This post has been a long time coming. Since I've moved to San Francisco, I've met some really wonderful people. I can't say enough for my small group of friends here - they're all really amazing people. But I've been struggling since I got here to make this city my home. Where to begin? For starters, I feel politically unmotivated and uninspired. In North Carolina, there was so much to be upset about and to be mindful of as a queer person - it radicalized many of us to create a kind of political queer identity. Here in San Francisco, most of the men I meet have little interest in or knowledge of politics. It's strange to come from a place where homophobia was so tangible and ever-present to a place where it is much more subdued. It makes for a very depoliticized kind of gay identity - something I'm finding it hard to relate to. I desperately miss queer political organizing.

This wouldn't be so bad if there was a nightlife or community that I could find easily to tap into. Unfortunately, I find San Francisco to be a town for three kinds of gay men: Tom of Finland muscle / leather guys in their 30s-40s; muscley hairless circuit guys in their 30s; and hipster grungey guys in the 20s-30s. This is all well and good; I certainly have nothing against any of these men and their respective cultures. But I'm none of these things. My aesthetic fits more neatly into a kind of twink / boy culture that simply does not exist in San Francisco. There's a certain hostility towards anything remotely feminine in this town that doesn't allow for that kind of culture to flourish. It's also a town that's not particularly welcoming to folks who are under 30, primarily because it's too expensive for young people too live here. I am reminded of this when I visit other places - New York, London, or even Ann Arbor, Michigan or Charlotte, North Carolina - and I find gay spaces that I can relate to, and hot men who think I'm sexy!

I sometimes wonder if this is just the way the "real world" is - outside of college towns like Chapel Hill where I came from before SF. And then I remember my summer in Boston, when I had some of the best nights of my life partying out on the town and made some really wonderful friendships with young gay men. Or in Charlotte, NC, where I can rely on having a really fantastic time out with my friends who all know how to party. Or my recent trip to London, where I found a thriving boy culture that was young and fabulous. It seems to be to be a problem endemic to San Francisco -- at least for twinky boys like me.

What is it about this place? Is it a relic of a history of a kind of SM / leather "Tom of Finland" sexual culture that's obsessed with a kind of rugged, burly masculinity? Is it the economics of a post-dot-com city whose housing market is so bloated that living here is difficult for all but the wealthy? Or is there a larger national shift going on in gay communities towards this masculine ideal that I'm simply unaware of? I can't seem to understand it. All I know is, when I graduate in May, I can't wait to get the fuck out of here. That's my story and, at least for now, I'm sticking to it.