I awoke on Sunday morning to what was the worst hangover I’ve had in a while. I had thrown a small party the night before, a chance to show off my apartment and cooking skills, but consumed more gin than was my intention. As I stumbled through the house, the traces of the night before were all too evident: an empty glass on the nightstand, my Armani sneakers atop a pile of clothes in the living room, and my wine-soaked bamboo table runner still drying in the sink.

The one thing I didn’t see was the one thing I wanted to – The Boy I’m dating, who through our decision to see only each other had pushed me out of singledom and into some new and foreign land. He had come over the night before and met my friends, but didn’t feel well and thus took off early.

The modern gay romance, and maybe modern romance altogether, rarely begins as do the classic tales with which we’re all familiar. There is no “once upon a time” and, in most states, happily ever afters remain illegal. And yet, when we look beyond the surface of the shallow social scene, we can sometimes find traces of real romance surviving in its evolved modern form.

This is the story of how my twenty-two years of singleness came to an end, and how my myths about dating and romance were taken down with it.

Part of moving to a new city, meeting new people, and embracing life as a young professional is deciding what to say about myself to other people. And it’s not just a matter of what to say – it’s also about how much of it to say and to whom to choose to say it.

For instance, I decided not to tell my landlord or most of my new friends that I occasionally enjoy a cigarette or two, with the idea being that if people didn’t expect it of me maybe I’d soon stop doing it. I decided to be open about my work for the Obama campaign at a recent conference, despite the presence of several known Republicans, but I left out the part about being a gay, agnostic, democratic socialist.

All people choose how to “message” themselves to others, but perhaps this applies more to the gay identity than to many others. Unlike most essential parts of our identity – our gender, our race, and even things like socioeconomic or educational background – we can generally choose whether to hide our sexuality from others or be very vocal and honest about it.

When I was invited to attend the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and write it up for this site, I jumped at the opportunity. The first show I was given tickets to was To Kill A Mockingbird, which – while curiously not Shakespeare – is one of my favorite stories.

The show was fantastic, the outdoor location beautiful, and overall it was a terrific Colorado night. However, I found myself wondering where I would draw the connection to our readers. For that matter, where was the connection to me? It’s not that there wasn’t any to be made. Mockingbird is essentially a story about acceptance and redemption, a message to which many queer people can relate. And yet the classics of American literature, the works of William Shakespeare, and all but a handful of quality narratives exclude gays in any meaningful way.

As is so often true, my over-analyzing turned a lovely evening of theatre into a spiral of self-doubt. I found myself wondering if there are any stories to guide a disoriented young homo, or if I’ll have to learn to write my own?

The creation story of the Urban Single begins something like this: On the first day, God created the downtown loft apartment. On the second day, She created the first date.

That is how my first week of actually living in Denver began. Having completed job training that required me to travel to Atlanta and relive the thrills of dorm life, I finally made it back to the Mile High City, the place that I would now call home. I found myself with an empty apartment waiting to be filled with mattresses and espresso machines, decor and dinnerware, and tables and chairs. It was also waiting to be filled with new memories as I embarked on new adventures.

Queer people often seem to approach gender in one of two ways: as a fight to show the world that they maintain their given gender despite being gay, or as a fight to shed the gender norms that have been placed upon them. My own journey started out in the former category – seeking to be a “man,” even if I was a gay one – to the latter category – embracing the notion of being genderqueer and no longer feeling connected to the idea of being “male.”

Just before I left the District in May, I was asked by a skeptical friend at a party what exactly made me genderqueer. I didn’t have a great answer, in part because of the amount of gin I had recently consumed, but also because for me the genderqueer concept isn’t about forging a new label. It’s about dumping a label you don’t feel applies to you, namely male or female. Instead I answered, “I don’t know, but I just am. Doesn’t that count for anything?” And he seemed satisfied with the response.

But lately I have felt myself wondering more and more about it, especially given my move to Denver.

In recent weeks, my move across the country has required a good deal of navigation through a new community, and that navigation has required gaydar. A common misconception about gaydar is that it has only two readings: gay or hetero. In fact, any frequent user of this skill knows that many people give signals somewhere in between.

There are people who are gay and don’t know it yet; people who are gay but are quiet about it; people who maybe are hetero but who get gay when they drink. As a queer person, I find myself not only taking notice of people I check off as being gay – and thus possible allies, hookups or competitors – but also those who check out as “maybes.”

On a ship, when one needs to track movement on radar, one can use a homing beacon – a tracking device placed on another vessel so as to plot out its path. It dating, is it appropriate to throw a homo beacon on the closet cases we wish to keep in sight? And if so, how do we draw the line between watching the closet, feeling around inside, and actually pushing people out?

A few weeks ago, a new friend of mine in Denver came into my hotel room unannounced, climbed up into my bed, and started flipping through my copy of Men’s Fitness. It seemed obvious that he was just looking at the pictures of the buff, shirtless men and not reading the articles about protein bars and sit-ups.

“You won’t find any material in there for your ‘private time’,” I warned him. “The guys aren’t that hot. I only get that magazine because Radar got canceled and its replacement was either this or Star.”

Soon, realizing that I was right, he put the magazine away and transitioned to GQ. We went on to talk about a lot of things that afternoon – sex, threesomes, the perils of oral sex – nothing too unusual. So when I heard from a mutual friend about a scandalous conversation topic we had discussed, I thought they meant lockjaw. “No,” she said, “I didn’t hear that one.”

So what was so outrageous? My comment about using (or not using) the pics in that magazine to lend oneself a hand.

When meeting new people, there are things one loves to hear. “I have a car…” “I used to work for the Obama campaign, too…” “I think our organization needs better LGBT recruitment…”

And then there are the things that you don’t want to hear. “I need to find a church here…” “My political views may surprise you…” “I’m married.”

While setting off on a new adventure in a new city, I have been surprised at how many of my new counterparts – mostly around 22 years old – are either married, engaged, or pretty close to it. Maybe it’s because my alma mater has a shockingly limited dating scene, and my gay friends often aren’t even allowed to get married.

The first few months of being out and dating are like the first run through an all-you-can-eat buffet: you try a little of everything, figure out what you like, and go back for more. I’d learned that sex with random people didn’t do it for me, but I also didn’t think that I needed for it to be attached to a relationship for it to be enjoyable.

A “spring fling” is thus something I thought I could pull off, and when a great guy came along who seemed to want more than being friends, I took the opportunity. But after we slept together, we were simply no where – no fling, no friendship, nothing. We went from talking everyday and confiding in each other to dropping all but the most basic communication.

For me it raised some questions. Is there room in the gay world for dating? Is there room for flings that last more than forty-five minutes? Or are my options limited to friends, fucks and boyfriends?