turned out to be much like any other house party one could find in the city involving young people and ex-patriots. About four dozen Egyptian men and women mingled, Muslim and Christians, male and female, merely interested in meeting others like them. And while the hosts were initially alarmed at the entrance of a group of foreigners (there is always the fear of being caught by secret agents of the Egyptian security forces), we were welcomed with open arms. And after a few drinks, the fear of discovery was left behind to be replaced by dancing and flirting. As I left the party, I felt assured that, beneath the extreme conservatism projected by the Egyptian government and Western media on Egyptian society, there lies a community of people yearning to live their lives the way they want, the way they were meant to, religion and politics be damned.

The Queen Boat still sits docked alongside Zamalek, hosting Egyptian weddings on the weekends and intimate dates during the week. It is now a permanent fixture to Cairo’s skyline. Unlike other establishments that might close down after such a public incident, the Queen Boat still floats in the Nile, staring the Egyptian capital buildings in the face, a sign that no amount of religious appeasement or government corruption will make it pull up anchor and sail away (if it’s even capable of such a feat). And while the Egyptian government continues to suffocate its people and sexual minorities, shimmers of hope can be found emanating from the Nile-bound society. In 2002, Alaa Al Aswany published his novel, The Yacoubian Building, featuring a gay main character, to both Egyptian and international acclaim. A film adaptation was released in 2006 that featured love scenes and a recognizable romantic relationship between the gay character and his boyfriend. These small steps by way of the Egyptian entertainment industry have opened the door for future exploration of sexual minorities in a country with a population as diverse as its history. Egypt may not be the vacation destination for the global gay community just yet, but there are definitely signs that the tide has turned. Egypt has had it’s Stonewall. The time to call for civil rights is now.

Sunset over the Djemma el-Fnaa, Marrakech, Morocco, 2006

“Sadj” is the colloquial Arabic word for “gay” in most countries of the Middle East. While a more appropriate adjective “mithli” (“like me, similar, same-(sex)”) has found its way into the elite academic vernacular of contemporary Arab society, “sadj” is the term I heard most during my travels in the Middle East. Meaning, roughly, “peculiar” or “strange,” sadj is the easy way to classify a homosexual in the Arab world. The concept of homosexuality, of intimate and romantic same-sex relations, is still so taboo, that there is no need to delve farther than that one word. Forget butch or fem or any other adjectives you’ve come to appreciate as descriptive markers in Western gay society: sadj pretty much covers all the bases. More a result of culture than of religion (but now, unfortunately, reinforced by the three dominant monotheistic religions of the region), homosexuality in the Middle East nowadays is something people don’t particularly care to talk about. In some more progressive parts of the region, people understand and recognize that these “sadjeeyeen” exist, but there is no need to discuss them. Morocco is one of these places.

If you juxtapose Morocco (Maroc, in French) against many other countries in the Arab world, such as Sudan or Iraq, the sliver of North Africa looks likes a calm oasis for Middle Eastern gays and lesbians. While sporadic acts of violence against homosexuals is definitely a threat, they pale in comparison to the recent violence that has flared in post-invasion Iraq. And while many Moroccans are just as torn on the issue as most Arabs across the Middle East, Morocco tends to be a more lenient society overall than other North African countries. Morocco itself is a patchwork of cultures and languages, ranging from Berber to Spanish, Portuguese to Arab, and French to Senegalese and sub-saharan African. Most Moroccans are descendants of the Berbers, the original inhabitants of the the “maghreb” region of North Africa, including the current Moroccan ruler, King Mohammed VI. Throw in there a mix of all the ethnicities listed above and you have a country steeped in cultural diversity and plurality. In my opinion, this kind of melting pot of cultures, minorities, languages, and religions is the ideal environment for the acceptance of homosexuals. Look at the United States or Britain: two countries with relatively accepting social policies with historically large immigrant populations. Currently Morocco has the potential to reach the level of acceptance needed for an open society that embraces homosexuals, but with the rising threat of Islamic fundamentalism and extremism, as well as a cultural revival aiming to bring Morocco back to the seventh century and the time of the Prophet Muhammad, homosexuals (at least Moroccan homosexuals) continue to be looked at, thankfully in a mostly nonviolent manner, as taboo: as “sadj.”

This doesn’t mean that Morocco is anti-gay. On the contrary, the country has come a long way under the auspices of the current royal regime. In 2005, King Muhammad VI endorsed a grand, sweeping reform of the mudawana, or Moroccan family code, that extended much needed basic human rights to Morocco’s women and children, much to the chagrin of many fundamentalists. In addition to the family law reforms, King Muhammad VI has expanded (if only by a small measure) the power of Morocco’s parliament and has endorsed the idea of more powerful multiparty political system. While Morocco’s monarchy is not going anywhere anytime soon (the king is considered a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad), many in Morocco are becoming more and more impatient with the royal house. And while most homes and shops are equipped with portraits of their youthful king, it is common to find many Moroccans who would rather see the throne abolished, to be replaced by a more democratic system or an Islamist-led regime. New rumors about the king emerge everyday and can result in a strict response from the Moroccan government if leaked to the press or published online. The most entertaining, and personally interesting, rumor I stumbled across during my time in Morocco is that the king himself may be homosexual. Young, in his forties, and an avid water sportsman, many street vendors sell smiling photos of the king on vacation jet skiing in the south of France. Very rarely do you see pictures of the Moroccan ruler with his young wife or child. One of the juiciest rumors came this past summer, when it became known that the Moroccan king had decided to take a vacation to a private chateau outside of Paris, sans his wife or child, and, presumably, in the company of men. Could the Moroccan king be gay? For most traditional Moroccans, this would result in a blasphemy so intense it could threaten the throne itself. The idea of a gay member of the Prophet Mohammad’s lineage would be disastrous for the royal family and Morocco’s system of constitutional monarchy. Unfortunately, we may never know. Any questioning the king’s sexuality would almost certainly result in a swift backlash by the royal house and the Moroccan authorities. It is important to note that this type of response by the Moroccan government is not reserved for questioning their ruler’s personal life alone, almost any publicized opinion of the king can result in imprisonment or trial.

The king aside, Moroccan society, especially urban communities, are becoming slightly more open to homosexuals in their presence, if not the accepting of the actual concept itself. Marrakech, for example, is the largest city in southern Morocco and the tourist hub of the country. Known for its pink hued buildings, winding “souks” (markets) and djemma el-fnaa, or Square of the Dead, once used to display the executions of prisoners but now used for outdoor food stalls and entertainment, Marrakech is the Morocco many think of when considering the country for a vacation. With the desert to one side and the looming High Atlas mountains to the other, Marrakech is truly a magical city. This is made more so by its recent transition into a more decadent venue. Bars and clubs are springing up across the new city, inviting Moroccans to sit back, sip a beer (another taboo across much of the Middle East) and socialize with singles outside of the home and immediate community. Across town, in the old city, gay Europeans are coming in droves to buy up expensive real estate to renovate traditional Moroccan riads, or courtyard homes, into summer homes. Many rural Moroccan gays are leaving their villages and farms to settle into apartments and homes in Morocco’s new flashy vacation city. Walking through the djemma el-fnaa one evening, I met several gay Moroccan men, all out enjoying themselves and their new found urban freedom. This new liberalism has even resulted in the publication of a “Hedonists Guide to Marrakech”, part of a series of tour books usually reserved for larger, more European destinations. Agadir, Casablanca, and Fez, three other Moroccan cities, are also working to catch up with Marrakech’s success, expanding their new cities and allowing the construction of discotheques, bars, and other places that encourage mingling amongst the Moroccan youth.

