The Ugly Guy Makeover

Wilton Manors, April 2005

When I moved to Florida in 2001, I quickly discovered that the age restrictions of West Hollywood and New York were gone. I was in my early 40s, but regularly got asked out by everyone from 18-year old college water polo players to Bermuda-shorts-wearing retirees in their 70s.

The bars were age-segregated, but that didn't stop cross-cruising.

Bill's Filling Station was usually crowded with leathermen, cowboys, and miscellaneous bears, but the occasional Cute Young Thing who came in was an immediate hit.

The Manor, a multi-level bar, restaurant, and nightclub with flashing lights, throbbing music, and minor celebrities semi-naked, was too big and brash for me.  But when Yuri dragged me there, the Cute Young Things pushed and shoved to be the one who asked me to dance first.

So I was surprised to see the Ugly Guy standing by himself, propping up a wall by the bar.  Completely ignored by the Cute Young Things.

"See that guy in the corner?" I asked Yuri.  "I'm going home with him tonight."

"What?  There are a million hot guys here.  Why do you want the nerd?  He's not even your type."

True, he didn't have any of characteristics I find attractive -- he wasn't short, husky, muscular, or dark skinned.  But then, he didn't have any of my  Top 10 Turn-Off, either.  He wasn't too tall or too skinny; he wasn't wearing jewelry or sashaying around the room.

"He's lonely.  I like lost souls.  Like you, for instance.  When we met, you were going around saying 'I'm straight.'"

"Huh, huh!  I was not ever lost!  Just stupid!"

We inched forward to get a better look.  Then we discovered why he was getting Attitude.  He was ugly.

His head was slightly asymmetrical, his eyes were slightly askew, and he had acne scars.  Not attractive.

If he had a prominent bulge, a fabulous wardrobe, or a bubbly personality, the lack of handsomeness would not have been an issue.  I knew a perfectly hideous guy in West Hollywood who dated a different guy every week, simply because he was knew how to work a room.

But the Ugly Guy was wearing a plaid shirt with a white undershirt, he hadn't bothered to wear tight jeans or stuff a sock down there, and he didn't make eye contact with anyone.

Yuri and I approached and introduced ourselves to the Ugly Guy.  It was hard breaking through his shell -- he was rather bitter, and complained about everything -- but eventually we discovered that his name was Bob, he managed a supermarket, and he lived in Davie, Florida, about 15 miles away.

He was leery about going home with us -- "Oh, I'm nothing special.  You'll be disappointed."  But around last call he finally consented.

It was fun leaving with him, watching the jaws of the Cute Young Things drop in surprise as they scrambled to figure out what Bob had that they didn't.

In the morning, over breakfast, Bob confessed, "I've been coming to Wilton Manors every Saturday night for two years, and no one ever talks to me.  I think most gay guys are jerks."

"It's just a highly specialized environment, with its own rules.  You have to learn to play the game, accentuate your best features."

"It's like a job interview," Yuri told him.  "There are lots of guys applying, so you have to find some way to stand out."

"With what?  Nearly everybody there has more muscles than me, and better clothes.  And I'm Princess Tiny..."

"So work out, go shopping, and..."

"And pretend," Yuri said.  "You act like you're a horse, and they will be so horny, when they find out, they don't even care.  Did Boomer care, last night?"

"Yuri is an expert on male endowments," I said.  "If he doesn't know, it's not worth knowing."

We spent the next week giving the Ugly Guy a makeover -- everything from his name - it was now Robert -- to his haircut and outfits.  On Saturday we went back to the Manor.  Robert was wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with a rainbow flag, tight jeans enhanced with a balled-up sock, and a gold chain.  Yuri led him by the hand onto the dance floor, and then sent him out to cruise, with the advice "Act like you're a horse!"

It worked.  Within ten minutes, Robert was chatting up a Cute Young Thing, and within an hour he was invited home.


It worked on Sunday at Bill's Filling Station, too.

And Tuesday at the Boardwalk.

And Thursday at the Depot.

Before I knew what was happening, Robert had a full social calendar.  Too full.  First he was too busy to have dinner.  Then he stopped responding to my emails.

A few weeks later, Yuri and I ran into him at the Manor.  He gave us Attitude.

