This weekend, after weeks of working late nights, I went to the Lone Star, a bear bar in San Francisco. For those not familiar with gay bear subculture, it’s, for the most part, a bunch of older guys with goatees and beards wearing flannel and urinating on each other. Admittedly, there’s some exaggeration – they’re not always peeing on each other – but anyone who’s gone there knows what I’m talking about. And I, like the token Asian person that I am, sit in the back of the bar feeling as out of place as humanly possible.

But hey, that’s any gay bar I go to. Besides, I have friends that regularly go there and it gives me blog fodder. Take the conversation I had with my friend Giacamo for example, about a classified ad website for bears:

E: … Ugh. I can just imagine the profile names. GayBearSF. GayCubSF. WoofieCub. WoofCubSF69.
G: You know what kills me, though? They have these status messages, right? “Bear4Friends.” “Bear4Love.” “Bear4Sex.”
E: Sure.
G: So, I see this one profile, and it says Bear4Friends. You know, “Hi, I just moved to the city, just looking for some friends.” So, why is his main profile picture a giant photograph of his asshole?
E: (Ernie spits out his Zima)
G: Right?
E: Like it’s zoomed in and talking to you? “Hello, I enjoy long walks on the beach and backgammon.”
G: Exactly. So the profile gets updated with a couple more pictures, and I realize it’s a GODDAMN FRIEND OF MINE.
E: Shut the fuck up.
G: IT’S LIKE, HELLO? I DON’T WANNA SEE THAT. I’M ALREADY FRIENDS WITH YOU. I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS FRIENDS WITH YOUR ASSHOLE, TOO. THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR COOKIE.
E: “Cookie?”
G: Cookie.

(A part of me feels bad for the people reading this weblog, hoping to learn something about Decentralized Social Networks. Oh, they’ll learn something.)