In short, Morocco is no France or Spain. To be openly homosexual is still dangerous, if more to one’s reputation and family honor than to one’s physical safety as in other Middle Eastern countries. While the king still calls all the shots and the press is heavily censured, the diverse history of the Moroccan people is creating a moderate atmosphere in a conservative neighborhood of the world. More and more Moroccan gays are finding it easier to meet each other and live their lives, especially in cities such as Marrakech. Gay travelers are finding an option in the Middle East to experience Arab culture and not fear for their safety, although modesty is absolutely required when in public. And while the Moroccan dialect still uses words such as “sadj” to describe homosexuals, many are finding themselves apathetic and, in some rare cases, open to same-sex relations. After returning home from living in Morocco, I called my host brother to tell him that I am gay. I was almost more nervous than when I came out to my parents. I expected immediate rejection from my host family, a crumbling of cross cultural relations I had nurtured over the past year. To my surprise my host brother and other Moroccan friends completely embraced my sexuality. “Who cares?” my host brother exclaimed, “You are my brother, and I love you for who you are.”

I only hope that this feeling of acceptance and openness will become more and more widespread in Morocco in the years to come.

Harira Soup Vender, Marrakech, Morocco

The Middle East gets a really bad wrap. A product of backwards colonial policies and a general ignorance on the part of many people in the world, most associate this region with wars, terrorists, conservative fundamentalists, Muslim extremists, and close-minded societies. Some people only know the area for its connections with the two Gulf wars and the War on Terror in Afghanistan (which is not even actually part of the Middle East). To many Americans, the Middle East and North Africa regions are characterized by oppressed women in veils, turbaned and bearded jihadist fighters sitting in caves plotting world domination and destruction, and, in general, societies that despise Western civilization and America in particular. This romanticizing of the “Evil Arab/Muslim” has reached a height of such massive naivete that there are now movements out there to quell this spreading unintelligence, especially in America. These have taken the form of various films, documentaries, and books such as Reel Bad Arabs by Jack Shaheen and various publications by Edward Said. Simply browsing through these works, it is astounding to see how negative stereotypes of Arabs and the Middle East have been hammered into our minds. From Disney characters to basic education surrounding current events in the Middle East, America’s perspective on the region, via the media and popular culture, has been cast in shadow, suspicion, and fear. Most Americans can’t find Iraq on a map and many have either never heard of Palestine or think it is a legitimate part of Israel. This callowness is disgraceful and exceptionally embarrassing. For a country that claims to be at the pinnacle of education in the world, this is unacceptable.

It was a result of this general incomprehension that I become interested in the Middle East. When I left for college, I had initially set out to learn Chinese. After experiencing the overcrowded Chinese language classrooms at my alma mater, I went back to my academic adviser with a different idea. I would enroll in their new Middle East program and learn Arabic. I had never been to the Middle East, but as a kid, I had had a huge crush on Disney’s Aladdin (one I would later regret). I even had Aladdin bedsheets, with Aladdin’s beautifully drawn pectoral muscles showcased on the pillowcases (and my parents wondered why I never wanted to get out of bed!). I had grown up in a small town, in a Christian family, and with little knowledge of Middle Eastern or Muslim society or culture. I had never been to a mosque, never eaten hummus, and had dressed as Jafar for Halloween in fifth grade. It was with this limited, narrow view of anything Middle Eastern that I started learning a language that would come to define my personal, academic, and professional interests.

And yet, while my desire to learn more about the region grew and my linguistic ability to speak Arabic continued to develop, I found more and more people were confused as to why I wanted to learn the language of such a negatively perceived part of the world. My parents would plead with me to take up French or Italian instead. What could I possibly see in a region that was becoming labeled as the place where those terrorists came from that blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Even after the novelty of learning a new language and culture wore off, I was determined to prove that the Middle East was nothing like everyone made it out to be. Not even a year into language training, I had met some of the most incredible individuals I had ever met before, all hailing from the Middle East. It was with this spirit of curiosity and stereotypes-be-damned attitude that I sought out any way to get myself over to the Middle East. It was the first time I can ever say I had a calling for something.

But my friends and family were still confused. Wouldn’t it be easier, especially for a young gay man, to study somewhere more “open,” such as Europe? Wouldn’t it be dangerous as a gay man to travel and live in the war-torn sandy hinterlands of Africa and southwest Asia? Even as I boarded the plane for my first trip to the region, a slight sense of hesitation crept into my consciousness. What was I really doing? And what did I really expect, as a homosexual westerner, to get out of traveling, studying, and living in the Middle East?

Little did I know that the experiences that I had in several of the countries of the Middle East would defy expectation. I soon found out that, much like all other parts of Arab/Muslim/Middle Eastern society, homosexuality has been stigmatized in Western culture and extremely misconstrued. As the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was claiming that there were no gays in Iran, I was enjoying an amazing drag show at a club in Hammamet, Tunisia, on one of the most holy days in Islam: Eid El-Fitr, the holiday that ends the month of Ramadan. While various religious clerics and governments blasted homosexuality as an unforgivable sin of society, the real Middle East, the everyday people that make up some of the most culturally vibrant societies in the world, were embracing my sexuality, yet in their own in way.

This isn’t to say that the Middle East isn’t a sexuality repressed and oppressed region: there are various factors that I’ll point out in following articles that prove otherwise. If anything, though, I found that the definitions westerners use for sexuality and cultural expression are not applicable to the Middle East. To understand the situation of gays and lesbians in the region (and I don’t presume to having such an understanding), one must throw out the traditional western views on homosexuality and sexual expression. Forget tops. Forget bottoms. In a region where sexuality, for the most part, is so utterly taboo that it is kept behind closed doors, it is important to take a fresh view in order to try and understand how Middle Eastern sexuality works. In many cases, it can be argued that, like most of the world, sexual expression varies country to country and not by region. I will be utilizing this view in my coming posts. It is also important to remember that, much like the rest of the world, despite what the media decides to show, this region is modernizing and at an incredible rate.

Please know that you will not find a city in the Middle East without an exploding cellphone and internet culture. You will not find a city in the Middle East with a skyline that isn’t peppered with aging satellite dishes atop every building. And you will not find a city in the Middle East without homosexuals. Through my next posts, I hope to shed more light on homosexuality in the Middle East, on being a western gay man in the Middle East, and what Americans and American homosexuals can learn from their brothers and sisters in this intensely rich and historic part of the world.

Pittsburgh Regatta, July 2005

I recently took a weekend trip to Pittsburgh, the city where I earned a somewhat useless bachelor’s degree and can safely say helped shape me into the man I am today. Since moving from Pittsburgh to DC, I’ve come across many stereotypes of my former post-industrial home, such as it being a sports obsessed city (see: Steelers, Penguins, Pirates) to a boring rest-stop on the way to Chicago (see: downtown Pittsburgh after 9pm). To these declarations I like to point out the various universities and academic institutions that now dominate the city, from Carnegie Mellon University to the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University, to the wide array of art galleries (The Andy Warhol Museum, the Mattress Factory, and the Carnegie Museum of Art). Pittsburgh is no highway side-show attraction bridging the East Coast to the Midwest: Pittsburgh is a rare island of social liberalism tucked into a desolate mountainous Western Pennsylvania. To top off Pittsburgh’s rising fame and glory, just a few months ago the White House picked Pittsburgh for the next G20 summit to be held in September. What now, New York City?

