The Splash-View Post-Mortem: Entitlement

Tonight's drunken stumble back home brought to you by Kumi Koda, who I reckon would probably not come close to being as obnoxious as some people that I encountered at The View.

There are few things that stoke my ire like entitlement. I just cannot comprehend what goes through people’s minds that cause them to believe that the place they are in can adapt to them, as opposed to adapting to the patrons.

The night started off at Splash, oddly enough in The Brat’s section (wow, has he muted himself) . I plopped myself down and ordered myself a Corona. Well, at that moment a guy—who I’ll call The Grabber—sat down next to me. The Grabber told me that he had only recently moved to New York from LA, because he missed the street life and interaction. I fully agree, that is one of the things that I love about urban life. Amidst several, very flattering statements about my attractiveness, he proceeded to grab my shoulders, neck, back, and even my scalp to "massage" them.

Now, I have had massages before, but none were quite as "firm" as his. If a "massage" was supposed to involve the Vulcan Death Grip, it is news to me. This man attacked my corpus as if it was the last food on Earth and he was starving. A wise man would tell him to ease up, but I've always operated differently. The way I show someone that they are barking up the wrong tree is that I show that I am unaffected by whatever they are doing. That way--I reckon--the transgressor learns and I can get relief without embarassing either of us.

Unfortunately, The Grabber didn't pick this up. So at this moment, I've got a bruised shoulder, back, and oblique muscles from his "massage." Even now they feel very raw and tender.

Still, I don't lay all the blame at The Grabber, but instead at myself. Inside of me, I still see the chunky teenager who believes that any attention is good attention, despite the fact that the present me, really just wants to have his drinks, listen to others, and stay an observer.

In all honesty, the whole time that The Grabber was brutalising my body, I was strictly focused on a bartender in another section: Mr. Glasses. I have tried for years to ascertain what my "type" is, and Mr. Glasses comes extremely close to it. He wears rimmed glasses and has a (likely steroided--this is Splash) physique which combined with the glasses just makes me weak-in-the knees. I'm almost embarassed since nine times out of ten, I need to have a sense of personality before launching into lust mode, but Mr. Glasses does it to me and I have yet to exchange any words with him at all.

I think I'm probably too scared to do so. See, that's the funny thing about lust objects: You find yourself wanting to get closer and closer to them, but when the time to talk to them comes about, you lose all sense. In short, I'm too chicken to actually sit in his section. I know that I could not at all register on his radar (why would I?) beyond the patron/bartender dynamic, but still I can't help myself from wanting to at least catch a glimpse. At least dreaming about him gives me a modicum of euphoria, that is probably better than any real interaction. (A dream coming true always has a way of becoming a letdown, such is the power of the human lust.)

After a slightly cunning escape from The Grabber (involving the fact that Splash only serves Mike's Lemonade downstairs), I made my way over to The View.

Well, The View was quite more crowded than I reckoned it would be. (Damn you, Roxy, for being shut this weekend.) It was jammed pack full of that combination that drives me up a wall: eunuch gays and their fag hags. Even worse, it also had the several examples of the people I try to avoid: fag hags in search of a fag for the night.

Remember how I mentioned "entitlement" at the top? Well, this is where it comes into play: Now I fully understand that many times you just want to be out with your girls and be left alone by any lecherous straight males. Fair point and I totally believe in that. It crosses the line, however; when you try to drag me into it, because you feel: A) uncomfortable (welcome to the world of being gay in a straight world), B) deluded to the point that you think engaging me into your car-crash of a self-absorbed life is a sign of being magnamious.

Note: It isn't.

Seriously, at a gay bar, sometimes I just want to look at scenery and imagine. Sometimes, I just want to listen to the videos. At no time do I want to play happy eunuch to you and your girlfriend, while you coo over the bartender that you have deemed your "best friend," after knowing him for 10 minutes.

Another note: not all gay men know each other. Just because I'm near the bartender and standing (primarily because you went and took a seat before I could), does not that mean I know him. I'd hate to shatter the comfortable worldview you have, but let's be honest here--apart from drag queens, very few GWMs in their 20s know GBMs and vice versa. It's not right, but that's the way things are in this country. I hope--nay, I pray--that things will change before I die, but that's the ugly truth. So no, I do not know the bartender that you are cooing over, I just want to have my Twisted Tea, and since I'm flying solo and this is the sole spot (not seat, but spot) where I can have it, I'm having it right here.

After debunking that the secret gay fraternity doesn't exist, the two upseaking women proceed to tell me that they are lawyers and my age. Like I care. I'm much more interested in the video that's playing than anything they have to say. They don't care, since apparently they are the queens of the night, and I should feel humbled in their presence. They ask me my name. I tell them "Hikaru."

"Wow, that's so cool. Are you Japanese?"

"No, I'm not. I just have a Japanese name."

"That's so cool. I want my children to have Japanese names, even though I'm not."

What am I supposed to do? Wave a banner and say "that's great?"

A welcomed lull in the conversation leads them to point out that the "fat" bartender (as opposed to the twink in our section) doesn't seem to jive with that environment, even though one of the women states that she dates "fat guys."

Now was that called for? Isn't she Mother Theresa?

I tell them that if it wasn't for a "fat guy" (aka my father), I wouldn't exist.

"Oh, yeah, that's like so true."

All I can say is thank god for my bladder being full at that time. After I relieved it, I finished my 2nd Twisted Tea and got the hell out of Dodge.

Lo these many years later, people still have trouble reading others.