A strange courtship

Early 1991, I was a junior in college. I was working 60 hours a week, living on my own and putting myself through school. It was stressful and exhausting. I wanted to start dating and get a regular girlfriend because the mind games, nutbags and party girls were all too annoying and stressful to deal with.

I was on and off with a girl at work but she had taken up with an ex-con, I.V. druggie rapist, armed robber that was in our company "parolee to work program." That was enough of a hint for me to stop seeing her.

I kept my eye open for girls at the university but I was never one of those slick chick picker uppers. At that time, frat boys who wore acid washed overalls with one clip undone, and sucked pacifiers were all the rage. (What the hell is up with the pacifiers?)

If attracting women requires dressing like a trained chimp and acting like a blithering fool I'll head to the nearest monestary thank you.

One thing I had previously overlooked were older women. They had already tried the monkey boys, ex-cons and coke heads. Older women for the most part were done with the majority of their stupid partying and might possibly be looking for a nice normal guy.

There was one girl in two of my classes that I had my eye on. One day I got up the nerve and struck up a conversation. Before I knew it we had a date set up. She was 7 years older than I was but I didn't let her know that. I didn't want to scare her off.

I went back to my apartment, told my buddies to get the fuck up and out because I had a girl coming over. They were offended and pissed because they had become accustomed to hanging out at my pad, drinking my beer and passing out on my couch.

Things were going well, I had finally met a nice decent girl and we were on the same mental maturity level . After our 2nd date she wanted to introduce me to her friends. No big deal I thought. As we were in the car she said "did I mention that they are all flamboyant gay men?".

I tried to keep my composure, I smiled and nodded "thats fine I have no problem with that" Hell, I thought, I already had a gay room mate once how bad could it be...

We entered the apartment and she introduced me to "Jaime and Lawrence" They "lived together" Roberto was my wifes co-worker and best friend, He looked like a cross between Edward James Olmos and John Leguizamo. Roberto was insanely jealous and pissed off at me for muscling in and dating his friend. Jaime and Lawrence were oogling me and making comments that made me feel like I needed to go super glue my butthole shut.

Even though these people were strange and scary, I put my best foot forward and did my damndest to not act grossed out. I knew they were testing my tolerance to homosexual behavior and were going out of their way to show off.

I ended up passing the test. My new girlfriend and her posse of butt pirates were all convinced that I was cool and open minded. Hot damn! Send me to Hollywood I pulled off the acting job of the century.

We ended up having dinner parties and playing cards with Jaime and Lawrence on weekends. Lucklily, there were other straight couples that hung out there too. The only problem with being a straight man around these gay men is the fact that when they started drinking, the stories they would tell were ...lets just say disturbing. I got to hear about the bath houses, oddly shaped vegetables and play by play of the latest gay porn videos.

I really liked this girl and didn't want to mess up so I just gritted my teeth and tried to make the best of an uncomfortable situation.

One thing about these gay men, they dressed well, had impeccable taste in furnishings and fine dining. They were actually nice people but they wore their sexuality like a badge. I couldn't imagine straight people at a dinner party talking about what they put in their orifices or going to sex clubs and what not. It still doesn't make sense to me.

Not too long after we started hanging with Jaime and Lawernce they had somehow lured away one of our straight male friends away from his wife and into their lifestyle. Too weird for me. How do you approach that person after they go to the dark side? "Hi there Fred so I hear you play the pink piccolo now... Try the new astro-glide yet?"

Lucky for me, as my girlfriend and I spent more time together and began sharing an apartment she grew tired of her flamboyant gay friends. There was too much drama and now looking back, I think she didn't want to take the chance of me being drafted into the "queen berets"

My girlfriend and I ended up getting married after seven months of dating.

We just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.We have a good life and great kids. I'm really glad I stuck it out and didn't let my adverse feelings for her friends get in the way of our relationship.