While I spent almost four of my most formative years in this Appalachian urban wonderland, I can’t help but feel, after being separated from ‘Daburgh for almost two years now, a distinct separation from my former home. Since I moved to DC, I’ve tended to think of myself as a Yinzer,uprooted by way of graduation from university and re-planted back in Washington, DC. I tried to immerse myself in my new community as much as possible, but my heart still soared if someone offered me a can of Iron City beer or if I stumbled across pierogies or a bright yellow terrible towel. I would daydream of strolling through the markets in the Stip District on a blustery November Saturday, steaming coffee in hand, as winter made it’s early debut in the Allegheny Mountains. I’d think back to riding my bike up and down the steep hills that make up the city of Pittsburgh or, as some call it, the San Francisco of the East. Six hours, at least, by car to most of the East Coasts major cities, contemporary Pittsburgh evolved into it’s own being isolated from the outside world. Even a trip to Philadelphia, located in the same state, but several hours by car, was a hefty trip. Through this gritty isolation Pittsburgh, along with its gay scene, grew into something completely different than any other in the region. Not quite mid west, but miles from the East Coast, Pittsburgh is the awkward in-between and it was in this mountainous grey region I thrived. Despite a hard first year in college, I quickly found myself falling in love with Pittsburgh and fast.

But all of my previous affection for Burghland came into question on a recent visit back to the city. Eager for a long weekend away from the District, my roommates and I packed up the car and headed north, northwest and onwards, up into Somerset country and the mountains beyond. Despite having driven back and forth across the Pennsylvania Turnpike countless times in college, I couldn’t help but marvel at all the sights I seemed to miss in my rush to leave and return to Pittsburgh. The grace of the aging Allegheny mountains, the wind turbines and old dairy farms dotting the countryside, the decaying small towns of an industrial era long gone. With today’s current economic situation in mind, I wondered if many other towns in America face the same impending decay that befell Western Pennsylvania. Take a short drive through many of these town’s main roads and you could swear that you had been transported back to the 1950′s. The pizzeria is still there. As are the smoke stacks. But in it all a romance brought on by the death of a society, the end of a golden age of picket fences, pies cooling on windowsills, and penny candy a-plenty. We arrived in Pittsburgh ready to return to a familiar landscape with familiar faces and friendly bars harking us back to our years as naive college students, enclosed in the comforting arms of a city that, despite its rough past, has embraced a new and thriving present.

Unfortunately, this idealized romance did not last long. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had been associating with a community to which I had much less in common than I had thought. Instead of returning to the regular bars of my collegiate years, my friends insisted we head to the different venues. As I got ready to head out that first night, one of my friends noted that he was shocked to find such “crazy-city-gay” underwear among the clothes I had absentmindedly thrown into my gym bag before leaving DC. I immediately thought back to my first trip to Universal Gear this past spring. I hadn’t purchased anything too extravagant, I had thought, just your basic clean cut underwear. But to this particular Pittsburgher, the brand alone of my fairly new boxer briefs singled a shift to a flamboyant new urban lifestyle not found in his rustic steel belt city. That night, we went out for drinks to a nearby bar/dance party reminiscent of something that would be found on U St. My friend introduced me to the bartender, who happened to be gay. An extremely nice and amiable fellow, this yinzer was decked out with what looked like a thick, brown mullet, slight belly, and a Pirates hat to top it off. In essence, the very antithesis of the fancy, gym-loving (yet sports abhorring) urban male I’ve encountered on many occasions in DC. As we introduced ourselves, I shifted nervously in my seat, thinking of the new red pair of briefs I had picked up before I left town, an act of covert treason to my yinzer roots. I wondered how many gay men I could find in DC that had the courage to sport a mullet or beer belly. Later that evening, we met up with more friends and headed to a dance party above a small bar in Lawrenceville, a cozy neighborhood of Pittsburgh just outside of downtown and away from the universities and hospitals that make up the neighborhoods of Oakland and Shadyside. Entering the dance floor, I ran into a DC friend’s roommate, home visiting her family in Pittsburgh for the weekend. We started dancing and she leaned over to me, gasping into my ear, “It’s so good to be back! You just can’t find this in DC, you know?” I said I understood, but I’m not sure I actually did. Don’t get me wrong: I was having a great time with great people. But there was something missing. I felt disconnected from my old stomping grounds. Was it my defiant underwear, or maybe the fact that I didn’t know most of the music being played? Earlier, I had attempted to share some new music I’d picked up in DC with my friends while we pregamed, only to have my ipod shunned, with some bands I had showcased to my old friends being called “generic.” Was I not cool enough for Pittsburgh anymore?

With questions of my geopolitical identity swirling around my head at all times, the rest of my trip seemed to go by in an instant, but with very little gratification. I found myself yearning for the staples of my DC life. With each attempt at rekindling my nostalgia for Pittsburgh, I was met with slight disappointment. I had lunch at my favorite vegetarian cafe, only to find the food slightly cold and not that tasty. After indulging in a thick lychee bubble tea that I had dreamed about for months, I found myself with an intense stomach-ache and a nausea un-matched on the car ride back to DC.  Even the weather, the constant Pittsburgh overcast cool gray, made me angry I hadn’t brought a sweater and, while I hesitate to say it, I actually longed for the warm humidity of summer in our capital swamp. There was no question that I had I built Pittsburgh up in my mind since I had left. But I wasn’t ready to completely throw away my old home that quickly. Despite the apparent disconnect I was feeling, it scared me to think that I was losing my Pittsburghness. While my friends welcomed me back with open arms, I couldn’t help but feel the outsider, looking in on a world to which I used to be a part and still thought of as my own territory. It is natural for places and people to change, but what if I wasn’t ready?

I returned to my quiet DC apartment late that Sunday evening. Exhausted, I threw my bags down and, with a sigh of relief, collapsed on my bed. As I lay in the darkness, I let DC envelope me back into its folds. Within no time I was covered in a sticky, light summer DC sweat. Peering out the window, I could see neighbors in the nearby park taking out their dogs before closing up for the night. A couple minutes later the 42 bus sped by, winding down the road on its nightly voyage through the wards. This and all the workings of DC welcomed me back. In today’s transient world, it is hard to really establish a real home. What makes one loyal to a certain place? Is it time spent in a certain area, or the cultural offerings only a certain place can provide? Or, on a more basic level, is it the people that make the place? As I navigate between lives in Pittsburgh and DC, two very distinct urban tribes, I wonder if I will ever feel completely at home where ever I end up, whether that be two years from now or twenty? Or am I destined to always long for that which I don’t have, such as the glittering lights of downtown Pittsburgh from the outlook on Mt. Washington, or the musky smell of vintage shirts heaped in piles in the back of Avalon clothing exchange?

Is there a way to truly reconcile my two tribes or am I bound, in this age of global nomadism, to constantly wander a path of geographic homelessness? More importantly: when does a tribe become a home and a home become an identity?

