Sure, today cell phones are even used by homeless people (“Hey, Jimmy, there’s a shitload of aluminum cans in the dumpster next to Mickey Dee’s!”). But I think the guy who invented the cell phone had to be gay because if you’re gay and aren’t carrying one on your cock ring, the powers-that-be just might revoke your homo-license. In the bars, in the baths, in the supermarkets, on the beach, in the gym, in bed, between fucks, during fucks, we gays just can’t live without our cells. About the only place in local gaydom where they’re strictly forbidden is at the local sex club. Some nasty boys were using their C’s to take pics to send back to family and friends or, better yet, use them to jerk off over while they’re on their knees in church Sunday morning.
I think cells have almost totally replaced cruising and for some people even talking in a bar. One weekend bar night, I conducted my own rudimentary survey and found one out of every five guys dicking around with his little hi-tech playmate instead of staring at the hot guy giving him the eye across the way. A chance at the real deal squandered. Granted, maybe they’re on Grinder which can GPS the guy of your dreams right down to the wall he’s holding up in the bar, but all that satellite tracking is meaningless if there isn’t some, good old fashioned inter-action. In fact, some guys I’ve encountered would prefer texting in the bar to talking – huh?
A hot young guy recently came onto me on one of the hook-up sites big time. I asked for his cell number so I could call him (I always want to hear the voice) to which he replied he wanted me to text him instead. When I e-d him that my primeval Tracfone didn’t have the texting feature, he responded: “Guess that’s a deal breaker then.”
But my ultimate cell phone faux pas moment was the young hot guy I spotted chatting away on his cell while bobbing in the ocean at Sebastian Beach, Lauderdale’s gay hangout in the sun. I looked at him like he was nuts. He just smiled demurely back and went on chitchatting. I was praying for some big wave to knock it out of his hand or get it wet (can you get electrocuted by a wet cell??), but no luck.
A close second was the guy at the Ybor Resort and Spa in Tampa who was on his cell phone in the dry sauna at 2 a.m. as four guys were getting it on two feet away.
I hate cells and rarely use my humble, very ungay Tracfone. I have it in my car for emergencies, or for that occasional convenience call when I’m lost looking for a trick’s address because the fuck gave me a bogus one. You see, when I was back in NYC as a senior hospital PR exec handling media, I had to practically carry my cell phone into the shower. You become so jaded in this business that when someone gets shot and lingers on, you wish they just died so all those three o’clock in the morning calls from the media would end. That happened one night when a cop was shot by some lowlife and I had $150 theatre tickets to some hot show whose name has since been lost in my memory bank. When I got the beep from the hospital that he had died, I spent the break between acts out on West 44th Street calling a dozen media outlets with the news. One pain in the ass.
Tomorrow – So why are we so wedded to our little tech toys?
