Back in the day, a coworker, Gian East, told me that I was the rare white guy who looked at people when walking down the street. Apparently white people don’t do that. This was in the 1990s so there are even less white people looking at people walking down the street. I still do, but millions more do not, they stare at the devices in their hands.

The truth is, I’m an old school Gay. When one cruised back in the day you had to look at people (men) and size them up and you could not do that if you stared at the ground.

Gian East was a good guy. I’m sure he still is. He was very handsome and very humble and a very good audio engineer. An unfortunate aspect though was he was gay friendly up to a point. The concept of me being gay was OK, the fact that I had a partner, Bill, was hard to swallow. That was too bad. We still remained friends via social media, until Meta killed off two of my accounts.

I believe Gian married, and his wife had twins then Gian and his wife separated. I posted a really good photo of Gian from a Summerstage afternoon and he insisted I take it down so I did. Perhaps his humility was in play. He was also a Christian and that could have been a factor in the removal request. I met Gian’s family once, his parents worked for the Bahamian consulate I believe and Gian had a brother.

Gian was uptight about my being in a relationship with Bill. It was awkward. Then there was Kevin McBean. That’s not his real name and I did find that out sometime later, I forgot it and really haven’t gone back to find it. He was likable and handsome as well. I first met him when I was at Right Track Recording.

Somehow he got in and had a resume since he was looking for work. The resume was written on tissue paper and I took pity on him and rewrote it on proper 8 ½ x 11 paper. He was grateful and we hung out a few times. There was always a pretty girls willing to put up with his Kevin McBean personality. And like Gian East, though seemingly worse than Gian East, he could deal with his gay friend having a partner.

One night, soon after Bill gave me a ring, I was on cloud nine. Kevin wanted to know why I was floating around the room. I explained and apparently Kevin might not have known that I was gay. It never came up and yet it was never denied. The look on Kevin McBean’s mug said it all.

I think straight men can be fine with friends being gay, and I’m talking about men, not women, and when they find out about men in relationships with me, all they could think of is sex and they find that disgusting and the thought of their friends doing something like sex freaks them out and displeases them. I’m sure it happened to some family members as well as friends. I just keep on keeping on. It more than likely explains a lot. I don’t stick around, I move on.