Photo by Blue Centerlight

A couple weekends ago I, and all others in the Northern hemisphere, woke up to the deathly heat of the depths of summer. Hailing from the the Northeast, summers had a tendency to get pretty damn hot, but because my childhood neighborhood consisted of fairly new, insulated, suburban, stately baby-boomer brick homes with fenced in swimming pools, summer could easily be avoided by cranking up the A/C, sneaking into Dad’s secret beer stash, and waiting out until October. Summer starts out with the best of intentions: warm, usually sunny weather invites us to leave the confines of our homes in which we’ve spent the past several months to spend time outdoors, whether that be a run through a park, a vacation to the beach, or simply a nice glass of iced tea on the stoop of one’s apartment building. Much like its cold, snowy cousin, summer means well, but almost two months in, I think it’s safe to say summer is starting to overdo it. As temperatures rise into the high nineties and the humidity of our swampy home settles like a suffocating blanket over the city, I’m beginning to think that August, while given the hard job as the last month of summer, is becoming increasingly less sexy.

Being single in the summer definitely has its perks. After months of solitary confinement in my apartment, living off a variety of stews, Scrabble, and reorganizing and then re-reorganizing my furniture, summer was nature’s invitation to get out and explore my community. All of a sudden I was meeting neighbors who lived in my building and who I had never encountered before. We even started to invite each other to quiet evenings of drinks on the steps leading up to our building. The park situated across from my apartment building became a hotbed of young urban professionals walking their dogs, playing with their dogs, and introducing their dogs. Down the street, a patch of what I once thought was vacant realty blossomed into a small urban Gethsemmane, which after a while began to brim with bright green peppers, startlingly red tomatoes, and even a few stalks of corn and what I assume will be pumpkins. Beyond my neighborhood, it seemed like everyone was sitting outdoors having a drink, eating dinner, and meeting with friends. I believe complete transformation is an appropriate description of DC in the summer to DC in the winter. And while DC’s residents blossomed with an obsession with the outdoors, so did the city’s dating scene. All of a sudden, from bars to clubs to house parties, DC’s singles slowly emerged from hiding. Over the course of two months, I found myself not only face-to-face with potential dates, but going on several dates, and finding myself asked out for second and even third dates. As the harsh, cold temperatures of winter relaxed into the mild heat of June and July, so did my inhibitions. In order to accommodate the rising heat and eager to break ties with the doldrum that was DC’s winter, I found myself cutting up old pairs of winter trousers and jeans, once critical for warmth, into trendy new “jorts” and cut-off shorts. I stumbled through allergy season and lived to tell the tale. Summer was gearing up to be one of the best seasons yet.

Unfortunately, as the age old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. To many summer enthusiasts, this would be the last day that the pool is open or that bittersweet Labor Day picnic. For me, this happened to be the first days of August. And, only eleven days in, while August hasn’t really had a fair chance to prove itself to me, I have to say that it is starting to feel more and more tiresome and depressing as muggy day leads into the next muggy, humid day. The mild summer days of June and July have fled for other climes, leaving DC stuck in a static heat so miserable, those with barely functioning or no air conditioners can’t help but pray for the fall. The simplest tasks have become the most arduous. From grocery shopping to cleaning the apartment, one is almost promised to end up sticky, sweaty and cursing for summer’s sizzling hot siege to be lifted. For me, rising temperatures have affected my single lifestyle. Nothing says sexy like waking up next to a new date to find that, even with the window open, you’ve sweat yourself and each other into oblivion. Casual drinks at a favorite outdoor cafe are now marked by vigorous rituals to avoid sweating through one’s clothing, despite even the breezy comfortability of jorts. Nothing says “I’m really into you” like nervously wiping beads of sweat from your forehead while trying to hog the only fan located in the back of the bar. Even if the social norms of contemporary Western society were suddenly erased and everyone could walk around naked tomorrow, August would still make me want to just lie on the floor of my apartment, fans on high, hoping for even just a brief break from the heat before temperatures rise again to point where even cold showers and ice cream can’t don’t do the trick.

Maybe there is a reason why August tends to be the harshest of months. After June and July, it is only appropriate for there to be a kind of punishment, a karma, for the indulgence that warm, breezy early summer temperatures permit. For those of us with the money and flexibility to travel on vacation in August, this conclusion may not be quite appropriate. But for me, and I would assume many young, relatively poor, urban professionals, August is starting to get a bit annoying. The other week I showed up for an interview, face flushed red from the heat, my Brillo pad black hair matted down with sweat. One of my favorite hobbies of this past summer, running through Rock Creek Park, has turned into an exhausting and unhealthy affair. My mid-afternoon run now has to be pushed back to the evening, when mosquitoes, the tragic summer enemy, are at the their worst, or to the early morning. Many times the latter involves an ambition not afforded after a late night of fighting off the heat with refreshing alcoholic beverages. Everything has become sluggish and fried, from my social life to my mental state (For instance, I am now writing an article on the sexual degree of a month). Maybe there is a reason why there are no important holidays or quintessential events in the month of August. Everyone is just too damn hot to do anything noteworthy.

Since it is technically not over yet, it might be too early to reflect on my first summer in Washington. While I genuinely want to try and enjoy the last weeks of summer before schools starts back up and temperatures start to fall, I can’t help but daydream about jeans, sweaters, boots, soups, and falling leaves. It is a shame that summer has to come to such a humid, claustrophobic, and obnoxious end. But maybe it’s all for the best. Leaving on such a hazy, dreary note makes one remember the good times summer affords: the pool parties, quiet evening strolls, nervous dates, and life away from the confines of winter. As a single guy, it is a good time for me to look back on what the DC summer provides socially: new friends, dates, and potential relationships. Much like the rest of the year, DC summers are a time to network and branch out into the community. And while the newly filled ice cube tray just won’t freeze fast enough, goddamn it, so too does summer seem to linger. August definitely isn’t the sexiest of months. If I find another new bug bite or have to swat at one more fly, I may be forced to up and move to the nearest tundra my finances can afford. It’s easy to forget that August won’t be around forever. Much like summer interns returning to school and vacationers leaving town after sightseeing in the nation’s capital, so too will August, DC’s most irriguous thirty-one days, fade away. Come January, I’ll definitely be nostalgic for that fundamental aspect of urban summers: the openness warm weather and sun brings to a community packed tightly into a rectangular, politically unrepresented patch of former swamp land. Summer is romantic in its lethargy, but suffocating in its insistence to go out in a bang of oppressive heat. The new friends and relationships I’ve developed over the past two months have provided many exciting opportunities that I hope will last through until next summer and beyond. In the meantime, you will find me miserably strewn out on my stuffy, humid apartment floor, in my underwear, probably blasting Ravi Shankar or something while numbing the heat with copious amounts of beer and an unopened bag of frozen peas. August: if you don’t have to be sexy, neither do I.

Much like Internet dating, classifieds in newspapers, and most blind dates, I have never been an especially strong proponent of speed dating. While I pride myself for having mostly liberal views, I tend to take a traditional, more conservative viewpoint when it comes to meeting potential dates. All of my previous significant others were introduced to me through friends or family. And yet, I have always held a curious interest in speed dating events. Besides the ridiculous premise of several short, roughly five minute long dates over the course of an evening, I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to be shuffled around like chess pieces, all in hopes of finding one or two individuals with whom you can make a meaningful connection. In five minutes or less. And while the concept of structured dating seems to be dissolving in contemporary society – from what were once formal introductions, mostly via family, to new age dating such as social marketing websites, gym cruising, and late night bar hook ups – the concept of speed dating, while relatively new, has pretty much stayed the same over time. The idea is a simple one: plop a group of hopefully gregarious singles in one room, number them, and let them go at it, one-on-one, but only for a few minutes at a time, in order to test the water for possible romantic connections. While I assume many participants were merely there for the entertainment,  perhaps something to do on a cold, winter weeknight, I was genuinely interested in how the whole thing worked. Could I possibly meet a potential date in less than five minutes? It was a new and exciting challenge I definitely couldn’t turn down.

