Gay bars

[Knightmare]

Retail's Bitch post about drag shows got me to remembering my college days, way back when (15 years ago).

*This topic is in no way meant to offend, abuse, hurt, canoodle, cause injury or bigotry in any way*

How many heteros here have ever set foot in a gay bar? If so, why?
Curiousity?
Friends?

My first experience in a gay bar happened about 13 years ago, when my college room mate Paul had a friend that was a bartender in a notorious* gay bar. My roomie asked all of us (5 guys living together at the time - Me, Paul, Ted, Rusty and Patrick) if we wanted to go out, but he never mentioned where. We all said "Hell yes" because we were party monsters. We all hopped into 2 vehicles and set out, following Paul.
We pull into the parking lot, and get out. "What the hell is this place?" Rusty asked. "Just follow me." Paul said, leading the way.
We get inside, and our jaws drop. Paul is/was a practical joker, and knew how we would react to this. One guy, Ted (the homophobe), wanted to leave right away, but the rest of us said "We're here, let's get a buzz on and go get some women."
We actually stayed most the night. It was FUN! It was "Hetero Night" at the club, so there were lots of women. The mixed drinks were VERY strong and cheap, so our money went a long way. Paul introduced us to some of his friends (many of whom became my friends later). One guy in particular; his name was Augustus, Augie for short. Very charasmatic, very friendly... Think of Oliver Platt's portrayal of Porthos in The Three Musketeers. The funniest part of the evening happened when he held his hand out to Ted.
Augie: "Hi, my name is Augustus, welcome to my world."
Ted: "Hi, I'm Ted, and I'm straight."
We all laughed very hard at that.
I did get hit on a few times. Some of the guys thought I would start something. I'm a big guy (but not a dumb ox), so they thought my sexuality would be threatened. One guy in particular hit on me, bought me a drink, and came up to me, in front of the whole group. He asked me my name, told me I was cute, yadda yadda yadda.
I looked at him and said "Thank you. I'm very flattered, but I love the :censored: :censored:" I asked him and his friends to join us, and they did.
That guy became one of my best friends through my college years.

That night was one of the best nights of my life. It taught me that gay people are people, just like you and me. They like college sports. They have political views. They have families and friends. They don't swish and prance around like you see on television and movies.

Sadly, I have lost touch will all of those people from that night. One of my former roomates committed suicide a few years later. Two of the guys I met at the bar died of HIV and AIDS related illnesses. The rest just drifted away, like most people do in our lives. I have no idea where they are or what they are doing.
But I'm sitting here, typing this, and drinking a beer (4th one right now. More to follow). I raise my bottle to these people, and wish them joy.

*Notorious because it was a gay bar. That's the only reason. Go figure.

[One-Fang]

I did once. It was a quiet night (or early). I'm not even sure anybody else was in there yet. But me and my friend had just walked down the street and gone "Let's see what it's like in here". Dead quiet, so we left.

I'm not really into the club scene anyway. I've gone to bars, in general, maybe about 20 times total.

Some (male) friends were discussing a night out and one of them was telling how he was sitting at the bar, enjoying a drink, when some guy came up and hit on him! He then realised he was in a .... Gay Bar!!! Oooooo!!!! So he basically ran out of the place.

I don't think he was thrilled that instead of empathising, I asked him what his problem was.

[Rapscallion]

Reminds me of when I was meeting a friend for a stag night. It wasn't a wild affair, unfortunately, but he asked us to meet him at a bar called 'Cock of the North'. That's a local term for someone who is king or gang leader of the local area.

We couldn't find it, until we realised someone was calling us from a pub called 'The Rocket'.

We were several drinks down before we realised it was an almost exclusively male patronage. It didn't bother us, except for two things.

First, the place was an unimpressive start for a stag night.

Second, they shouldn't have changed the name.

Rapscallion

[sportsmom]

I've been to a couple around here. Both had drag shows, one was much better than the other.

My sis inlaw took us to the one she goes to a couple of years ago on hubby's birthday. The MC of the show found out it was his birthday (I don't know how, or why we sat so close to the stage;) ;) )and decided that 'she' needed to talk to him. It was too funny, she grabbed a chair and sat on the back of it from the stage and started asking him all sorts of questions, married? kids? all sorts of things. When she asked if he made good money he said "Not enough" and her response was "Nevermind, I only date rich married men." She did buy him a drink and sing "Happy Birthday" to him for being such a good sport about it though.

