Monday 25 January 2010

I had a brief chat with a young gay girl towards the end of the New Years Eve night at Pink Punters. She asked for my number and we’ve texted a bit since. It transpires she lives in the same town as me and so we agreed to meet up at the gay bar/club in the town centre. It seemed a decent venue and got quite popular after 11.00; its open until 6.00, although we left at 2.00.

The key thing about this meetup was being in my own town, I left from my house and walked there and back- no going to a hotel and dressing before venturing out. I even walked through the heart of thronging drunken melee that is the town centre at 2.00 in the morning (albeit with my friend). Another box ticked off I suppose.

Monday 11 January 2010

10% night

I’ve worked out that well over three quarters of my nights out are now as me; in fact probably 90%. Friday night was one of the 10% nights. It was a leaving do for someone from a different section; it was a good group of us and with more females than males. However as the night wore on I found myself very much less than comfortable in my allotted role for that night- not least I couldn’t act as I wanted to with the girls and who nevertheless see me as a bloke and treat me accordingly. I went home before everyone decamped to a club- definitely deflated because the trans thing had got to me, but also in a bizarre way I found it strangely re-assuring that I am finding it ever harder to do the bloke thing these days.

Monday 4 January 2010

The sound of the crowd

I spent a couple of hours early on Saturday night in the Candy Bar in Soho. As a lesbian bar with apparently a rather strict door policy I was unsure of the welcome I would receive. However I found it a welcoming place with high quality bar staff. When I arrived it was rather empty but by the time I left it was packed. What struck me, when I was listening to the crescendo of animated female voices throughout the bar, was that I had never been in a totally female dominated bar before, and as bars are either mixed or male dominated, how out of the ordinary it sounded to me. Pity far more bars aren't like this!