The Unbearable Banishment: gay divorce

Thursday, December 18, 2008

gay divorce

I met C for a very tall Ketel One and cranberry (actually, two) at the beautiful Playwright in midtown Manhattan. If you’re counting, this would be Holiday Spirits #3. Click on that pic of the restaurant. It's a lovely place.


I’m a cheap drunk and I was loopy by the end of the evening. C is yet another friend who I talk to on a fairly regular basis but have not seen for many months. I love the holidays! It’s the greatest excuse ever for calling an old, absent friend.


The bad news I got from C is that she broke up with H, her girlfriend of 14 years. I’ve known C for over 20 years. When I first met her, she was a bass player and lead singer in her own band and also a hired gun with a few other bands. She was part of a group of musicians I hung out with. I remember spending countless evenings trolling East Village bars listening to her and my other friends play. None of them ever broke out and made a living with their music, but those magic nights took place during a period of time that I now think of as the best years of my life. To have my own apartment on the Lower East Side of New York City when I was single and carefree with no responsibilities or obligations to anyone except my landlord was a dream. This was a pre-gentrified East Village. It was dark, drug infested and dangerous. I don’t want to romanticize what it was like. Some of it was quite ugly and I don’t pine for the “old days” as many do.

When I first met C, she had an insanely jealous girlfriend, L. When C and I would go out for a bite to eat or to see someone’s band play (it was never anything more than that), L would get on her bike and follow us around the neighborhood. She would ride one block behind us, wait for us to leave a restaurant or bar, and follow us to the next venue, always keeping her distance. C would laugh at her and then they’d get into a terrible row later when she got home. She said that the great make-up sex kept them together a lot longer than they should have been.

I remember when C first met and started dating H. The three of us would go out to dinner together and they often referred to me as a “breeder.” Well, the gay community needs its breeders and I am happy to oblige them. I am deeply saddened to see them part company.

This was another stone to bear. I’ve received an extraordinary amount of really bad news over the past four weeks; terrible things that I’ve not mentioned here because they’re too personal. I am stunned that so many bad things can happen in such short order. And right before the holidays when there’s suppose to be so much joy in the air! What gives? When will it end? How much more can my family take? I feel the punishment, but I can’t connect the crime.

11 Comments:

Blogger Digital Fortress said...

I can say I understand where your coming from because life seems to be fairly crappy on this side of the pc screen too. It is hard to just solider on and stay positive. It's easy to type condolences and offer that things will get better, but that doesn't really help. I'll offer this instead...I'm just some anonymous person, but if you need a sympathetic ear or if there is anything I can do to help you can certainly e-mail me - alberto.suarez.jr@gmail.com - Either way take care and I hope things get better on your end soon.

December 18, 2008 at 10:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

having been recently introduced, i love ketel one and anything... must try the cranberry now...

otherwise...ebbs and flows... hang in and the good will return. being there, doing that.

December 18, 2008 at 11:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i'm not sure if more bad shit happens around the holidays, or if somehow we're just more acutely aware of it - during a time when we desperately want everything to be light and fluffy...

sounds as though you're getting it with both barrels, from all angles, though. use your meditation and try to get 30,000 feet above it and look at it all sort of clinically... sometimes that helps.

December 18, 2008 at 12:09 PM  
Blogger A Free Man said...

I nearly got my ass kicked once by the insanely jealous girlfriend of a lesbian friend of mine. She was convinced that we were copping off at the local grrrl bar and turned up drunk on my porch one 4am with a baseball bat. She was a big girl and it took all my rhetorical skills to talk her down.

I know what you mean about the personal thing - not wanting to give too much on the internets. There right now and bollocking up Xmas.

December 18, 2008 at 6:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm sorry about your bad news. I hope things get better soon.

December 18, 2008 at 10:51 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

All: 10,000 thank-yous for your condolences and messages of support. I will send you each $2 for therapy services rendered.

Digital: Very brave of you to post your personal email.

Gnu: Ketel One + cranberry is kind of a girly drink but I don’t give a shit. It tastes like summer.

Daisy: Sound advice! I knew this meditation stuff would come in handy at some point.

AFM: How awful would be to get beat up by a bat-wielding girl? Pain + humiliation.

LKSN: Thanks. I hardly know you but it’s nice to read.

December 19, 2008 at 12:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It may not help but hopefully there is some comfort in knowing you are not alone in the shit-storm.

December 19, 2008 at 10:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not much else to add here because everyone else said as much. Hope you're doing okay, and naturally I'd offer you a beer if we were in the same town.

This has to be the worst holiday season since the 30s. Everyone is feeling the burn in one form or another.

SA

December 19, 2008 at 11:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In the long run you will prevail and you will be a stronger person. Remember all the crap we (Mr. M & I) in 1991? We survived....you will also. Really it could be worse hang in there and please call if you need anything, I may be younger but sometimes wiser.
MT

December 19, 2008 at 12:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am sorry about your friend's divorce. I don't know what to say about the string of bad things. Life is cyclical, but not personal.

December 19, 2008 at 5:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ketel one? Must be an American thing... I don't think we get it over here.

Sorry (belatedly) that things are so rosey. Hope that by reading more recent posts, I find that things are getting better.

December 30, 2008 at 8:55 AM  

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