vacation [all I ever wanted]

/* HT :: the Go-Go’s */

the weekend after the second Fort Lauderdale vacation is all but complete. for the first time that I can remember, I have a distinct feeling of let-down. the vacation itself, while it did not go perfectly, went far better than planned, and improved on my first stay. last weekend was supposed to be simply a get-away. my only plan was to relax, not let the concerns of the rest of the world get to me, to shut-down the brain for long enough to allow me to both intellectually and emotionally recover. I also planned on exposing to the sun parts of the body normally not exposed to the sun in normal public settings. while I had some success at meeting people last year, and had a faint hope of meeting them this year, I actually intended not to be that sociable with my fellow guests. little did I know that I would make at least passing acquaintance with nearly every guest that weekend, but that I would have strong acquaintanceships with most, and even a more intimate encounter with one. For someone who desires casual social contact, but who fails to seek it in most real-life cases, this was epic. the sun may not have been out the entire weekend, it was still a time of ‘happy happy joy joy’.

this weekend, I returned to ‘reality’, or, at least, the reality I made for myself. I miss the social interaction I had that weekend. I realized that, for the most part, I had not that level of social activity in any of my other trips. Sure, I made acquaintances, some that were consistent throughout the trip. I had a small, but regular, set of acquaintances at the Cartwheel when I went there regularly. Made casual acquaintances in NYC. One may be apt to include interactions with family and co-workers. They now seem to pale to those interactions I had. maybe, it was the diversity of the group of acquantances, ethnicities, residencies, ages, education, outlooks. maybe, it was that those interactions carried few strings. we were all tourists. maybe, my own attitude towards the interactions was different. I rarely felt like an extra, a lurker, a leech, or a wallflower. whatever it was, I now miss that level of acquaintanceship. I am now in a place where I know of no place to make that same type of acquaintanceship, where the diversity of the potential acquaintances is questionable, where I actually need to deal with the realities of life, and where I made my decision that this is the way life will be.

I now am stuck with a simple decision :: find a better place to live or stick it out in Allentown. Choosing the former would require a leap of faith in myself that I will be able to make the lifestyle change necessary to succeed. Choosing the latter assumes thing will eventually change for the better when all indicators are they will not. the ‘gay lifestyle’ that had held ‘the community’ in good stead at places like Fort Lauderdale, Provincetown, West Hollywood, et al., where gay-centered business cater to those who identify as ‘gay’, are beginning to fade. While integrating into the mainstream is good, where does that leave our identity. where, too, does that leave those of us who would like to interact with our own in a place that is safe. where do you go to meet potential ex-husbands without trying to put a make on someone who does not want that kind of interaction. I would be lonelier than I am if these places did not exist. on-line is just not the same as in-real-life. that is why I long to be back in Fort Lauderdale, and hope Palm Springs is much the same.