We’re now at a stage in our lives where most of our friends are in relationships. Our only single friends happen to be gay.
Guess which type of clubs Irishfella and his male friends go to when they’re all out together?
The single guys have a chance to hookup, and the coupled up don’t really care where they are as long as the drink is flowing.
I’m not gay, but most of my friends are so I hang out mostly in gay bars. I have asked them before, and the consensus is that they are only annoyed if it’s a bachelorette party or if it’s a straight couple making out in order to assert that they are, in fact, straight. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter. Like in any bar, don’t be a jerk and I don’t think they mind.
Thing is with online dating sites, apart from it being a bit artificial, people see that I have a kid (a teenage kid) and BOOM! I’m gone. That’s fair enough to an extent, but I used to be able to go out to places and people would like me for me without automatically flitering me out because I’m a parent.
And a lot of people will also see ‘woman in her thirties, wears dresses, has a kid… experimenter.’ Again, I’m gone.
Don’t think I’ll ever be desperate enough for the Candy Bar, even if they’ve probably stopped the ‘must wear multiple keys on a silver belt’ uniform thing they had going on for a while. They always seemed like they were on a reality TV programme even before they actually were. I did have some good times there, TBF, when with a group of friends who weren’t Candy Bar regulars, but they’re now all coupled up, moved out of London, or we’re just not in touch any more.
It’s a bit of a conundrum, really.
Well I don’t know whether it’s your thing, but Citypink started a ‘littlepink’ club for lesbian mums last year. I don’t know much more about it than that, but it’s at least a way to meet like minded people. Sorry, this is turning into a dating thread for Scifisam!
Don’t overgeneralise. Maybe your friends don’t mind, but there are LGBT people who mind (albeit probably a minority). Let’s be careful of saying what ‘they’ all think.
pdts
I’m not entirely sure I’d count as ‘professional’ enough for them, having looked at their site, but it looks interesting, so I’ve sent them an email to sign-up - TY.
Oh I wouldn’t worry about that, I went to one of their meet-ups with friends and they were pretty mixed socially, just mostly 30 something and reasonably bright/interesting, I’m sure you pass! I think the name gives the false impression that they are all city bankers.
Interesting that this has now become a significant enough demographic to drive a business plan.
I haven’t been to a gay bar in years, but the last time I went I saw my high school algebra teacher there. That was a little weird in that “seeing your teachers outside of school” way.
Well, to be fair, it’s in London, so there’s a larger pool of professional gaygirls than in your average town, and I’m not sure it’s exactly a money-making business. The people who run it do it as a club in their spare time.
This one had baseball and some sort of car racing that I have never seen before in my life. It wasn’t stock car and it wasn’t NASCAR. They were these little flimsy dune buggy things that looked like they’d fall over if you blew on them too hard.
Categorically untrue. I am a fat, bald, unfashionable, generally unattractive man, and I’ve been hit on by men at least twice. One such occasion wasn’t even in a “gay” bar–it was a jazz club with maybe a 20% gay clientelle.
I’ve never really been hit on by women I didn’t know. Except at church.
More to the OP’s point, I do know of a gay bar in a nearby college town where this has been a problem. It’s not so much that the hets have been behaving badly as that there have been so many of them. In essence, hets are OK as long as they don’t take over, but in this instance they’re taking over.
Can’t speak for others, but some of the info that’s brought up is the kind of info I use to turn people from “gays are all revolting!” to “why would anybody have a problem with gays? 
They’re just like everybody else! Well, except for the being gay part, what-ever.”
When my best friend (who was also my soccer teammate) came out to us in college, our little foursome of friends/roommates did our absolute best to embrace her, her girlfriend (who was awesome), her new friends, and tried our best to participate in her new lifestyle, for lack of a better word.
We went to school in DC, so it was certainly easy enough frequent lots of different establishments, meet lots of different people, and broaden our horizons. It was a great experience and really opened up my eyes in a lot of ways. My impression was, just as in every other establishment, as long as you are respectful and tip well, your just fine.
Speaking of gawking though, one night we were at a very small, neighborhood bar/club, that mostly catered to lesbians. There were only about 40 people there, who all seemed to know eachother, and all seemed to know about the new gay girl (dating the bartender) who brought some of her straight friends.
I was watching the dance floor where four women were wrapped up in this embrace against the wall, with hands and tongues going everywhere. I couldn’t not watch. It was AWEsome. A very large black woman dressed in head-to-toe leather came up to me and said, “Honey, you sure like to watch for a straight girl,” as she brushed my chin with her finger. I may have gotten out a mumble-mumble, before she walked away laughing. It was incredible.
Well aren’t you cool.
Not saying she is one of these types, but straight people who go on and on (and on) about how accepting they are are almost as annoying as bigots.
From this?
I certainly can’t answer the OP’s question in general, but I’ll share my experience nonetheless.
Some years back, I was traveling with a friend (we’re both hetero guys), and spent a night in Phoenix. There was a bar near the hotel that seemed like a decent place, so we went in. It was a weekenight, and there only about a dozen customers, so it didn’t seem odd that there were no women there. We had a couple of beers, and I had to use the bathroom. There was a poster in there advertising some upcoming event, which referred to the place as “The Best Gay Bar in the Phoenix Area!” Had no clue until this point.
I thought it was hysterical, but my friend got a little freaked out (which surprised me, but that’s another story*). The bartender heard us talking and laughed, saying, “Don’t worry, I could tell you guys were straight. Everybody’s welcome here.”
Later, we lost a dollar in a malfunctioning dart board, so he let us play pool for free all night. Nice guy. We had some interesting conversations with some of the other patrons, drank a bunch of beer, and had an enjoyable evening. Never got hit on and never felt the least bit unwelcome.
*He later admitted that he too was surprised by his reaction. I know him to be entirely non-homophobic, but he said he became extremely uncomfortable when he realized he was in a gay bar; he couldn’t really explain why and wasn’t proud of it. As the evening went on, he got more comfortable and enjoyed the company.
Was that really necessary?
Well, the poster’s name is llcoolbj…
Hey, don’t judge. We can’t help the way God made us.