Belated Blogging, Boyfriends & Butterflies

OK, OK, first things first, an apology – it’s almost a month since I last posted and it must look as if I’ve got bored of blogging and disappeared into the sunset. One group of readers – they call themselves ‘The Gays’, which hardly narrows it down – has at semi-regular intervals been prompting me to put fingers to keys and share some more of my exploits, and I assure you – and them – that I’ve been meaning to, really I have, I’ve just not got round to it. Or rather, I’ve just not had the urge to do it, until now. The thing is – as you may have noticed – I don’t just write about all the fabulous things that happen in my life the moment that they happen; not to brag but I get up to so damn much that to have the time to write about all the wonderful parties, shows, meals, dates and journeys that I am blessed enough to enjoy from day-to-day I’d need to give up the day job which, I’m afraid, is what pays for it all. This as I’m sure you’ll appreciate would be rather self-defeating. Saying that, for every fabulous moment, there is an equal and opposite mundane one – thirty, single and fabulous I may be but I still have to clean the oven from time-to-time – which does not make for interesting reading. So it is that I go through my really quite wonderful life having experience after experience, reflecting on and processing it all, until along comes an event, or person, or moment, or thought, that I actually think others (including, bless ‘em, The Gays) would care to hear about, or that I really want to share, and then a post emerges.

This time around, the thing that’s been on my mind is relationships. Don’t worry, I’m not about to surrender my singledom, although things are going rather nicely with the gorgeous guy I met when I went to help Andrea Bianco choose new specs a few weeks back and have had a couple of dates with since, so watch this space. Rather, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to relationships in general and a couple in particular, and gotten to wondering just what all the fuss is about.

I had a conversation a couple of days ago with one of my very dearest friends in which he broke the news to me that he and a mutual friend of ours had got together as a couple. This kind of event is usually greeted with much whooping and cheering and downing of cocktails, but this time the news was delivered without so much as a smile and if anything more than a trace of a frown. You see, these two had not got together out of sheer love for each other (although there is certainly reciprocal, if imbalanced, affection) or even as the result of a mutual attraction that had deepened over time. Rather, they had decided to give being boyfriends a whirl for the sake of not being alone any more, to soothe the ache of their mutual loneliness and because they had grown to believe, after years of waiting and hoping for ‘The One’ to come along, that ‘The One’, like Godot, was never going to show. Now I could perhaps understand it if these guys were in their sixties, or fifties, even in their late forties although God knows I have friends in all of these age brackets who live as full if not fuller a life than ever they did in their teens. But these guys are my age, or at least in the same tick box as I on a survey form. And the survey question has to be, “Since when did our thirties become the cut-off point for finding lasting love?”

I must admit that when I was younger – I should say ‘even younger’ of course – I craved a lasting relationship. For the first few years after coming out I was very promiscuous, and not just closeted-country-boy-moves-to-the-big-city-and-hits-the-scene-with-a-vengeance promiscuous, but rampantly, insatiably, by-the-time-I-was-twenty-I’d-lost-count promiscuous. But underlying it all was not so much a voracious appetite for sex (though that played a part) but the perhaps misguided and certainly naïve hope that if I slept with enough frogs I would be sure to find my prince. I thought I’d found him a couple of times too; I was absolutely besotted with my first ever boyfriend – are not we all? – and with the benefit of hindsight and a little psychotherapy I can see now that the man who I thought was and would ever be my one true love was in fact a substitute for the father I had lost just a few weeks before our meeting. Then of course came the two big relationships, with The Ex and The Other Ex (God these pseudonyms are imaginative, aren’t they?) both of whom I loved – and still do love, each in their way – and both of whom I thought, in the early stages of our relationships at least, might be ‘The One’, until it transpired otherwise.

(I’m going to go off on something of a tangent here but mentioning my father triggers memories of his and my mother’s relationship. Meeting at the ages of 31 and 34 respectively, and both having had several prior partners, it was, as mum tells it, love at first sight; they were married within the year, Big Sis followed almost nine months to the day later, I came along three years after that, and they enjoyed twenty-odd almost uniformly joyful years of marriage until death quite literally they did part. Just food for thought.)

