Life Within the Gilded Cage

It's raining men - or is it just raining?

Gerry Anne Miller tells me he's never been out on a date in his entire life. 36 years. Not one date.

"Oh, I've had plenty of tricks, but never a lover."

Pretty sad? Yeah, well he tells me he's in counseling. Nor is it like he's undeserving of at least one date in 36 years. He's 6'3", 220 pounds, works as a hairdresser, and has a wonderfully, dry sense of humor. When our crowd of friends goes to the NJ shore on Monday's, he has us splitting our beach chairs.

I couldn't imagine being single forever. For 6 years I lived with another queen, the most gorgeous queen I have ever met or had the good fortune to fall in love with, Danee Russo. She told me she was Italian. It wasn't until a year later that I learned her real last name - Rodriquez, and that she was Puerto Rican. Not that it mattered. Not to me at least.

Danee had a rough childhood. Molested by her two uncles at age 10. Beaten by her father with a broom handle(breaking several ribs) for being gay - thrown out on the back porch to sleep at nights. Left home at age 12. Living not on the streets, but on friend's couches, whever she could.

Danee was an amazing creature. She put herself through two years of college, and danced her way across the stage in Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Manhattan. And in the process became a very strong, very beautiful, tortured soul.

If ever I had a soulmate it was Danee. I fell in love with her at first sight. I thought she was a woman. A very pretty woman, with her hair up in a French twist, slender as a model, lithe as a dancer. 5'9, 130 pounds, of pure fire and ice. On the spot I asked a guy at the party who she was, and he replied, "Oh, that's Danee Russo, the prettiest boy in New Hope."

From the very first conversation we had, we were locked together. We went home together, and stayed together for the next 6 years.

She was a fierce competitor, the ultimate shopper, partier, cook, and housewife. Miss Gay Pennsylvania 1990. New Jersey 1991, Michigan 1993. Wherever she went it was as if a spotlight followed her. She was an extremely talented performer and dancer, and worked in Atlantic City, Chicago, Las Vegas, and NYC - doing "LaCage." She was extremely responsible, a leader in her community - someone everyone looked up to.

She died of pnuemonia October 23, 1995. A day that my whole world changed. The day I realized life did not last forever, and if there were things I needed to do, I needed to do them NOW.

<sigh>

After 6 months of insane grief (which some of my friends pointed out was much too short - I should have waited a year), I hooked up with a handsome black man named Kevin. When I met him he was selling drugs, and filing for bankruptcy so he wouldn't lose his rowhouse in Trenton. Kevin was also a Temple theater graduate, had a fabulous sense of humor, and like Danee, was the life of the party wherever he went. Kevin quit the drugs, got a great job making $90,000 year, a company car, got stable... life was good again. Almost.

Kevin said he lived in Danee's shadow, and that I could never love him as much as I did her. Too, Kevin was gay, and the more feminine I became, the less interest he had in me. On a trip to P'Town one summer, while we were on the beach, me in a 1-piece to hide my growing breasts, he looked at me and said: "You know, the only thing still masculine about you is your penis - and you want to get rid of that too." That was the beginning of the end.

Then I compounded things by having an undeniable taste for straight men, and got caught red-handed with a NY Ranger hockey player. Which isn't the end of the world really, not when I found out later Kevin was doing the same thing to to me with some cowboy named Nebraska. Which is not to downgrade Kevin or the relationship at all, because he was my best friend, partner, and a damn good lover for 5 years. It had to come to an end, and we remain friends, which is fine.

<sigh>

Since then I've been thrown back out into the spawning pool. Since we broke up I've been on a more than a dozen dates with a dozen different guys. Not all of them were exactly Prince Charming. Not all were perfect gentlemen. One almost beat me up in his pickup truck. But there have been a few keepers. Unfortunately, no soul mates.

ALL of the men that I've dated have either identified as either heterosexual, or the more honest ones will say, bisexual. I use my crotch as the barometer in determining how gay or straight a man really is. If he dives for my crotch, he's gay. If he touches me just to please me because he's a good lover, he's bi. And if a man is willing to do all sorts of nasty things to me, without once going near Ms. Suzy, he's straight.

The sad thing about these guys is that although they all want to take me home to bed, none of them have any interest in taking me home to meet their family or friends. God no. Not that I'm interested in meeting some guy's mother, but it's a sign as large as a cornfield hieroglypic that they're not really interested in me.

That all said, I am not pining by the phone at night, or crying because I don't have a special man right now. There are a lot of positives being single. No one to pick up after. No one to coordinate schedules with. No one to fight with. No one to beat me up because some man flirts with me.

That said, if I had my druthers, I'd rather be with someone. As Mark Twain said, "To enjoy the full value of happiness, you must have someone to share it with."

<sigh>