Bachelor Pads

The “Just Gay Enough” Doctrine

Back when I was a single guy and lived in what I think was one of the Accordion City’s most swingin’ bachelor pads, a friend of mine invited me to be a “contestant” on a television show called Love by Design. It was a home decoration show disguised as a “Dating Game” show in which a bachelorette would visit three guys’ apartments while they were away and select her date based solely on decor. She and the designer host would then redecorate the lucky guy’s place, and only after the redecoration would they meet.

Being bachelors, my housemate Paul and I did a reasonable job of sticking to a housekeeping doctrine we ended up calling “Just Gay Enough”. Our motto was “We cook, we clean, we don’t have sex with guys,” with the Standard Seinfeld Disclaimer implied in that statement. We even kept a couple of things around to accommodate the ladies, such as a pretty good collection of herbal teas and a couple of Sex and the City DVDs (which, come to think of it, I haven’t watched in about three years).

I can’t remember which particular young lady asked us questions about the “Just Gay Enough” doctrine, but I do remember the conversation going like this:

Her: Who cleans?

Paul: Both me and Joey. We have a schedule over here [points to fridge], and we have a cleaning assignment once a week.

Her: And you cook dinner for each other?

Me: Yeah, we take turns.

Her: How do you work out the grocery bill?

Me: We split it evenly for things we both use.

Her: [Impressed at such an arrangement by two paragons of dude-itude] So you make dinner for each other, huh? How about lunch? Do you pack each other’s lunch?

Paul: [Thinks for a moment] No. That would be too gay.

Me: I agree. Besides “I pack Paul’s lunch” sounds like some kind of sex euphemism.

Paul: Yeah, that’s too gay.

Her: But what’s the difference? Making dinner for each other isn’t too gay, but making lunch for each other is?

[Paul and I ponder this conundrum for a moment.]

Paul: Too gay.

Me: Oh yeah, way too gay.

I can’t explain the logic behind it, but I can cook dinner for Paul but would feel icky packing a sack lunch for him. I can’t even type “Packing Paul’s sack lunch” without cracking up.

“It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment.”

Over in the New York Times, there’s an article titled It’s Not You, It‘s Your Apartment that looks at a few people in New York whose dating lives have been confounded by their home decor. There’s the guy with the really old, really tacky sheets:

There’s also the guy with the lego sets and Sonic the Hedgehog action figure collection:

Did I mention that the guy with the cheesy sheets also has a giant Raggedy Ann doll and a collection of “glamour shots” (whatever that means) of his ex-girlfriends?

And here’s a strange case: the guy who had to break up with his boyfriend because his place was too nice:

The story’s pretty amusing. Go check it out.