I situate myself across from my second date, what would be my next five minutes. Downing the last of what looked like a fairly large martini, he sets his empty glass on the table, crosses his legs, and gives me a one over. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes ware narrowing on the logo on my t-shirt. “Hi,” I attempt, looking down at my shirt and back up. I reached my hand out in welcome. Uncrossing his arms, he provides the briefest of hand shakes and then re-crossed his arms. We sit in silence for a minute. In my peripheral vision I can see Riptide pulling in his next victim beside me. I turn back to Arms-Crossed. Four minutes left to find quick, quick love. “Tell me what that means.” He gestures towards the printed logo above my chest. I proceed to explain that I had found the shirt in a one dollar bin, but I’m sure it had some great meaning at the time. And while I really do enjoy vintage clothing shopping, I could tell this answer wouldn’t please my present suitor. In retrospect, the answer sounds increasingly lame. Three minutes left. He starts to explain where every article of his outfit came from and I soon realized his shoes cost more than my whole outfit, prescription glasses included. The bell sounds. Time is up and all we had talked about was clothing. As I move down the line to the next five minutes of my life, I silently mourn the fact that we had blown our only five minutes together discussing designer jeans and faded, old shirts. I’m not even sure I had caught his name. I feel ashamed and stereotypically consumerist. Apparently, I really should just introduce myself as “Levi Skinny 511″ to this next guy.

“What?!” He stammers over the new music the bar had just started blaring. “Where did you say you traveled abroad?” I shouted again. We were three minutes in and either the DJ had just realized how poorly my dates were going or had decided that it was time to take a break and drown everyone in pop music. “What?!” he shouts again. I sighed, helpless, and take a quick swig of beer. I repeat the question. I can see his eyes desperately trying to read my lips. He leans in over the table. “Italy! Rome!” he offers, raising his eyebrows and nodding. I nod back in understanding.  ”And you?” he yells across the table. “Cairo! Egypt!” I venture. “What?!” He hunches over the table. I repeat my answer, emphasizing the consonants, letting the last “oh” linger out into the heaving beats of the music. Cai-ro! Cai-ro! He shakes his head, “Where?! What?!”

My last date of the night was wearing a tank top, in the middle of winter, and his right leg was happily bouncing to the beat. We introduce ourselves and toasted ourselves at being at the end of the long table of speed daters: the end of the line. I have to really make it quick; this is my last chance to make a speedy connection before the event ends and the normalcy of the Wednesday night in this small downtown bar resumes. DC small talk ensues: what do we do, where are we from, what do we really do, what do we want to do, and what do we seriously do? I remark that it was brave of him to be wearing a tank top in winter, especially since it had been raining earlier. I tell him that, if it was me, I would be worried I’d catch a cold. He vaguely tells me that he thinks I am sexy and looks bored.

Four dates down, I decide I have had enough for one night. Moving back to the bar, I rejoin a couple, two beautiful lesbians visiting the US from the Caribbean, who I had met when I first arrived at the bar. I quickly find myself falling head over heels for them as opposed to the various speed daters still mulling around the bar. Riptide is working another new victim and Date #4 is starting to look cold. We all buy each other drinks as the couple tries to convince me to take off my glasses and flirt with the bartender. The speed dating event eventually ends and a ladies’ night follows. As I worked my way back to the metro to head home, I reflect on my four dates of the night, twenty minutes stretched over the course of an evening. Four men I would probably never had met on my own and will probably never see again. I had accepted the challenge that speed dating had offered and while I had not found love at first sight, or even a potential second date with any of my speed dating comrades, I would definitely try it again. My friend had summed up speed dating a couple days before by saying that it was the perfect event to meet all the people you really don’t want to talk to when out with your friends. Despite being a slightly harsh critique, I had to agree to a certain extent. And while my friend may have looked upon speed dating in a negative light, I walked away with more of an appreciation for the idea. I didn’t leave with anything substantial, such as a new love interest or even a phone number. But I did find myself with a new found appreciation for this comedic attempt by society to unite and bring itself together, at all costs, even just for five minutes. Who knows, what if speed dating was applied to other situations? What if Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee had been asked to “speed date” for five minutes during the most intense of battles during the Civil War? What if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was asked to speed date with his recent reformist challenger, Mir-Houssein Mousavi? What if the UN started an international leader speed dating social? The entertainment factor aside, speed dating’s goal is to bring two supposed opposites together, in a ridiculously short amount of time, to work towards a common goal (not necessarily to achieve it). I wonder what sort of goals could be realized if this method was seriously applied to other facets of life, such as politics and culture? In today’s world of filibusters, lengthy rhetoric, and, in my case, overactive imaginations, the five minute date might just be the answer the world is looking for.

DC single guy Kareem submitted this post.

I come from a family of characters. A proud and hearty Mediterranean family, we pride ourselves on our anti pasta, dark hair, and boisterous interactions. Most get-togethers are characterized by old and young family members yelling across the kitchen for more olives or wine or one relative informing another to “shut upa’ with the shut upa’!” (I kid you not). On a recent visit to Italy with my brother, we took a train from Rome, down the western coast of the mainland, and across the northern coast of Sicily to the city of Palermo. For those unaware of Italian cultures, there is a dramatic difference between Sicilians and mainlanders. We Sicilians are loud (excessively so) and are known for such social gems as the mafia and overall Italian stereotypes. On the train across the island, my brother and I tried, to no avail, to get some sleep as fellow Sicilian passengers belted Southern Italian dialect at each other, back and forth, from one train compartment to the next. Our conductor sounded like he was the star of an opera, even when he was just asking to see our boarding passes. It was loud, and hot, and I questioned the integrity of our ancient train, with its wooden frame and dangerous lurching across the tracks. At any rate, these were my people, where my family came from, and despite the heated arguments of our neighbors in the compartments around us, we felt at home.

Yet regardless of the boisterous nature of my family, there is one topic we absolutely never breach and that is politics. My family is an amalgamation of political view points, ranging from the far, far right to a left way off the spectrum. Specifically, the two family members who represent this philosophical disarray are my grandparents. Both are devout Catholics, but each has extremely opposite political ideologies. How they managed to stay together long enough to birth three children and raise them is beyond me. It still baffles me to see them interact. For background: On a visit to my grandmother in October 2003, I caught my mother’s mother reacting violently to a televised campaign ad for George W. Bush. Lashing out at the television, my relative unleashed a flurry of insults at our previous president while I stood by, slightly in shock and slightly impressed by my elder. I made a note never to mess with grandma or her views on health care. On the other hand, my grandfather, while not prone to yelling at TV screens, is known to sit by, blasting Rush Limbaugh like the call to prayer from his radios in his garage and kitchen. In high school and summers during college, I used to help my grandfather around the house with his chores, all the while listening to his favorite conservative pundit blast his righteous sermons at me, telling me how I didn’t deserve to get married and that a wall between Mexico and the US was the only way to prosperity, world reputation be damned.

Needless to say, this has left me with a taste for quiet diplomacy that I’ve brought with me as I moved out onto my own. I like to think I am able to hold my own on various political issues while respecting the views of others. I like to think that there is something about being gay in today’s society that lends a degree of open-mindedness to most homosexuals. And while living in a city revolving around the global political establishment, I had made it almost a year before I really found myself in a situation where sex mixed with politics.