[scruff]

My local pub used to have a nicely mixed clientelle, old/young/gay/straight.
Generaly quiet and friendly, apart from one night when a new bunch of lads turned up and tried to pick up some of the regular customers, and didn't take a polite no thanks, we're not interested, for an answer, (they happened to be gay women, but that's irrelevant, a polite "no thanks" should be accepted anyway), so the landlord kicked them out.
It was a nice friendly pub, and your sex/sexuality/religion/job was irrelevant. I only stopped going when I got a job in a different county.

There were a few pubs around where the clientele were mainly gay men, I went a few times with a gay friend who wanted to pull, but wanted company in case he failed (I'm a straight lass). Perfectly pleasent evenings. The only wierd time was when I started a job as a trolly dolly (Catering Stewardess on the trains) and my new manager and the assistant manager took me on a gay bar pub crawl, whilst the manager tried to chat me up. The AM just sat there looking embarrased, til I said I really had to go home, couldn't be late for work in the morning, and then the AM got me a taxi. Turned out the manager was totally desperate, and tried to chat up every new member of staff, male or female.
It was an educational job. :)

[April]

I've never been, but I think it would be fun. I don't even know if we HAVE any around here, Focus on the Family and all that would probably be pretty quick to try and shut it down, so you would think I had heard of it, if there was one.

[Fashion Lad!]

A few months after I turned 21, I was up in the cities with some friends and we were bar hopping. Since we hadn't bar hopped in the cities, we stumbled into a gay bar. None of us are homophobic. Brandon and I are the self-proclaimed metrosexuals. Sometimes we get mistaken for being gay. No big deal, you just smile and shrug it off.

Anyway, way we walk, automatically some guy starts hitting on Brandon and offering to buy the rest of us drinks too. Brandon looks at the guy and says, "Sorry man, I'm not gay. Just here to have some fun, but not gay fun." The guy says, "alright, that's cool." We still hung out, and it was fun.

Some gay men have hot straight girlfriends... so we got to mingle with them too. It wasn't a bad night. We spent maybe 2 hours in there. We all got hit on a few times, but it didn't go further than that, so it's all good.

[LadyMage]

The gay community at my place is huge and while I didn't go to the gay bars yet, the people themselves are an absolute riot to be around.

One of my friends and neighbors, D., is absolutely HILARIOUS. there's not a time that we talk that I end up laughing so hard that I have a stitch in my side.

I love 'em, but I don't swing with 'em.

[MadMike]

Back when my wife was still single, she went out to one with a female friend, just because they had cheap drinks. If anyone tried to hit on either of them, they just pretended they were together.

[COMINATCHA]

Nearly all of my friends are gay (I don't know how that happened either, lol). Like the road trip I went on recently, there was 6 of us - and only me and one other girl are straight.

I go to gay bars alot, and it can be fun. I even asked one drag queen where he(she?) got his dress from, cause it was really sexy and I wanted it!
One time I was dancing with my friends, and this girl came up to me and started dancing with me. My friend yelled out to her "SHE'S STRAIGHT!" and the girl ran away. That was embarassing for some reason.

The drinks always seem to be a bit cheaper, and I don't get any guys hitting on me. I do stand out apparently, as the 'obviously straight girl' but meh.

[Barefootgirl]

I like gay bars (or used to, in the days when I actually had a social life and went to bars).The music is good, you can almost always get a decent cocktail and no-one tries to pick you up. Mind you, no-one tries to pick me up in straight bars either...

[Tejas]

i actully met my current girlfriend in a gay bar - i am a straight guy, out with some friends and they found out the local gay bar had extremley cheap drinks ( $3 pitchers - at least 1/2 the price of other places). bear in mind there were 3 of us, me and 2 other guys. the 2 other guys were gay and in a relationship (with each other). i was just sitting drinking by myself when this stunningly georgous (well to me anyway) girl comes over and starts talking to me. we ended up clicking striaght away (as soon she found out i was straight it was no biggie) and she ended up moving into my spare bedroom about 4 months later. 2 years later, we are now planning our wedding.