Saturday Night Fever, Part II

[The continuing saga of the events of last Saturday night, involving Gonzo's Nose, beer, dancing, and hot chicks.]


Although it was supposed to be an 80s night, GN fell back on some older classics from time to time during their set. They didn't think anyone would mind some particularly popular non-80s hits. Eventually, they launched into "I Will Survive." Hello, gay anthem much? So of course I went hog wild when this song came on.

Toward the end of the song, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a definite "Hey, you! Yeah, you" tap, as opposed to the "excuse me while I try to get by you please" tap.1/ Not used to being tapped in such a manner, I turn to find a rather attractive blond woman trying to get my attention. Actually, I couldn't see her terribly well other than that, because she wasn't right behind me, but was reaching her hand past someone else to tap me.

In her hand was a card.

A business card.

Was this woman actually handing me her business card?

See, thing is, strange things like this have happened to me before, and it doesn't get less strange each time. While I don't really consider myself a screaming flaming fag, I still tend to think that there's fairly little question that I'm not straight. Yet on occasion this escapes the attention of some of the fellow patrons in bars, especially when I'm dancing along with live music. In fact, last time I saw GN some woman came dancing up on me. She was in front of me and just slowly backed up into me. It scared me,2/ because I had no frigging clue how to react to this, and eventually she gave up. I'm glad she never turned around. That would have been mortifying, because she probably would have caught me mouthing the words "What is going on here?" in horror to my friend Sue, who in response just laughed at me. In another situation, I was dancing to a different band -- I think it was Burnt Sienna -- at a bar at the beach, when some woman again came dancing up to me. Maybe I just look like I'm having a good time when I'm dancing. (My friends and I surmised, after she danced away, that she had pretty much done enough to collect on whatever bet her friends had put her up to.) But still, it was odd.

I pocketed the card and kept dancing through the set. Eventually I told Linda and Leslie about it. Then I pulled the card out of my pocket to take a quick look at it...

... and sure enough, I was wrong about my initial thought that people can't seem to tell my sexual orientation. Because the card that I received from this random blond woman belonged to a guy named Geoffrey.

Unless I completely misunderstood her intentions in tapping me on the shoulder with a business card in her had, she had clearly just served some wing-woman duty. (It would be terribly embarrassing to find out that she had actually intended for me to pass the card along to some hot chick standing near me or something.) I thought it was brilliant, personally. I'm thinking I need to grab a handful of Elizabeth's business cards and start handing them out to cute guys when she and I are out drinking too.

The good thing about using a business card to introduce yourself is that you get a sense of who the guy is before you initiate contact with him. The card I have indicates that Geoffrey works for a company -- which shall remain nameless -- which strives to increase a conservative presence on college campuses. The website contains information basically demonizing The Left, and gives instructions on how to establish conservative student groups to counter the Massive LeftWing Conspiracy on Most College Campuses.

I don't think I'll be calling or emailing this guy.

PS: I related this story to a co-worker friend of mine, who remarked: "I find it incredible that a gay man in this city -- in this city, which voted 91%/9% for John Kerry -- would think that handing over a conversative business card would be a good way to land a gay date."



1/ For some reason, I have mastered the differentiation between these two taps. Mostly because I seldom ever receive the former. Me, if I'm trying to get past a few people, I usually don't do the "tap," but a gentle hand on the shoulder blade or the small of the back as I subtly shove my way by.

2/ I use the word "scared" only for lack of a better word, because she didn't "scare" me like "made me scream like a little girl" "scare" me, but she did definitely put me in a position I'm not used to. To be fair, of course, it's not like men dance up against me in gay clubs all the time either, so (again) I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know how to react if a guy had done the same thing.