Since becoming single last time – well over a year ago now – I have embraced bachelorhood and all the benefits it has brought. This is not triumphalism nor is it in any way meant to denigrate the several good and happy years I had with The Ex, but is a simple statement of fact. Certainly since my own break-up I will admit to having been, if not instrumental, then at least facilitative in a few others, through on the one hand my championing of being on one’s own, and on the other, through my firm and unwavering belief that it is better to have no relationship at all than to be stuck in one that is less than perfect. I am lucky enough to be able to say that I have not one but many boyfriends, and indeed girlfriends, in the shape of my many and wonderful friends, from whom collectively I receive easily as much and probably more love than I ever got from one man alone. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t one day like to meet Mr Right and be so swept off my feet that the ‘Single’ in Thirty, Single and Fabulous becomes obsolete; but would I ever crave companionship so much that I would let convenience outstrip desire? Could I give up the search for Mr Right and settle for Mr Right Now?

To be honest it’s impossible to say and indeed it would be reckless to do so with any degree of certainty. I mean, if in a few decades time you and I are still here and this is ‘Seventy, Single and Fabulous’ then yeah, ask me again if I want a relationship and the answer will still come back ‘No’. But what if it’s ‘Seventy, Single and So Bitter About It That I Might As Well Be Dead’? Will I be so sure then that those two boys who got together through one’s loneliness and dwindling self-esteem and the other’s besottedness and dogged persistence were really doing anything all that unreasonable? I wish I could lay claim to having come up with what I still believe to be the perfect assessment of why people enter or don’t enter into relationships, but Carrie Bradshaw gets the credit for this: ‘Some people are settling down; some people are settling, and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.’ Those two boys may be settling, and that may make me profoundly sad, but thinking about it, only they know what’s best for them and if settling is what’s best for them right now – and if given a few months, that moves on to settling down - then all to the good.

Me, here and now, I’m sticking to butterfly hunting.

Enjoy The Silence

I’ve lost many things in my time; my mother in a supermarket aged 3; my cherry (to both a boy and a lady); part of my septum; watches, wallets and so many mobile phones in one year that the last time I called to report it the lady at T-Mobile gasped, “Och, not again?” Every loss has pissed me off to a greater or lesser degree but this week I’ve lost something which has upset me so much I just want to scream. Except that I can’t scream because the precious thing I’ve lost this time is my voice. I’m not just a little bit hoarse either – a trip to the doctor’s first thing Wednesday morning, having woken up mute and in excruciating pain, saw me diagnosed with viral laryngitis.

Now, the irony of my having been struck dumb, when normally nothing and no-one can shut me up, has been lost on exactly nobody. While I know any ribbing is good natured, I know too that even my nearest and dearest are probably having a little chuckle that this most talkative and ebullient of men should - for once! – be rendered speechless. I have to rest my voice as much as possible for a week and then, fingers crossed, I should be back to my usual gobby self; for now I can at least talk to you, so let me fill you in on what’s been going on these last couple of weeks.

The most exciting thing I guess is that the silver lining to the cloud of having this bloody virus is the enforced cessation of smoking. I’d be lying if I claimed to have previously given giving up any more than the most tentative of passing thoughts, despite of course being fully aware of everything a pack a day was doing to my body. Unlike the drinking, which was having very tangible – and public – ill-effects, and my promiscuity, which I briefly hated but learned to accept as part of my make-up, smoking was the one vice I never really wanted to give up. It might sound crazy but because the damage smoking does is internal and unpredictable (sure you can get cancer, but you might not, whereas if you drink you will get pissed!) I’d carried on for 15 years with reckless abandon, stopping only twice – once for 48 hours pre- and post-surgery, and then for one stretch of about four weeks when The Ex and I decided to quit together but were lured back on to the weed by his mother, of all people. This time though it’s different as I finally have the impetus and incentive anyone needs to quit. The equation’s a simple one – quit and get voice back, keep smoking and enjoy chronic laryngitis for life. Talk about a no-brainer. Like the drinking, I know kicking the smokes is going to be a challenge so watch this space for progress reports.

Prior to falling ill I’d had a pretty fantastic run of engagements all of which served to show me how blessed I am when it comes to friendships. Thursday I went for drinks and dinner with The Ex and over pizza and Pinot we shared stories of exploits and sexploits that even a couple of months ago we probably wouldn’t have felt able to discuss. There’s certainly been a turning point in our relationship recently and I feel we’ve gone now from being Exes Who Stayed Friends to being, well, friends. The next evening I had a pure Sex and The City moment as Glenda, OLoC, ActiveWill and I descended on Suzie Wong, Soho’s latest swanky eaterie for cocktails and ‘Oriental tapas’. The place is gloriously fitted out in lacquer, paper screens and all manner of Chinoiserie, and staffed by an almost comedic cast of lady-like boys and, well, lady-boys. The food was fantastic, service was friendly if a little slapdash, the cocktails were strong and spirits were sky-high; if only someone had filmed it we could have sold it as a pilot to HBO.

