Last night, I went to trivia night at Mellow Mushroom with a fellow blogger, Amber. While the news that I went to trivia isn’t all that exciting, what is exciting (at least to me), is that I am finally doing something that I never thought I would do; I am interacting with and meeting people in a way that I never thought that I could or would. I am meeting people and making friends with people that I find interesting, based on interests that are similar to mine, based on who they are as people, based on their sense of humor, as well as a myriad of other things. For the first time since I came out of the closet, I am meeting people based on something other than sexual orientation.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love my ‘mo’s, and I wouldn’t trade the friendships I have for anything; but I do think that sometimes, for the most part, we only meet people and become friends with people, because the likelihood of encountering them is, for one reason or another, increased. As with the case of being gay, many come out, and go out to gay establishments; and eventually, make a lot of gay friends. Since you are less likely to hang out with straight people, and because most bars generally don’t cater to much more than people’s sexual interests, you tend to make gay friends because they are around more. Not to say that gay friends aren’t of a good quality, in fact quite the opposite; but sometimes I wonder, if both of us weren’t gay, would we have actually became friends? Because, if we weren’t gay, how would we have met?
I find that this is the case with some friends that just about everyone has, who you feel like you have little in common with, save maybe one or two things. It doesn’t mean you aren’t friends, or that you should chuck them, it just is what it is. You may have totally different senses of humor, which, when it comes to some things that you may enjoy, may pose a problem. You may have different interests in hobbies, past times; the list goes on and on. These things aren’t “friendship-killers”, but they do make me sometimes ponder how we met, and if circumstances would have been different, if we would have ever become friends. My point, is that you may have this friend, mainly because it was easier to meet them; which increased your chances of getting to know them. You may have met them, simply because you share something like sexual orientation, and if you took that out of the equation, it makes you wonder if you would have actually become friends at all. I think that blogs and the internets open up the possibilities in this case, and allow you to find people and make friends with people that you would normally never know.
I think that with gay people especially, you find yourself pulled out of the traditional “mainstream” societal groups, and you become part of a new community. This community helps you deal with coming out, and all the other issues that come along with it. Then, once you are a part of this “family”, most gay men don’t stray from it; save maybe a few coworkers, or old friends you had before you became “one of the gays”. Don’t get me wrong, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with this. It is much easier, you don’t have to come out to everyone, people don’t ask you stupid questions anymore, you don’t have to defend your sexuality, and other crap like that. You tend to hang out in circles where you will encounter people that are like you, but perhaps they are like you more because of your sexual orientation; rather than something like your interests or tastes.
That is why I think that it is awesome that I have actually put myself out there and gotten involved with doing blogging things. All of the bloggers that I have met in real life have been pretty cool. There have been one or two freaks… but I am not naming names. I’m totally kidding. (No I’m not.) No seriously, I am really kidding; everyone that I have met has been almost exactly what I was expecting, and in almost every case, I have met and hung out with them IRL, because we shared similar views, interests, etc, on our respective blogs. Our blogs brought us together in interests, which led to us wanting to hang out IRL. Our blogs share a lot about who we are, and because we have lots in common, it would make sense for some of us to get together and hang out IRL. This is honestly the first time in my life that I have ever done anything that, and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me. (again, not that I wasn’t happy before, but I do like trying new things, and meeting new people; who doesn’t?)
Now, you may wonder, where is he going with this? The answer is simple; I want to thank all the bloggers that I have met IRL, and all of you that I want to meet IRL, and all of you that I will hopefully get to meet IRL. I want to tell you how exciting it is that we have been able to meet through the internets; and I look forward to the potential friendships that have formed and those that will form. Most of all, I am excited that I get to do things with new people that I share interests with and that I came to know through those interests, rather than simply a similar sexual orientation (again, do not misconstrue this, I love all my gay friends… There are many that I didn’t meet at bars or the way I described above, and I am definitely not closing the door on making more gay friends; I am just making a point). I am just happy to be meeting different people and getting out there and doing things that I would never have done in the past. It is something that is making me happy, and I just wanted to express that. Nothing weird, though, got it?
With all of that being said, I am really looking forward to the blogger event this evening, as well as trivia next week! Oh yeah, does anybody else want to hang out?
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