Once you leave college it becomes a whole lot harder to meet people, and it becomes especially hard when you move to a whole new area and tend to be a homebody. Jeff was the only person I knew in Dallas, but he lived in downtown Dallas near Deep Ellum. Jeff tended to give directions as if you already knew where you were going and simply needed someone to confirm the streets you were to turn on. I had only began driving in March, and when I had picked up my car I told him specifically not to drive on any highways home so I could follow him, even though the dealership was half way to Fort Worth. So of course the first time I drove to his place I missed an exit and ended up in the scummiest area of Dallas I had ever seen, complete with cars on cement blocks, old guy drinking from a forty, and crumbling houses. I got back on the highway, hit my exit, and then my problem was trying to parallel park between a Honda S2000 and a BWM; Dallas was like that.
Jeff was a good friend to have, but I wanted to meet other people. I tried many ways to meet people. I tried joining a running club only to find that running wasn’t the most social activity
Me: Hey (huff puff) So do you come (huff puff) here often?
I tried the internet, which wasn’t good if you wanted to meet them in person.
And then I tried soccer.
I had joined my company’s indoor soccer team, despite the fact I had never played soccer before. The nice thing about company soccer leagues is that the company pays for everything, and they usually take anybody because they’re desperate for participants. I wasn’t any good, but I was enthusiastic and I showed up for games, which is known as good enough. About March of 2002, I thought it’d be good to try to find activities to meet other gay people. I wasn’t out at work and I had very few gay friends, and at the time that seemed like the thing I needed most of all. That’s when I discovered the Sideburn.
The Oak Lawn Soccer League was a LGBT soccer team of Dallas. They had a co-ed membership and played co-ed outdoor and indoor matches, and practiced on Tuesdays and Saturdays. For me this seemed like an ideal place to meet people. A gay sports team! In high school the jocks picked on the gay kids. Now the gay kids were jocks!
One thing I had to learn was that amongst gay sports there is a hotness hierarchy. The easiest way to explain it is to say that in the straight world there is a hotness hierarchy to women’s sports. Some sports are just hotter to see women playing than other sports. The top three would be
- Beach Volleyball (Bikini + Sport = HOT!)
- Gymnastics (As long as they’re legal, otherwise it’s just creepy)
- Lesbian Mud Wrestling (It’s a sport, right?)
Where as the bottom three would be
- Basketball (Ew)
- Indoor Volleyball (No Bikini? LAME)
- Hockey (IT’S A DUDE SPORT!!!)
In the gay world the top three would be something like
- Swimming (Speedo makes the gay world go ’round)
- Soccer (You want to take their cup off)
- Lesbian Mud Wrestling (It’s a sport, right?)
Most of the people on the team knew about the hierarchy. As Dallas had no swimming team, the gay soccer team were the Adonises of Oak Lawn, and they knew it. Being that I was not beautiful and not all that good at soccer they really wouldn’t give me the time of day. I admit back then this hurt, because here I had finally found a group that wouldn’t reject me for my sexuality but they rejected me because I wasn’t all that good at soccer, but I’ve come to realize that ostracization is really what being gay is all about.
I have a higher amount of stick-to-it-ivness than most. The Saturday practices were very close to my apartment and the guys on the team were really hot, so I kept coming to practice in the hopes I’d someday fit in… except for one time the Sideburn played my work indoor team. I was so scared of being outed I nearly skipped the game, but in the end I played with my co-workers, and I ran off without talking to anyone after the game. Looking back I wish I had been outed; it would have made life much easier.
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