From there OLoC and I travelled on to Brixton for PWdeK and the Duchess of Derbyshire’s joint birthday do at The Manse. I always love these occasions as the whole extended gang comes out to play, and this was no exception with The Other Ex, Best Straight Lady Friend and Big Rob among the revellers I’d not seen for a while. This was a permission-to-drink night so I got stuck into the vodka but managed to hold back from getting absolutely plastered. I may as well have not bothered though, for as the evening wore on, so the party favours came out, and two consonants and a vowel later I was staggering saucer-eyed for the nightbus, fascinated by the lights and the texture of the pavement (which I became better acquainted with at one point and have a cracking bruise on my left hand to show for it.)

Saturday morning came and in spite of the previous night’s excesses I woke up feeling moderately human (still a little wired if truth be told) and awaited the arrival of The South African who was accompanying me to lunch at my Second Favourite Lesbian’s pad up the road. The Saffa, while only my second favourite South African (Charlize Theron tops the chart), is rapidly qualifying as a New Best Friend what with his immense charm, gossipiness and bitchy-as-mine sense of humour. Being drop-dead gorgeous also helps – I do like my friends to be easy on the eye as well you know. He and 2FL, as well as Mrs 2FL and their other gorgeous gay guest, hit it off a treat and as the wine went down and the volume went up it became quickly apparent that we were in for a long afternoon. Sure enough with dessert digested we adjourned to the de facto gay boozer round the corner where, joined by The Saffa’s delightful Straight Lady Friend, we spent an enjoyable if fairly profane few hours until first The Lesbians and then I admitted defeat and headed home to collapse. The Brewers had been mooted but my stamina isn’t what it used to be and when I woke from my ‘disco nap’ at nearly midnight I realised that my Saturday was over.

On Sunday I enjoyed a new and thoroughly enriching experience – the inaugural Hollogays Learning Day. Adapting an idea given to me by the ever-creative Andrea Bianco, the boys and I had agreed a few weeks ago to assemble for lunch at Glenda’s on this day and each present to the others on a topic, in this case, oceans. ActiveWill kicked off with a very slick and well-researched PowerPoint presentation – as perhaps we should have expected from a man with as specialised a geology masters as he – on the Southern Ocean, complete with illustrations and fascinating facts (we were all agog at the giant kelp!) I followed with my bit on the Pacific; being by far the biggest ocean there’s so much to say about it that I chose to focus on its extremes – the widest this, the deepest that etcetera (I could have been talking about ActiveWill, come to think of it…) and we could all now tell you to the metre the depth of the Mariana Trench. Up next was OLoC who delivered a fantastic freestyle micro-lecture on the Arctic Ocean, about which he’d clearly developed such enthusiasm that it came across in his facial expressions and gestures as he regaled us with the movement of its currents. Glenda took the Indian Ocean from an interesting angle, glossing over the statistics to instead speak extensively and passionately about the socio-politics of the area. Did you know how scandalously Britain had treated the people of Diego Garcia? No neither did I until Sunday but believe me if you did, you’d be angry.

Finally it was Margo’s turn to teach us about the Atlantic and I guess we should have known that he’d do something a little bit off-the-wall. Just how off-the-wall took us all by surprise, despite having known him many years – because for the next half an hour we engaged in an experiential drama workshop, learning about Margo’s ocean through, variously, meditation, improvisation, group machine work, mime and performance. It was bonkers, but amazing, and if we laughed it was only through nervousness at exposing ourselves to each other in a totally new way. We all agreed that the day had been a roaring success and have already set the date and topic for the next Learning Day when I will be hosting the boys, plus Jerry, for The Six Wives of Henry VIII. We rounded off the day with a visit to the Kazbar where, joined by Jerry and his gorgeous mother, and bumping by chance into The Ex along with his New Man, Legally Binding and Mini-Lee, we toasted a thoroughly enjoyable and highly educational new experience.

This week was going to be a veritable social whirlwind, with dates in the diary to see Andrea Bianco for coffee and catch up and dinners with The Other Ex and BSLF, but these have of course had to be cancelled due to my tragic loss. Which takes us rather neatly back to the beginning and my state of silence; as I type this I am sitting, in monastic seclusion, at home where I fully expect to spend the next few days sipping hot drinks, gorging on comfort food (my stop smoking counsellor helpfully warned me that ‘You will put on weight’, at which I softly wept) and watching hour-after-hour of Golden Girls reruns. Which actually sounds rather good fun, so enjoy the silence y’all because that’s what I’m planning on doing!