The Worst Date in Florida History

Boynton Beach, Florida, March 2004

My day with Ryan in the spring of 1992 has won awards as the Worst Date in West Hollywood History because everything that could go wrong, did.  But 12 years later, I had the worst date in Florida history.  Before the evening was over, I hated the guy.   And his house. And his crazy housemates.

I should have known Andre would be a problem, when we met at the Filling Station: he was wearing a leather vest and a shirt that said "Flowah Powah."   Dropping the r's?  Really?

But he was hot, with 3 of the 5 characteristics that I find attractive: dark-skinned, shorter than me, and muscular running to husky. Most likely he also had #4, gifted beneath the belt (when I visited South Africa, I met someone with all 5).

We exchanged email addresses, and a few days later he invited me to dinner at his house on Saturday night.

Things went downhill from there.

1. He lived a 45-minute drive away. In West Hollywood we wouldn't date anyone who lived more than 10 minutes away.

2. In a swamp.  To get to his house, you had to walk across a bridge over a muddy moat occupied by an alligator.  

3. His house was in the midst of a major renovation.  The living room and kitchen had a floor, but you had to walk on bare boards across mud to get to the bedrooms and bathrooms.  I saw mice, frogs, and a garter snake.  Probably food for the alligators.

4. No one understands the phrase "I don't drink," so when I'm invited to dinner, I always bring 2 cans of Diet Coke.  This time I forgot. Andre had only beer, wine, and whiskey.  I had to drink brackish, bad-tasting tap water.

5. He said "I'm quite a cook.  I love experimenting with new dishes."  And indeed, he had a whole bookcase full of cookbooks.  But he served some tasteless lentil-squash horror over brown rice.  And no dessert.

By this point, I was thinking "You'd better be spectacular beneath the belt!"

6. One of his housemates joined us for dinner: a tall, thin, swishy queen from Alabama named Beau.  Not a problem per se, except in Florida it was customary to invite your roommate to "share" your date, and impolite for the date to say "no."  

7. During dinner, they both drank quite a lot and got very tipsy.  Drinking is one of my Top 10 Turn-Offs.

8. While we listened to slow, lugubrious, depressing torch songs.  One after the other. Like Judy Garland:

The night is bitter, 

The stars have lost their glitter, 

The winds grow colder 

And suddenly you're older, 

And all because of the man that got away. 

"Do you have anything lively?"  I asked.  "Energetic, upbeat, non funereal, from this century?"

Andre frowned.  "I don't know -- I'll check."  He sifted through his voluminous collection of CDs, and finally came up with one lively track.  Barbra Streisand singing "Lucky."  Beau lip-synched and acted out the moves.

9. After dinner, we sat on the couch, with more torch songs playing in the background.  Beau put on a drag outfit and lip-synched to Avril Lavigne's "Happy Ending" (which isn't about a happy ending), before saying "Sorry, can't stick around to play, girls.  The night awaits!" and flouncing out.

10. "Want to do some crystal?"  Andre asked.

No!  

"Coke?"

I hate drugs even more than drinking!  You'd better be phenomenal beneath the belt!

11. Finally Andre led me back across the bare boards to his bedroom.  I hid my wallet so it wouldn't vanish, like I always do when visiting someone for the first time.  We started kissing and groping.

Then we heard a door slam.  "Oh, that's my other housemate, Ricky.  He's still in high school, but he stays here sometimes."

"High school?" I repeated in surprise.  "How old is he?"

"Eighteen -- he just had his birthday.  We gave him a spanking.  You should have seen him when he was sixteen, though.  The cutest little hustler you'd ever want to meet. "

Suddenly the teenager was at the door.  He was Hispanic, light skinned, with three earrings in one ear and none in the other.  Wearing a Flowah Powah t-shirt.

"Whew, Daddy got it going on!" Ricky exclaimed, looking at me. "Hey, how you like these guns?"  He ripped off his t-shirt and flexed.

"Very impressive," I admitted.

"You can touch them if you want.  Or touch something else, even better." He flounced onto the bed.

12. "You into sharing, Papi?"

"It's just our first date!"

"Whatever.  Got any crystal?"

"In the chest in the living room," Andre said.  "And turn on some Judy while you're out there."

That was the last straw.  I had to get out of this mad house!

I made an excuse, pieced my way past the mud, mice, alligators, torch songs, drag queens, underaged hustlers, and miscellaneous drugs, and zoomed as fast as I could back to the normalcy of Wilton Manors.