Until recently.

I will refrain from directly addressing the political issue that divided me and the individual with whom a one-night-stand turned into a political calamity. It is not the purpose of this article to promote one side of the issue or the other. At any rate, flashback to a Thursday night: Thankfully, I didn’t have work the next day and decided to spend the night celebrating a friend’s eminent departure abroad for a three-week business trip. After roaming around U Street, we ended up at a bar on 18th Street. It was the first time I’d been to this particular bar and after several drinks, I started to warm up to the crowded establishment. For a Thursday night, I was fairly impressed. While standing in line for the restroom, I managed to find myself standing across from an individual wearing a shirt in a certain foreign language I speak. The shirt advertised a neighborhood in a certain divided capital that I had visited the year before. A perfect conversation starter. Luckily for me, the guy (for the sake of anonymity, we will call him Ari) made the first move. As the bathroom line slowly dwindled, Ari and I exchanged small talk: how long had we lived here, what did we do in our spare time, what we were drinking, etc. Eventually our conversation veered into regional politics. We discussed his shirt and he informed me that he had lived in that certain city during his studies. Almost hesitantly, he informed me that he actually worked for a certain lobbying group, one of the largest in the country (arguably the world) that supports the government of that country, a country the US has had an unmatched relationship with up until a certain new prime minister took office this past year. Without giving away the identity of this country, I’ll just say that it has occupied another country for several decades and just recently waged a war in January against a small enclave of the occupied country that led to thousands of deaths and, for the most part, international condemnation. Having visited the countries in question, I had witnessed the effects of the occupation and the suffering and paranoia it has caused both sides.

I tried as hard as I could to be the diplomat, much like my mother with her radical parents, but it reached a point where I couldn’t hold back any longer. While I believe it is wrong to judge someone merely on their political views, I also couldn’t put it behind me that this guy worked, forty hours a week, full time, with benefits, for this certain lobbying organization. But he was also really attractive and interested. Before “one thing led to another,” I hastily made him agree on a two-state solution, an end to the occupation, and a right of return for refugees. He may have just been entertaining me at that point, but it was late, we were drunk, and we both knew what was about to happen. The next morning I awoke feeling eerily numb. Should I feel guilty for what I just did? What would my friends think? Was it appropriate to divulge this information to my friends, knowledge that might lead to unfair judgment of Ari and even tarnish my own reputation as well? Do politics really matter when two people are into each other? Can attraction transcend politics in a city known for its obsession with government and the affairs of state?

In the end, my friends were indeed shocked, but I don’t think they judged me too harshly. Even as their jaws dropped and my face blushed red, both with shame and a little bit of satisfaction that I had, indeed, slept with the metaphorical enemy (enemy is a harsh word, I’d rather say “ideological anti-pole”), I couldn’t help but think back to my grandparents, the epitome of opposites: one so far right he could give Karl Rove a run for his money, and the other so left that “ultra-liberal” would be a genuinely lenient description. From these two poles came my own mother and her two siblings: all incredible, intelligent, and amazing individuals. And while my grandparents are no longer together, their once shared love and brief detente resulted in a family to which I’m proud to say I’m a member. It all comes down to the universal diplomatic agreement that states that everyone will always have their own personal views no matter what. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time.

Twice.

Being single is rough. Specifically, the hunt to find a significant other can be incredibly draining: from setting up and keeping up to date with online accounts on match-making websites, to actively browsing Craigslist “missed connections” (don’t lie, you know you do it too), to the constant barrage of couple after couple walking down the street, out at restaurants, and in popular media. People make a living just discussing couples – how couples find each other, and how people connect. For the gay community, it seems the main outlet to meet people is to go out, almost exclusively in the evening and at night. From happy hour to early morning dancing at clubs and parties: the PM/early AM seems to be the definitive time frame in which to meet other single people. But what happens when, as an active single person, you are plagued with a hesitancy towards the dark, an aversion to the night? As I become more and more integrated into the nightlife culture that comes with being single and living in a city, I’ve come to conclusion: I am a morning person. And this is severely affecting my single lifestyle.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post,  I could already be considered a senior citizen in my early twenties: I have salt and pepper hair that I am convinced will reach the extreme of Anderson Cooper well before my thirtieth birthday. I wear thick, brown, church-donation-box glasses. I enjoy scrounging for deals in the grocery store and don’t even try to feed me cereal that does not have at least three grams of fiber. For me, Lucky Charms is the equivalent to water-boarding and Coca Cola makes my stomach hurt. To make matters worse, my gym trainer the other day threw out my legs while stretching my hips. Turned on yet? Me neither. And the frosting on the cupcake (that I baked last Friday night instead of going out): I am absolutely a morning-person. I have the inability to sleep in past eight in the morning. During a one week stint in Beirut last year, I spent four nights in a row dancing from 7 PM to 10 AM, after which I was convinced I had stepped into an alternate universe while tripping on a mysterious Middle Eastern hallucinogen… while skydiving. I’m fairly certain both my mind and body had never before been so confused and discombobulated. Over the years, I’ve dozed off during important elections (read: the most recent presidential one), New Year’s Eve parties, movies, important media coverage of world events, and long-awaited get-togethers. It took me four evenings to watch Memoirs of a Geisha, to the consternation of my ex-boyfriend. Four evenings dedicated to that awful, awful movie adaptation.

All of this severely affects my ability to take on DC and it’s nighttime-loving social scene. Many people don’t even head out until eleven or later. One could make the argument that brunch is to morning people as the late night mixer is to night owls, but most people don’t socialize outside their strict social cliques the morning after. There are too many omelets to be consumed and mimosas to be had to worry about the hot guy over by the window who may or may not be gay. What do you think? For me, an avid foodie, I would choose the crepe du jour over the hunk du jour anyday. Especially if nutella is involved. And while various events have been set up in order to promote social interaction outside of the bar, such as TNG’s day in the park, I’ve found that most people are too busy during the day to be interested in meeting other potential single people. Whether sleeping in until the afternoon, which brings a chill down my spine, or mustering through the hangover from last night at Duplex Diner, most people abhor the idea of leaving their homes before dinner with the intent of a serious romantic encounter.  The recipe is in favor of the that cocky, victorious night-owl: one part evening drinks with a dash of socializing, bring to a boil and you have a healthy portion of: “Whoops, it’s two in the morning, want to come back to my place?” How can a morning person avoid the stresses surrounding this rigid social formula, enforced by evening bar specials and endless late night debauchery?

Over a strong cup of coffee and a batch of homemade seven-in-the-morning-on-Saturday blueberry muffins, I came up with my conclusion: we can’t. It isn’t possible. Ultimately, in the scheme of things, being a morning person isn’t that big a deal. There are many parts of the world where it doesn’t matter if you are a night person or a morning person or a person at all as long as you can feed yourself and your family and survive to see the next day. In that respect, it is almost selfish to think about this topic in any sort of serious light. With North Korea firing missiles and the American auto industry a mess, and whatever the hell is going on in Iran these days, the topic seems mundane if not trivial. But, while we as morning people can’t avoid our PM-centric society, we can still raise awareness and foster a community. There must be ways to congregate and at the same time rely on a sundial. I’m certain this is possible and I’m determined to seek out these enclaves of day-gays. Until I do, please note: yes, I will be tired even if I drink Red Bull (which I absolutely do not). No, I’m not yawning because I’m not interested in you or want to be somewhere else. Yes, I will probably wake up tomorrow morning and stare at the ceiling obsessing over whether I should have eggs or oatmeal or forgo breakfast all together while you gently snore beside me and sleep in until approximately lunchtime. Give me a break. I can’t help it.