Thirty, single, fabulous...and f**king busy!

Yes! It’s me, I’m back! Did you miss me? Good, because I’ve missed you like crazy – it’s true!

The lack of recent entries here on thirtysingleandfabulous is due quite simply to my having been so darned busy. Two nights after the Molton Brown experience I went to the closing night of Bent at the Trafalgar Studios which was as brilliant as it was harrowing, and left us – me, Glenda, Our Lady of Chappelle and Margo and Jerry – rather lost for words, unable to quite express how grateful we newly were for the sexual freedoms we take for granted. The following weekend, at my first gay wedding, I was again reminded of just how bloody fortunate we are. Despite the anodyne surroundings of Brixton Register Office, the unintentional hilarity of the piped music (‘I’m Not In Love’ and ‘Love on The Rocks’, for Christ’s sake!) and the language barrier – one groom was French, the other Brazilian, neither could quite pronounce ‘civil partnership’ – it was beautiful and very moving to witness such a tangible manifestation of gay equality. OK, I’m off the soapbox now; what else have I been up to?

The week before Christmas was a hoot. It started with a moment I’d awaited for the preceding 13 weeks – the crowning of America’s Next Top Model (Danielle in case you missed it; yes I was surprised too but thank GOD it wasn’t Jade) Then on the Wednesday – my last day at work, hurrah! - I spent a typically hilarious evening of cocktails, dinner and dancing with Miss Adelaide and Andrea Bianco (who was half-celebrating, half-commiserating having walked out of his new job of just three weeks, his boss having turned out to be the living incarnation of Miranda Priestley) Having completed my Christmas shopping in one meticulously planned commando raid on W1 on Thursday morning, the evening was spent enjoying drinks, canapés and champagne (vintage, and a gold medal winner at the Decanter awards, Glenda authoritatively informed the hosts upon presenting it) chez Margo and Jerry. Their house is fast becoming quite the most stylish place to see and be seen in the gay village, thanks to the flair with which they entertain, and this particular evening was no exception.

The following evening Mother arrived, ready for the trip up to Big Sister’s on the Saturday, and I was delighted that she was in sufficiently good health (physical and mental) to come with me to Dolly’s Christmas drinks soiree. Chaperoned by TWBD, I took Mother on what would be her first ever trip to Brixton and despite remaining fairly firmly glued to Dolly’s sofa she was nonetheless on great form, managing to polish off three bottles of Sol, a gin and tonic and about a pint of bubbly without any visible signs of drunkenness (like Mother, like son…!) Once I had taken her back to mine and ensured she was medicated, tucked up and sound asleep, I rejoined Dolly and the rest of the partygoers - including in addition to the Hollogays, Hollywood Rob and Princess Timmy – at Barcode VauHo for more bevies and boogying. Wishing to keep up the alliteration I finished off the evening by popping next door for a bit of bum-fun, and what a lovely way to round off the evening that turned out to be

The Saturday saw us depart for Norfolk and Christmas at Big Sister’s, which in a festive nut selection nutshell can be summarised as five days of pure joy; great company, great food (and mountains of it), fabulous presents (I nearly died of shock when Mother gave me two extremely tasteful and perfectly fitting items of clothing!) and a totally chilled atmosphere with not a single raised voice all the time we were there.

Arriving back on the Wednesday and with Mother safely despatched on her homeward journey, I arranged to hit the town with OLoC, Glenda’s planned drinks party having sadly had to be cancelled due to its host having flu. Much as I had had a gorgeous time with the family, as had OLoC with his, I needed to reacquaint myself with civilisation and as we were both in the mood for a warm welcome, cold drinks and hot boys, we headed for Le Bar de Kaz. There we met up with The Canadian who, through the sniffling brought on by his ‘white Christmas’, informed me that he has decided to settle down with one – just one! – of his current beaux. For you dear reader this means fewer tales of The Canadian and his pan-continental sexploits; for me it simply means that our catch-ups will be rather less difficult to follow.

Tipsy (yes, tipsy! You heard right!) and randy we moved on to Los Dos Brewos, and both OLoC and I were successful in finding company for the night – his a very cute scally type who took him back to (where else?) Peckham; mine a rather gorgeous and (thank you baby Jesus) sillily well-endowed South African lad who kept me busy until well into the next afternoon – they don’t call it a ‘job’ for nothing… (On that topic, I’d welcome readers’ suggestions as to new ways to reply to the compliment ‘You give great head’. Currently I either just say ‘Thanks’ or more often ‘Yes, I do,’ but I’d like a wittier riposte. Answers on a saucy postcard please.)

