Gay Talk

Dean and I got into a fight Saturday night while we were on the phone. He was out drinking with friends. I was home alone after a night of Litcrawl. I felt so depressed, suffocating in a studio apartment by myself that I drove across the city into the arms of my gay best friend.

I rushed into Marc’s place, set the bottle of Yellow Tail Cabernet on his countertop, and tossed myself onto his couch.

“Oh honey! You’ve been crying. Tell me what’s wrong.” Marc looked genuinely upset for me.

“I don’t know, Marc. I mean, Dean and I fight all the time.”

Marc glared at me, smiled, and patted me on the arm. “Honey, you’re acerbic.” He enunciated each syllable slowly.

It wasn’t the answer I was expecting.

He continued. “You say mean things. You’re stubborn. You know how to argue. I know you. I can imagine it’s hard on Dean to get into an argument with you. That’s not to say he didn’t do something dumb to warrant you getting upset, but you’re acerbic.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m really tough on him, but listen. Here’s why we got into a fight. He said he was going to meet up with me at Litcrawl, then dead silence. He never met up with me. So I’m texting him the whole time my whereabouts. Nada. I finally call and scream at him and he starts yelling at me for screaming at him.”

“Well, honey, if that’s what happened, he is dumb and you need to break it off.”

I laughed. “We get into these shouting matches. We’re arguing back and forth, and he thinks he’s being cuckolded.”

“Ummm, does Dean even know what ‘cuckolded’ means?” I laughed again.

“I told him we really need to figure out how to communicate together. We just don’t communicate very well. When we argue, we REALLY argue. I told him we need to get therapy, but he thinks of therapy as hippy, patchouli bullshit.”

“Honey, I think of therapy as hippy, patchouli bullshit, too. He’s from the east coast right? Look, we’re from California. We’re used to therapy here. It’s a right of passage. You can’t go throwing that therapy stuff on someone who’s not used to it. It’s weird!”

Mid-conversation, Marc’s iPhone rang. Marc said something in Chinese, mocking his friend. “Hey, guess who’s here. She’s about to call off the wedding to Dean. Come over, I have munchies.”

When Keith strolled in with more wine, Marc yelled, “I find it very offensive that you two both called on a Saturday night expecting me to be home alone doing nothing at all.”

I repeated my story for Keith who perked up, “Does this mean you’re going to join us as another singleton? We have so much fun together.”

“No, I am not going back to being single. I’m going home to patch things up with my fiance, thank you very much.”

As I got ready to leave, Marc said, “You know where to find us if he threw your clothes out!”