Castro Street and Getting Caught Up

Last Saturday I went back to San Francisco on a whim. Me and two girls rolled out at about 1 pm, with the plan of meeting up with more friends in the city, some of whom I knew were guys. We got there and did the normal tourist stuff, met some friends of friends living in San Fran, blah blah blah. We had yet to meet up with the other group of friends, but I was sure we'd catch up with them out at the bars. We got dinner with a second group that consisted of 4 girls who had arrived in San Fran the night before. We get back to the hotel, it's me and 6 girls (not all straight) pregaming in the hotel room. Pretty good ratio. I was still too elated by the situation to think about what was going on here. The next thing I know I'm on Castro Street, the gay bar neighborhood of San Francisco.

The first clue as to where I was located came in the form of two completely naked guys just "chillin" outside the bar we would go into, called "Badlands". At this point I knew where I was and what I was doing, and grew a little uncomfortable with the situation. It was only about 11 pm, so things were at least civilized outside the bar (minus the two naked dudes.) Moving inside and looking around, the bar was to my right, and there were a bunch of guys to the right milling around tables about 5 feet high to accomodate standing. We moved to the back of the bar and it turned into a club of sorts. I bought a beer to ease my nerves, and the night began.

We found a spot that separated us from the dance floor by a railing. I clung to my girls, trying not to stare at the unfamiliar scene developing around me. I suppose the only unfamiliar thing was that it was guys hitting on guys. There were still creepy guys standing in the corner, still drunken guys talking too closely to their companions. What was not present was girls. The first line I received after being there for about an hour was: "Hey, you're sthuper cute, what's your name?" We talked for about 20 seconds (he lived in Saugerties about 1 hour from my home), before he goes: "Hey, are you gay?" I guess not many straight guys go to these bars.

It was culture shock. I couldn't just say that I wasn't gay. It would be rude. As the night moved along, things got gayer and gayer. I ended up getting groped or ass smacked more than 5 times by the end of the night. The funnny thing is I got used to it. That's just the culture of Castro Street after hours. It took a little time, but after being immersed in it for a couple hours I relaxed and just rolled with it. I thoroughly enjoyed the night, but in hindsight would probably prefer to just keep it simple and go to bars with girls. We never did meet up with the other Americorps group we meant to.

In other news, I graduated from CIT (training) on Friday, so am now officially in Americorps NCCC. We donned our AmericTuxes (collared white shirt with black cargo pants and boots) and recited the Americorps pledge. I got that tingling up my spine for no reason. Too many graduations.