On New Year’s Eve Eve it was back to the Kaz to meet The Ex and a few of his crew (to one of whom, it later transpired, he is newly-enfianced) for Saturday beers, thence to the fully-recovered Glenda’s for copious amounts of fizz and gossip into the night.

My New Year’s Eve party was fabulously fun and unexpectedly well-attended. I’d expected just a handful but was delighted to welcome OLoC, Dolly, Glenda, Princess Timmy and cute ickle friend thereof, KLo and Mr Media (a gay man trapped in a woman’s body going out with a gay man trapped in a straight man’s body, and boy do the gays love ‘em both), The Ex and The Ex’s New Man (who for the record seems very nice), Smurphy, Judders and Dr Az. All came bearing liquor (and quality liquor at that – my friends have class), and I laid on some nibbles, played some cool tunes through the slinky iPod speakers Santa brought me, conversation flowed, merriment was made and 2007 was seen in in an atmosphere of love and laughter that bodes well for the year ahead.

Waking on 01/01/07 with only my second hangover in eight weeks (the first having been the morning after the South African…well I hadn’t had a chance to sleep off the drink!) I gladly accepted an invitation from The Ex to go round to his for the SW19 premier of Sarah Jane Adventures, the teatime Doctor Who spin off ostensibly for kids but which seems much more aimed at the The Gays than at The Brats. (There was some sort of plot involving an aggressively marketed fizzy drink whose shady but superficially altruistic manufacturer seemed set on world domination, which whilst serving as a clever critique of the current state of global capitalism was far less of a draw for me than the fact it had that Harley off Footballer’s Wives in it looking hot.) Smurphy and Judders - both as drunk as it is physiologically possible to be without the liver imploding – having left, I found myself in the very Noughties but less-uncomfortable-than-it-could-have-been position of chilling in front of the TV with The Ex and his new man in what used to be my front room. After a while (and eager to be on the sofa in time for The Vicar of Dibley) I headed home, washed up the glassware and threw out the debris from NYE, and settled down with a curry to see Dawn French tie the knot with him off Robin Hood. I cried, natch.

All of which brings us pretty much bang up to the minute, other than to update you all on how the drinking’s going…but that I think deserves a post of it’s own so watch, as ever, this space.

Every Cloud...

Having been let down for a third time by Kit, I accepted an invitation (or rather, engineered an invitation) to join The Ex and our mutual chum Legally Binding in The Yard. Not my favourite watering hole it's true but needs must and besides, I was a) pissed off enough to not care where we went and b) already a bottle of Merlot down. Imagine my delight upon arriving to find that The Ex and LB were in the company of a frankly stupidly pretty - but far from prettily stupid young chap called Michael, to whom I took an instant and, apparently, reciprocated, shine.

Readers, I sparkled, I shone, I entertained (and of course, I drank) and before too long aforementioned pretty young thing and I were getting as touch feely as it's decent to do on a Thursday in W1. Things started to go downhill however when LB - struggling under the combined onslaught of a recently broken heart, a current affair with an attached man who shows no signs of leaving his man for LB, and having drunk his own body weight in vodka tonics - left, leaving The Ex alone in the company of A Tongue Sandwich Waiting To Happen. Which, as ineluctably as Victoria Beckham regurgitating her dinner, it did; suddenly, spontaneously and...sadly right in front of my visibly pained ex.

Embarrassed by my insensitivity, I suggested to Michael that now might be an opportune moment to go for a nightcap elsewhere (I say nightcap, I meant snog and a grope clearly) and took the young man off, leaving The Ex with some of his old chums who'd fortuitously arrived just as M and I were getting jiggy. Sweetly, he was cycling home (though the state he was in I was concerned tonight's meeting might be the first and last) so I walked him to Cambridge Circus where his bike was and proceeded to snog, stroke and grope the little stunner for, ooh, about ten minutes, to the cheering - I think it was cheering - of passing cabbies and tourists. When it came to getting on his bike he pointed out that he was being hampered by a not-unimpressive stiffy which was reaching down the leg of his jeans; I took this as an invitation to have a good squeeze, which I duly did, before giving him my number 'so that he could call to let me know he'd got home safely'. Yeah right. See what I did there?

Will this show run and run, like Spamalot outside of which we were making out? Well no to be honest; gorgeous as he is (and boy can the kid kiss) he is but 24 and is, he says, 'smitten' with his boyfriend. I on the other hand am thirty, single and fabulous - how can you compete with that? Readers, watch this space...