13. I left my wallet in Andre's house.

See also: Yuri's Revenge: The Cowboy with the Kovbasa+

Summer 1998: The Estonian Mountain Climber Makes His Choice

At my birthday party in 1997, my friend Yuri, the Russian meteorology major who claimed to be heterosexual, introduced me to Jaan, the Estonian mountain climber.  Jaan didn't even know what gay people were until he found out the hard way during our "date" on November 29nd.

 He learned fast.

Two weeks later, on December 13th, I took Yuri to a Christmas party, and gave him the choice of dancing with me or sharing my bed later.

He chose my bed.

Then it was Christmas break, and we scattered, me to Rock Island, Yuri to visit friends in Montreal, and Jaan to a skiing vacation in Vermont.

When I returned, Yuri was out. And interested in Jaan.

 I couldn't figure out why; they were nothing alike.

Jaan was quiet, shy, conservative, and monogamous: he wanted romance, "one special guy."

Yuri was loud, flamboyant, liberal, and not monogamous; he wanted to do everything and everyone. He went through my copy of The Joy of Gay Sex and circled fifty acts that he wanted to try.

It must have been their shared heritage: Estonia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, and Jaan spoke fluent Russian.

But most likely it was Jaan's obvious gifts beneath the belt; Yuri liked them big, the bigger the better (in 1999 he would drag me to the Basque country of Spain in search of the World's Biggest Penis).

So we spent the spring 1998 semester competing over Jaan.  Every week we orchestrated bigger and better dates.  If I took Jaan to the Mr. New York Leather contest at the Manhattan Eagle, Yuri would come up with a weekend at Fire Island.  If Yuri invited Jaan to a campus production of Angels in America, the next weekend I would score tickets to Chicago on Broadway.

Dinner at The Curry Club?  Dinner at Mirabelle.
A free concert in Central Park?  The New York Philharmonic.
Hiking on Shelter Island?  Rock climbing in the Adirondacks

In New York's gay culture of the 1990s, there was no such thing as having multiple boyfriends.  You dated one guy at a time. Yet Jaan kept accepting dates with both of us.

It was excruciating.  Something had to give.

Then Jaan announced that he was flying back to Estonia for a visit.


Yuri and I braced ourselves; whoever he invited to go with him was obviously the One.

He invited us both.

"Great!" I said.  "I'd love to meet your family.  But could we spend a few days in Helsinki first?  I've been dying to see Finland ever since I was a little kid."

"Great!" Yuri said.  "I'd love to meet your family. But could we spend a few days in St. Petersburg first? I'm homesick for my friends at the university."

We waited anxiously for his answer; whoever he agreed to a side trip with was obviously the One.

He agreed to both.

We flew out of New York, changed planes in London, and arrived in Helsinki about 4:00 pm on June 14th, 1998.  After dinner and a brief city tour, we checked into our hotel.  Our room had a double bed and a single rollaway.

Yuri and I looked at each other with surprise and elation. Whoever Jaan invited to share his bed was obviously the One.  

We stalled while Jaan undressed to his underwear.  Then, without a word, he climbed into the rollaway and fell asleep.

We kept the same bedroom arrangements for three days of sightseeing in Helsinki.  In St. Petersburg, we all shared the same double bed, with Jaan in the middle (yes, things happened).  Then we took the two-hour train trip to Johvi, Estonia, a small town near the Baltic Sea known chiefly for St. Michael's Church and an annual Ballet Festival (which we missed.)

We were met at the train station by a middle-aged man and woman and a tall black-haired muscle god.  After hugging them effusively, Jaan introduced us in Estonian.

"Minu sober Boomer, minu sober Yuri."

Then he switched to Russian.  "Moya mat, Katria; Moy otets, Peeter.  Moy druzhok, Arvi.

They hugged us so effusively that he forgot to translate into English.  Then they bundled us off to a loud, raucous lunch at a little cafe on the second floor of the Concert Hall. They chattered mostly in Estonian, with occasional phrases translated into Russian or English for our benefit.

I'd been learning Russian with Yuri all year, so I knew mat, "mother" and otets, "father."  But what was druzhok?  When I had a moment alone, I checked my Russian dictionary.

Good friend, bosom buddy, boyfriend!

Jaan had made his choice.

See also: The First Time Yuri and I Shared.