Now get up already so I can have some goddamn coffee. My joints are killing me.

Late Night Blur, Turkish Riviera, 2008

A few months ago, I found myself wandering back and forth from my house to the bus stop for about an hour. My feet started getting tired and I was running out of family members to call up as a means of killing time. Still, I couldn’t find an answer to the biggest question of my week: should I bother going out?

As children, where our realm of control stopped at our front door, we had no power over the subject of leaving our homes. Sometimes we would beg our parents to take us here or there, or let us go meet a friend; sometimes we would kick and scream as they dragged us somewhere we had no interest in going. But as adults we have no curfews, no locked doors, and no oversight. The saying “the world is your oyster” fails to note that some of us lose our taste for seafood.

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s often a lot built into the words we use, and the phrase “going out” is no exception. For the single among us, it often brings up questions like: Will I meet someone tonight? Do I want to meet someone tonight? If I don’t meet someone tonight, is it worth going out at all? And most importantly, what do I really want and how far out on a limb will I climb to get it?

My bus stop back-and-forth that evening led me to choose to go out rather than sit at home, and so I traveled across town to Solly’s for a TNG mixer. I had a good time, but didn’t exactly do a lot of mixing; mostly I stood around and talked to people who I already knew, or stood there and didn’t talk at all. One friend, Kareem, asked me towards the end of the night, “Do you ever meet people at these things?” I thought about it for a moment before answering, “Well, I met you at one of these things.” But that didn’t exactly count because (a) we were introduced by mutual friends and (b) we became each other’s designated sounding board for complaining about not meeting others. Not exactly a shining example of optimal mixer action.

But his question made me realize that when we “go out” as single homos in the big city, we’re looking to do more than meet up with friends; we’re looking to meet people who could be more than that. And it’s an odd mating ritual, indeed. We get dressed up in bright colors, and some among us even paint their faces; we travel out to a designated, dark location in the middle of the night; we consume poisonous elixirs until our vision is blurred and our judgment impaired; and, through the pulsating sound of drums and sirens, we set out on our search for sex.

And for some of us, we search for something else as well. I find that I am never truly satisfied with an evening out – I am always left wanting more. The whole idea of going out and looking for a relationship is maddening to those of us for whom, as Carrie Fisher wrote, “instant gratification doesn’t come fast enough.” A phone number leaves us lacking a date, a date lacking a boy or girlfriend, a significant other lacking any kind of security that it will last… and by the time it’s through, perhaps nothing completes an evening out other than a marriage proposal and impromptu wedding.

Still, as my therapist has urged me to practice mindfulness, and to enjoy experiences rather than worry constantly about the future, I have forced myself to go out with increased frequency as of late. At this point a lot is blurring together – quite a feat considering I never really got drunk – but here is my past week, as I recall it:

•  Wednesday I went to an improv club.  I spent most of the time before the show talking about sex; most of the time during the show wincing at race and gay jokes; and most of the time afterward thinking that I would never, ever meet someone at an improv club.
• Thursday I went to our mixer at Solly’s.  I talked to a bunch of people and caught up with friends.  I left alone, missed my bus, and at 1:30 in the morning jogged the few miles home in skinny jeans.
• Friday I went to see Menopause the Musical at the Bethesda Theatre, which was terrific, but not the ideal place to pick up a man.  Afterward I met up with a friend in Dupont and we talked until the wee hours of the morning about troubles with relationships.
• Saturday I went to our event in the park and talked about couples with height discrepencies.  Then I went out, already exhausted, to DC9 where I drank and smoked and again lamented with friends on being boyfriendless and restless.

One of those nights resulted in a hookup, and I had a lot of fun along the way. However, thinking about it now, I can’t help but be embarrassed at how much men dominate my mind as I head out into the city each evening. Granted, in order to write this column every week, I go out of my way to talk about dating and to hear people’s stories, but that seems like too convenient an excuse. And to say that it’s spring fever or general longing for sex ignores the fact that sex is relatively unimportant to me.

In fact, if what we’re looking for is a relationship, are the nights out simply a distraction? Do we fool around just to fool ourselves? And do we go out to find that special someone, or are we just going out of our way to avoid putting ourselves out there?

Maybe I’m on the wrong track. Maybe it’s all an odds game, a matter of meeting enough people until you find one who works, and so hitting the scene is a productive way of getting this done. Or maybe, for some of us at least, going out is just a way to make excuses – to tell ourselves that we can’t find anyone when the real problem is we’re not ready or willing to open ourselves up. Maybe, in the dim lights of the bars and clubs, we are hiding from the frightening prospect that there are choices to make and people we could be with and the possibility – even in the mythical land of couplehood – that we may still not feel happy or complete.

Yesterday, appropriately for a Sunday, I rested. I did my laundry and cooked hummus. I finally found some decent shorts at H+M. I spent three hours working out in a daze. I wondered if I was ready to be with someone.

Since coming out as a single guy, I can’t help but marvel as I grow at an amazing rate. Never before in my life have I gone through such a transformation. With over a year of official unitary, companion-free existence under my belt (Happy Anniversary, Baby!) my mind has been maddeningly exploring all the intellectual pursuits that were once occupied by other couple-dominated issues, such as worrying about the constant approval and acceptance of another human being, or all the time it takes to adjust two lives to fit together. Never before have I had so much time on my hands to do so much. “Pack away the yin and yang,” I’d say to myself with pride. My story had just got all the more one-sided.

But I have a confession to make. As much as I embrace my new lifestyle away from the confines of the Duo, I can’t help but extinguish that little part of my hippocampus that is always itching to bring up the memories of my last relationship. I was once delving into a hot steaming bowl of pho when the bastard snuck his way out and interrupted my meal. “Remember that one time when you and you’re ex got pho and it was just about the best thing ever?” Freezing, spoon in mid slurp, I replayed the scene in my head: our hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant, that time we went for pho and summer rolls before the Philip Glass concert in July. It was really hot out and we had spent the afternoon lying on the cold hard wood floor of his attic apartment and one thing had led to another and…

Oh boy. I took big gulp of hot tea, burning my tongue slightly, hoping the pain I had inflicted on my nervous system would act as proper revenge on my interfering temporal lobe. I resumed my dinner, the episode passing. But even after I had paid the bill and left the restaurant, bundling up against the fading DC winter, I couldn’t help but see my ex’s face, smiling, enjoying one of our favorite foods together. While, during the early days as a single man, these constant nagging memories of my time in a couple once cast most of my waking moments in shadow, these sporadic pangs of a romance lost were now, at the same time, easy to face, but extremely hard to digest. I could approach these plagues of lingering memories with nonchalance similar to annoyance, but it was the realization that they were happening and would continue to happen that started to get to me. Would I have to completely reinvent myself to rid my new life of my own self-afflicted torture? Would I have to throw out my whole record collection, just because the majority of the music was recommended or given to me by my former lover? But I love the Magnetic Fields! And how could I part with Beirut, when his songs are so catchy and make easy background music for showing off my pathetic French to prospective dates and new friends? How could I devote myself back to myself, the ultimate prostration to Singleism, with the painful reminders of my life in the Establishment incessantly seeping into my everyday thoughts?

