[Vol. 15] My Gaydar is Off

Misadventures in the impossible art of pinning down gayness.

Happy Monday everyone! You know, sometimes I feel like saying that makes the concept of a Monday feel better, but I think that’s just one of the many little lies we tell ourselves in the A.M. at the top of the week.

Little lies and a strong cup of coffee – a match made in heaven.

Anyways, I’m just here to say that this volume of That’s Gay is a lot different from past volumes. I’m playing around with format, topic, and tone a bit here as we’re in the double digits of this newsletter …

1) because I believe in constant change.

2) because writing is just more fun when you get to mess around with it.

So that’s that. If you feel up to it, let me know what you think! :)

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Image created via Canva Pro.

For as long as I’ve known it was a thing, I’ve always had a terrible gaydar.

If you don’t know what that is, I’ve got you – actually the Oxford English dictionary has got you. According to them, a gaydar is “the putative ability of [gay people or] heterosexuals to discern the homosexuality of others.”

When I tell you I couldn’t believe they actually included an entry for gaydar …

Who decides when something makes it into that dictionary anyway? I want to know - and then promptly congratulate whoever pitched “gaydar”.

*I’m looking at you, the closeted middle-aged man on the Oxford English dictionary board constantly suggesting gay vocab and hoping no one notices. You’re doing the lord’s work 😉

As much as we might say that we don’t size up one another’s sexualities, we all do it.

Well, at least all the gays among us do.

I can say that with the level of confidence that I do not because I think I’m some expert on the gay community (again, terrible gaydar here), but because I know what it’s like to have a great conversation with a guy at a crowded house party for half an hour – him jokingly touching my arm, me wondering if I could see myself amicably splitting a 500-square foot studio apartment with this man as he refills my solo cup (the New Yorker in me) – only for him to come back and introduced me to his girlfriend, Stephanie.

“Oh, it’s so nice to meet you!” I lie, talking more to that solo cup-refill than I am to Stephanie. Or, sorry, Stefanie. She spells it with an ‘F’. There might even be a ‘Y’ in there somewhere too.

I’ll admit I’ve had a lot less “straight or gay??” faux-pas since I hopped on the Metro-North and dropped anchor on Manhattan.

There’s really no way to be gay and not be openly gay when you’re so close in proximity to Hell’s Kitchen. Similar to Chernobyl, it’s said that Hell’s Kitchen still emits a radioactivity of sorts – only here it’s at a much gayer frequency.

“Abandon all hope of straightness, he who walks the sidewalks of West 50th during Sunday brunch hours.” Something to that effect should be posted on subway exits.

And yet, still, faux-pas or no faux-pas, my terrible gaydar and I are constantly in the game.

• We’re on the subway, making eye-contact with the man across from us, my gaydar telling me yes; me telling it that I can’t even see the lower half of the masked man’s face, much less his sexual preference.

• We’re asking the barista for a cappuccino, deciphering whether “extra foam?” had any sexual innuendo to it at all.

• We’re at drinks with a friend, wondering whether the cute waiter that’s stopped by wayyy too many times “just to check in” is into Stefanies or Stefans. Or both. Or maybe even neither.

I’m a bit ashamed to admit it here, considering I just wrote an article highlighting androgynous style and have clearly made my argument that I think blurring gender in fashion is the way of the future (straight, gay or otherwise) but my faulty gaydar oftentimes goes for the way someone presents first.

I look for tight jeans and cropped sweaters, well-kept hands and even better-kept hair (none of that 3-in-1 shampoo stuff). I look for all the tell-tale signs of gayness that I was taught were tell-tale signs of gayness growing up in my world – a world that spun the narrative that straight men, “real men”, didn’t care for showing their belly buttons in public or knowing the difference between the stuff they use to wash their balls and the stuff they lather up on their faces.

*Ok, no hate on straight men, but the 3-in-1 stuff really is beyond.

Maybe that’s what makes my gaydar so terrible – it’s trying to define something that can’t be defined.

A playful touch on the arm at a party; a flowy coat and well-manicured nails; an active Grindr account at 3 AM.

Only one of these things makes a man gay – or, at the very least, bi-curious.

Will we continue to try and puzzle-piece together a cutie’s personality in some far corner of a house party (once it’s safe to do so again)? Most likely, yes, because the truth remains that the straight benefit of the doubt just doesn’t fall in our favor.

But, as my world opens up and more and more people are cracking open their closet doors, “By the way, are you gay?” doesn’t seem like such a dangerous question anymore.

Sometimes you’re just wrong. Our gaydars are all full of shit anyways.

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And that was That’s Gay, Volume 15. See you in Volume 16, folks! 

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