Musings on boyfriends for summer

The other day, I found myself, standing alone, smoking a cigarette, on the macadam parking lot of a queer party in Los Angeles called Bears In Space.

While, smoking alone, on the macadam, I bumped into a friend. This friend, was the type of friend, I only bumped into, at these types of parties.

You could argue, that that was not really a friend per se, but an acquaintance. The word “friend” has gone through a revolution evolution. Whereby, friends were the type of people, regardless of how many words you’ve exchanged in physical spaces, on the street or at the Whole Foods, could be a friend in the digital world. A friend is a two-dimensional photo of a person, that could change without notice, from the photo of said friend posing with a small Yorkie dog, to a backdrop at Coachella.

In this world of friendship, friends may come and go as they please, without warning. A friend may block you for saying something they find very offensive about gay marriage or Hillary Clinton. 

I wonder. 

In physical space, how one could block a friend and take an exit into thin air without any regard for the other friend’s feelings or emotional state or current medication?

As I was smoking, on the macadam, me and my friend, and his new boyfriend, who was, arguably, now considered a friend, too, we began to chat about things one chats about while smoking cigarettes at parties. 

Drag. The weather. Drag. Syria. Drag. Israel. Drag eliminations.

As my friend was talking, my mind began to wander. I began to think about friends and their boyfriends, who were now, friends of mine. I began to categorize this friend and his boyfriend. What type of boyfriends were they?

Boyfriends, for me, can be placed in one of three categories. Adult relationships, functioning trysts and cotton candy. 

Adult relationships are those types of partnerships that require a bit of time to evolve, usually involving any of the following ingredients:

1.     Shared living arrangement or the goal of shared living arrangements

2.     Shared bank accounts or the goal of truthful spending

3.     A mutually cared for pet

4.     1-2 visits to each other respective families within the first year, within 3 months if you’re a homosexual

5.     Color coordination or color blindness

6.     1-2 visits to a furniture store whereby agreements are made in 30 minutes or less, usually involving bold mutual choices in aesthetic

As in the case of urban-dwelling open relationships, the ingredients may become mired.

Functioning trysts, a temporal landscape of openness, usually wronged by too many margaritas and cocaine, can exist fruitfully, should there exist any one or more of the following:

1.     Regular STD tests

2.     Finding space for one or more pop music icons

3.     1 road trip per year

4.     Venmo

5.     Taking yoga class together at least once

Cotton candy partnerships, on the other hand, are navigational quagmires that will involve at least one breakdown and cry per month during the summer and up to three breakdowns per off season. They may involve any of the ingredients from above, but usually end in stalemates whereby one partner misplaced the bag of cocaine or went missing at a music festival. A cotton candy partner, like the candy itself, is something you want real bad to satisfy a long lost craving from your youth, only to end up wet, sticky and diabetic.

TRIGGER WARNING: pet adoption

Pets seem to always get the short end of the stick in functional trysts, and usually dressed up in the most bizarre of outfits during cotton candy.

Who are these friends? These people? Who am I to judge their processed sugar love?

As an empath. That means, for all of you not in the know, I think I feel you’re not being in the know and it hurts me. If I had to fit myself in the categories of the three, I’d have to make a new category just for myself, because as an empath, it means that I feel too deeply to fit into a particular category of other people. That fourth category would be, sour pickle.

In the sour pickle category of love and partnerships, one meets one or more of the following critera:

1.     Complications of clothing. For example, the wearing of clothing that says “I’m covering my body, but not the good parts of my body, hoping you’ll see how the v-neck of this shirt accentuates both my adored clavicle without drawing the eyes to my love handles”

2.     A choice of restaurant that does, neither, go against my vegan diet, nor make for an uncomfortable experience of a carnivore, who I’ll secretly judge while I’m imaginging making out with their animal torture face later in the evening.

3.     Ear plugs in social situations, whereby social situations could mean my listening to you after smoking several bowls tell me about the person you slept with the evening before.

4.     Induced coma. The induced coma I get after smoking too many bowls and being empathic about my feelings towards you leaving at a proper time, even though I’ve invited you to spend the night not really hoping you’d spend the night but feel like you could spend the night if you were into it but I don’t want you to spend the night. Or, I’d like you to leave when I’m in my induced coma like a phantom.

5.     Going to macadam parties together. You can leave at any time and block me while you’re leaving, I won’t care, even though I’m an empath.

All in all, summer is hard. It's hard to choose a partner or cotton candy with having to go through the rest of the summer and all of its booty shorts without thinking, maybe I'm ready to move past processed sugar and on to some meat. Meat is hard. It's the salt, blood, and if you like a bootcamp or CrossFit gym, what you're told to eat.

In closing, here we are, staring at the edge of the cliff of summer called Memorial Day, which to most queens means Monday macadam parties, when in fact, should you have your phone on you, which you do right now, means something more. Invitations are sent out. Guest list is closed. Google works. So, tomorrow, on Memorial Day, or Macadam Party Day Three, as some would think, take your partner by the hand, look at their eyes really closely, no, closer, and see if they're black. If, in their black eyes, you should see yourself in the future, step back, smoke another cigarette, get on Facebook, or Grindr, or Scruff, and live live live! Just remember that meat kills and so does cotton candy should you eat in excess, and for chrissakes, Lyft home.