Like many problems in my life, the solution came as a result of food. For weeks I had been eagerly awaiting the opening of the new SweetGreen on Connecticut Ave. I had been to another of their locations, but couldn’t commit to a hike to Georgetown every time I craved a tossed salad and frozen yogurt topped with agave nectar. This past Saturday, rejuvenated from the sun and a long walk around the city, my roommate and I headed over to the new green eatery for lunch. As we approached the entrance, a couple of employees promoting the opening offered us take out menus. I stashed a menu to the bottom of my tot bag, planning to add to it my library of take-out literature accumulating in my kitchen drawer. After finishing lunch, we headed back to our apartment for an afternoon nap. It wasn’t until later, when dumping out my bag onto my bed, that I would realize that I would officially break up with my boyfriend by way of restaurant literature.

Anyone who has been to Sweetgreen can tell you that the place is obsessed with environmentalism, even to the point of encouraging customers to take home their menus, made of biodegradable paper laced with wild flower seeds, and plant them. The menus even boast that, when placed in soil, will sprout beautiful flora within a number of weeks. As I lay on my bed in the warm afternoon rays, trying to fall asleep, my eyes fell upon Sweetgreen’s take out menu. I pictured my kitchen drawer, bursting to the brim with take out menus from all over the city. It suddenly dawned on me that this recyclable piece of paper would be the best way for me to rid myself of my pesky broken past. Like my kitchen drawer, I had filled my own mind with reminders and tidbits of a life I no longer lived or needed. Just like I didn’t need the fifteen plus sushi menus cluttering my kitchen drawer, neither did I need the ever-present memories of my ex lingering around in my subconscious, interrupting my pho or judging my music collection. Without thinking, I grabbed the closest pen and started releasing my memories onto the eco-friendly papyrus. My nap out of the question, I became absorbed in spilling my life with my ex onto the helpless Carte. “Ex, you never let me wear Nike high-tops and I didn’t appreciate that.” I complained, briefly frowning. “Ex, I really liked that time you threw me a surprise birthday party.” I confessed, briefly sighing.

Once I had exhausted myself and had covered the poor advertisement in a graffiti chronicling my two year relationship, I set to burying the thing: the menu, my ex-boyfriend, in an empty clay pot I found on a dresser in my laundry room. Packing the dirt tightly, I nurturingly poured just enough water over the soil, with just enough care, to realize when one should put a life aside to embrace another.

The pot is sitting next to a window in my kitchen, lazing observing DC and my own life as I run back and forth, adjusting to being single. I look forward to the colors the wild flowers will bring to my single life, the end product of my time in a now biodegradable relationship.

Being Single is: Arrivals, Woolly Mammoths, Companion-Free Climate Change

DC is undoubtedly a couples’ city. As a relatively new inhabitant of the federal district, one of my first realizations upon arrival was that almost everyone here was in a relationship. My awareness started out innocently: I breathed a sigh of happiness when seeing a couple having coffee together, watching a group of couples going to the theater on a Friday evening, or listening to the soon-to-be relentless stories of my coworkers and their boyfriends, girlfriends, fiancees, wives, and husbands. Every action seemed geared towards those with a significant other.

After approximately five months of living here, my own blatant failure to acquire some sort of romantic union became an increasing obsession. A feeling of bitterness started to sink in. It was all I could think about. If I stayed in on a Friday evening to read the Economist, I would get the nagging feeling that I was cheating myself and failing in the most important quest to find a companion. If I turned a friend down to go to a bar, I was ruining my chances all together. It became all consuming. I had been single for some time, over a year, but there was an excuse for that– I was living abroad and constantly traveling. The situation was definitely not conducive to partnership or dedication of any sort to another human being. But seriously! I had moved back to America with the hopes of starting a new life…one I had assumed I would have a good chance of sharing if I lived in a liberal, urban atmosphere such as Washington. What the hell? It was one thing to be single, but why couldn’t I even get one date?

But while patience is a virtue to which I can usually subscribe, it got to the point where any overt signs of romance were making me seriously distressed. When I first moved to DC and saw a gay couple holding hands, I couldn’t help but feel humbled and proud: “Look at them,” I thought to myself. “Aw.” Needless to say, the novelty soon wore off. Working in Dupont, I was bombarded left and right by gay twosomes. Soon I was flamboyantly pushing past cute, hand-in-hand couples, hunched over and mumbling, as I balanced my overstuffed gym bag under one arm and my date for the weekend (a stack of library books I’d been meaning to read for years) in the other. I retreated to my apartment, losing myself in the world of recipe blogs, whiskey, and back issues of National Geographic. I attributed my hermit-like transformation to the cold weather and overcast skies. I imagined myself like a woolly mammoth frozen in my own baron Siberia of Singledom. In millions of years I would be excavated from of my apartment cave, my arm hairs scrutinized for ancient DNA. I could see a group of European experts in white lab coats leaning over a microphone, speaking to the international scientific community, “Our research is conclusive: the specimen lived an intensely solitary life, away from the herd. A strange and thrilling case indeed.”

Then came the warm Sunday afternoon when, while resting under a cherry blossom tree in the park in my neighborhood, I attained my enlightenment. As the weather warmed and my allergies flared, I began to slowly emerge from my dark, shameful existence. Much like our fragile climate, I started warming up to a new movement I would soon come to know as ‘Singleism’ (If you want to impress your friends, play around with the pronunciation. It makes it sound all the more European, and that is hot). New awareness in mind, I began to view the idea of the single life not as an interim, but as an achievement. I became increasingly motivated by a lifestyle completely looked down upon and marginalized in mainstream pop culture and society. This realization led to my exploration of sustainable single solutions, not solutions to curb my singledom. With pertinacity comparable to Rush Limbaugh trying to open a stubborn bottle of oxycodone, I’d acquired a completely new outlook for life as a single man. Much like the ridiculously buff guys at my gym lifting the equivalent of three bulldozers over their heads, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief once I threw down the weight of my constant search for companionship. Bitter resentment turned to light curiosity. Why, even, was I expected to find somebody in the first place? Why did my social life have to revolve around such a meandering social highway, filled with pot-hole hook-ups and a lack of clearly marked road signs?

With the articles of this column as my sutras, I present to you an alternative perspective within the alternative gay community. While I haven’t completely given up on the dating scene or finding a boyfriend myself, I have now attempted to free myself from the rusty shackles of a couple-driven society. This piece is meant as an introduction, a way forward from the confines of a city in the grips of a couples’ obsession. While a guide for those of us with severe solo syndrome, this is by no means an attack upon the institution of the Couple. Instead, I’d like to think of this as a return to the freedom being single provides, an integral part of the Singleism Movement that I cannot overemphasize. And I’m not just talking about hooking up with a new face from Town every weekend. For me, and for I suspect many others, this day-to-day mindset will not do. I realize many couple sympathizers can and will argue that the points I may make are just as applicable to those people in relationships as they are to those outside the establishment. To them, I extend my hand of reconciliation and cooperation. I am full supporter of a healthy coexistence for couples and single people.

But peace aside, there is something to be said for the confident loner, that individual who doesn’t prescribe to the ongoing search online, in the bars, or at the gym, for a companion. Single should not be synonymous with pro tempore. If anything, I hope to bring a romance back to the single lifestyle that has been lost amongst the Facebook status updates, speed dating events, and disgraceful reality dating shows. Most importantly, I hope to restore a unity to the single community, a scattered people lost in a diaspora among the committed. Please join me in the coming articles as I try to redefine what being single truly is. I hereby declare myself: Single.

Sigh of happiness. That felt good.