Stuff Gay People Like: Hating the Gay Scene

One of the ways you can tell you are probably gay is if you really “hate the gay scene.”

“The gay scene” basically means all other gay people, and if you are gay you consider them to collectively be one of the following: superficial, promiscuous, selfish, bitchy, shallow, materialistic, un-intellectual, dramatic or cliquish, which you eagerly explain in the about me section of your Gay.com profile. The vast majority of gay men, in fact, self-describe as “different from most other gay people” because they find “the scene” to be superficial, promiscuous, selfish, bitchy, shallow, materialistic, un-intellectual, dramatic or cliquish.

(Relevant note: if you Google “I hate the gay scene,” everything you will come up with was written by gay people.)

On first dates you will love mentioning how you “don’t get in to the scene” or “don’t get along with most gay guys.” It is automatically presupposed that this negativity does not include your gay self. The gay person you are on a date with is not offended because he is also temporarily exempt from being “gay people” by hanging out with you, and by the fact that the two of you are neither gathered in a group of more than two nor dancing, and you are not wearing any paraphernalia. Note that he returns to being a gay person the moment you lose touch, if he is ever seen hanging out with a gay person besides you or becomes your ex.

One might wonder how the gay scene manages to lack the “something deeper” we all wish it had, that would be the negation of all those aforementioned troublesome qualities, if every person in it, individually, finds himself to have more depth or to be better than everyone else they’re running in to. One might also wonder how the inability to get along with your own peer group is somehow considered a boastworthy or attractive quality in a partner. What exactly defines the “gay scene,” and if you so hate these other people in it, why have you allowed your “scene” to be defined by them?

That is one of the great ironies of being gay in America – that somehow everybody loves themselves but hates themselves when they’re all in one big room – and there are no correct answers to those questions.

(Unless, of course, you’re seeing everything that way because you see “the scene” as your dating prospects, in which case, of course you see it pessimistically, you’re fucking dating. Dating is based on the idea of failure, that 95 or more percent of people you try out will turn out to be a mismatch, or else we would call it “arranging marriage.” You need to stop thinking that has anything to do with being gay. Hating dating has less to do with gay people and is mostly based on what intellectuals call the human condition.)

Maybe by observing all this I’m hating the gay scene too. Maybe I’m finding gay people to be “too self-critical” or “judgmental” or even “homophobic” and should instead hold out my hand to give the community some much-needed love.

But it seems necessary to point out that if everybody is gravely concerned that there is no segment of the gay community that has quite what you’re looking for, why don’t you just make one yourself?

Young people who are just coming out of the closet would be awfully prejudiced – against themselves, no less – by this way that we talk, as I know I was when I was new to it. If you’re telling me everyone around me is so shallow and lame, who the hell am I supposed to hang out with?

So I am hearby taking my own advice, forming my own group for those who do not complain about the gay scene.

Except, that is, in columns called Stuff Gay People Like. Please take this as an exception, because we know that you, reader, and I are just different from those other guys.

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