The club. Actually this first club I will speak about, that sparked this post, was recently featured on Gay Out as a must visit club internationally. I think the magazine must be bored in digging up destinations. It’s in my home state of Michigan and I was just there for the first time–The Dunes Resort. Nothing against the resort itself. It’s a fine establishment and actually very clean, well kept up. But a must visit on an international scale? I don’t know about that.
Nevertheless, I want to speak about these curated pictures and glamorous montages of gay night life on social media. I have lived some of the night life in my early coming out years to know it’s high feeling and it’s hidden deep lows. But that’s beside the point of what I want to talk about here. Most of us know that song and dance.
I have looked at pics like these, like the ones I took and posted here, particularly of this club and this city, with a big FOMO that could of have given me an afro–my hair curled so much from the pressure. Saugatuck and the Dunes Resort is touted as a gay mecca destination here in Michigan. I compare it now to a smaller version P-Town right here in Michigan but far less gays. Having given up on the gay mirage of what events are and are not, I hesitated some but I was eager also to have some kind of gay boy connection again. I decided to go Labor Day weekend with a friend to the famed gay city–where gays are said to go every summer to the well-to-do shops, beach, and bed and breakfast spots as well as the gay resort. I thought it was time to see what it was all about!
I don’t want to beat around the bush with long stories on here but in this city and at this club, it wasn’t the gays being so friendly as it was women and straights. The friendliest person at the gay resort ended up being the waitress I ran into that served us for dinner. She arrived with an entourage of young gay male friends (ironically while she talked to us, her friends looked us over quickly as if we were furniture from the salvation army and moved on). It was only when I stretched out on a bar table at the Dunes Resort to ease my soar back that men came along to frisk my body when all became suddenly communal. I thought about it later and now realize I looked like I was offering my backside to every passerby. LOL.
I set a mission for myself this weekend because I’m pretty bold. I made it my determination to say “hello” to every gay person and tribe I met to lift spirits and make connections. You know how well that went over. Kind of like grandma pinching your cheeks in public but I didn’t care. I could see these queens needed to see what community was about. Even a crew of men with a guy I knew and had been talking to from Chicago for some time, gave me about 3 minutes of their time at the Dunes that evening. Maybe I shouldn’t be disappointed. Maybe that’s 3 days in Gay time? In trying to meet up later that weekend, there was no response. I would say out of the whole weekend, two gays were genuinely nice conversationalist for about 5 minutes. Counter that with the straights–40 minutes with a straight couple on a boat cruise, our waitress twice, several lady shop keepers for very long conversations. So you tell me who you would rather hang out with? Those straight people or the gays?
What you won’t see in the glamorous pictures or the club videos–of any gay club event really– was the 400lb man in the next room sitting by himself despondent and numb, the slightly overweight guy with a chain necklace and lock and key that couldn’t quite break the walls of all the cliques, or even the hot looking stud in the black net shirt who just simply didn’t have any connections standing by himself, expecting someone to approach but no one ever doing so. He made stabs at walled off cliques later on, yet even with his model good looks, it just didn’t happen for him. He gave up and left. Nor can you tell, only if you are there an hour or two, that the music deconstructs back to the same boring club music beat over and over and over, and you don’t experience the see thru you looks and the lookmaxxers shallow energy swallowing up the oxygen and demanding everyone’s attention. Beyond what you think you are seeing that appears so envious and that you are missing it all that has ever been so tremendously gay…this what you don’t see. They aren’t going to show you that reality.
The only place I felt safe at the Dunes was the cabaret show because there we were like in gay church. Laughing, singing and clapping hands together as two artists sang songs in their underwear. It was a riot. Otherwise, I felt like I was in high school again longing for a place, a tribe. “Hello, bag of peanuts anyone? I just want a conversation!”
Counter this with a gay resort many years ago where I went with a group of guys and stayed the weekend this time at the resort with them. I knew one of the guys. Now if you go with a group, it is a different experience because you aren’t focused on filling “the void within” so hard. At times, I went off by myself and made random connections. I will never forget some of them, but one thing happened this weekend that made us the center of the attention. One of our mates had such hard fall it called for an ambulance. That made us the center story and center of attention for the rest of the weekend. People stopped by. People wanted to hear the story. Wherever I went, it was talked about. I could bring it up that I was the friend of the guy that fell, and I was an instant point of attention.
That and the other random connections where I risked myself making them, made an enjoyable weekend. The cliques didn’t seem as hard. I’m not sure if was the comfort of having a group as a back-up, or being down in a different state in the mountains. But I knew had this “story” and that changed things. I saw men there who were clearly struggling, alone with no one and not making an in-road. I knew it could easily be me if I had came there alone, with no “story” or friends.
In my men’s retreat work there is often a point in some weekend where you just join with the guys and dance. Everyone is connected at that point and you do it. I’ve done many men’s retreats of varying kinds and they all have some kind of ritualistic dance. No one is grouping in cliques or walling off in them. They are just free spirited dances. With my group of friends, I danced at the gay resort night club in the mountains and then got the confidence to dance with a man who would later become a connection I still have on Facebook today.
At the Dunes, by myself (my friend I was with wasn’t about to dance), I saw no way to penetrate these cliques so I found a smaller space off the big dance floor and danced to myself with some other men who were dancing off by themselves. I had to dance despite the lousy music. No one paid attention to each other. I tried a few times to spin around to see but nothing. Unfortunately I could only take it so long because the promising beats resorted back to all the same droning club beats. My friend was no one where in sight. I was alone, shirt in hand; part liberated, part resigned.
I say all this to say these pictures are not all they appear to be. Whether it is club, resort, or person, they are curated to see what they want to see. Unless you have someone to enjoy these things with who isn’t a stick in the mud, don’t let anyone fool you with their positive mamby pamby tropes. Unless you are ready to take the risks to talk to strangers and experience rejection, going alone takes guts. It can be so awarding though. Magic can and does happen! Happens to me all the time. But at gay bars? Rarely. Maybe if you stayed at a Resort for a few days so they got to see you around but that is if you are pro-active at communicating on the daily while you are there. Like I remember one time, I was eating breakfast alone so I went and sat with another guy eating alone and that turned into something later. Would I do that today? Probably not. I was fresh out of the gate being out.
I really think with all this that going to anything involving a gay event involves a lot of satisfying my curiosity more than anything, but I’m almost always disappointed overall as to what I thought it would be from the advertisements and the popularity. Now that I experienced Saugatuck I’m glad. I don’t feel the FOMO anymore or a need to go back. I imagine I would feel the same about P-Town now and when I published a short version of this post on a forum, a guy said exactly that. I did greatly enjoy Saugatuck, don’t get me wrong, and I would go back, but that had nothing to do with anything gay.
I’ve been to other bars, made connections and had fun but even that comes with deep longing afterward because the connections are shallow, fun and fleeting. You are left on a chase for what will be the next fun, fleeting event and who will be joining you. It’s endless even when it is good. So don’t have a FOMO of these things. Live your life with those your love. True love endures. The disco balls will always be spinning for you to see whenever you want.
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