How to start a gay bar

It felt a bit like everyone there was a gay man or a straight woman, and I feel crazy for finding that really frustrating. How can I actually enjoy myself in a gay club? Do I even have to like gay clubs?

You Need Help: How Can I Learn To Enjoy Gay Clubs?

We walk by a gay club and the group splits. I go home, questioning my disappointment, wondering why I feel so swirly inside. Maybe you had a vision of what that night would be like and were disappointed by the reality. Before we even know the words bar describe ourselves, a lot of queer people are searching for a place where we belong.

When we find that personal language, gay clubs are presented to us as one such start. They are essential to our history, centered in our media, a staple of our culture. We even have gay friends. Or, rather, are trying to. Those almost friends invite us out and we say yes with the platonic version of first date jitters.

They take us to a queer dance party and suddenly I have something new to be nervous about. All I want is to be in places like this, but what if I seem out of place? I get misgendered at the door and the night seems doomed. Until we start dancing. Not everyone that night saw me, but my girlfriend did, these new friends did.

We danced together in the comfort and discomfort of the queer people around us. How others, like me, the assumption that I was a gay man filled me with a different kind of invalidation. The more comfortable you feel with your own identity, the less importance those around you will hold.

The space is queer, because you are queer. I get there and feel engulfed with cis male gayness and heterosexual tourists. An older man hits on me, mistaking me for a twink. I wander around, feeling totally alone, until I spot a woman with an undercut. Where do queer women go?? We start chatting.

We dance. Maybe your frustrations have nothing to do with your sense of self and everything to do with a gay world still steeped in all the things gay straight world has — including heteronormativity. Although it would be remiss of me not to mention that some people you think are straight might not be.