Heh.

[brigdh]

I went dancing last night yayyayyaythankgodyay, and now I have a story to tell. Because, well, I never get tired of the strange things people have said to me, and I have so many instances of them. I'm like the patron saint of sudden weirdness!

We went to Axis, which is my favorite club. Its main clientele are gay men, but there's always women there too, and a few straight couples. I was dancing with some guy- and I was telling this theory to someone afterward when we were talking about it, but I never do pay all that much attention to the gender of whoever I happen to be dancing with at the moment. Because to me, dancing isn't necessarily about attraction. It's simply easier and more fun to have a second body there to dance against; it's not sexual. Which, admittedly, is a somewhat harder stance to defend when dancing involves people grabbing your crotch, but I stand by my illogic.

Anyway. I was dancing with a guy, and we had this conversation (although to get the real effect you have to imagine me screaming "huh?" about five times between each line, because I am incapable of hearing anything over the music):

He asked me, "Do you want to kiss?" which, you know, I think had a fairly obvious answer, as he'd tried it several times already and I'd been turning my face away.

"Nope!" I said.

"Oh!" he said.

He sounded sad, or at least as sad as you can sound when you're straining to be heard over a techno beat, so I thought I'd explain. "I'm gay!"

"You're WHAT?"

"Gay!" I said, laughing, because you'd have figured he might expect that in a gay club and all, but whatever, people are stupid.

He shouted, "Why?"

I suppose that's a good, if inappropriate question, and there are all sorts of debates and implications to it that one could discuss. However, 2am on a dancefloor is probably not the best time and place, so I went with the simple version. "Because I like girls!"

Then he told me, "You don't look like it!"

I cracked up at this. I still think it's the stupidest thing I've ever been told, and at the time it made me laugh so hard that I couldn't talk for a while. Not that I had much to say; how do you respond to that? Take it as a compliment? Get offended? Ask what I do look like, then? I put my face up against his shoulder so he couldn't see how hard I was laughing, because when you're confronted with something like that, I feel more embarrassed for the guy than angry. Finally I managed, "Um... okay!"

We danced in silence for a minute or two, which is really the best way. I don't know why anyone tries to have conversations with me on the dance floor. I won't hear you until you've repeated it several times, and even when I managed to understand what you're saying, believe me, no one sounds suave when you screaming directly into my ear. Also: I do not need to know your name. I don't know why everyone wants to tell me their name, because even if I hear it I'm not going to remember it, but everyone, everyone, wants to share that detail. Why do people do that?

Regardless, this guy- who was named Brad or Buddy or something like that- had apparently been thinking deeply. "How do you know?" he said.

"How do you know you're straight?" I said, which is the stock answer to that question, but he must have never heard it before, because he laughed in the same type of surprised, patronizing tone that you might use if someone asked you 'how do you know the world isn't flat?'

And then- TMI warning, I suppose- he started to knead my ass. I do not mean touch, or hold, but knead. Imagine the exact movement you use to make dough. Yeah. Which is just strange, and not really all that pleasant.

So I told him I had to go find a friend, but I'd be right back, really.


Also, you can see how much I'm writing the paper that's due on Monday. I am never going to finish this thing.