Assumptions

A few weeks ago, I received an email that read:

I am an avid reader of your blog and commend your adventurous spirit and well-crafted writing. It's rare to find eroticism and good writing in one package but you have filled that void nicely.

I'll dispense with any pesky questions as you pretty much answer them when others write in with the same queries. I will say that I've often found that when people say that they're bisexual , it is often the first step for coming out of the closet.

I guess my thoughts on the subject are a part of my solid Midwestern background. I generally don't care which team you play on but pick a team—any team. To say that my skepticism about true bisexuality is high would be putting it mildly.

Nonetheless, you and your blog and taking my smug little assumptions and pronouncements, dragging them front and center and giving them a sound thrashing. I'm not completely won over to believe in bisexuality but you make a compelling case.

I'm coming to Gotham on March 4-6th. I would love to have a meal or a drink with you. I usually not curious to meet the people behind the blogs but you have piqued my interest.

Perhaps it's to see that other perfectly normal looking people have perfectly dirty thoughts. Perhaps in some way you'll serve as a muse to get me to open up other avenues of pleasure. Either way you intrigue me.

Now, how did this person know I was susceptible to flattery?

I say “this person” because I learned so little about writer from this email. Male or female? Old or young? Gay or straight? No idea.

I knew that the writer was a Midwesterner who considered his/her attitudes on bisexuality to be provincial, yet he/she had the chutzpah to ask me on a date, sight unseen. That was about all I could ascertain from one note.

Smart money said the writer was an older gay man, as it is the “friends of Dorothy” generation who tends to subscribe to the notion that bisexuals are “fence sitters” who have yet to accept their “true” sexuality.

And why not? They are the ones who remember life before Stonewall. They fought for the freedom to be out, and it changed their lives. I forgive a little partisanship where they are concerned.

Compare this to many of the twentysomething queers I know, who care less whether you are gay, bi or straight. It’s more about whether you are top, vers or bottom. It’s not about politics. It’s about, uh, can we fuck?

I also assumed a male author because I supposed it would be pretty bold of a woman who confesses to “smug little assumptions” about sexuality to ask out a self-avowed perv like me, knowing me only through my blog.

In response to the email, I wrote:

Thank you for your kind words. I'm glad that you enjoy reading the blog. It's certainly become a favorite writing project of mine.

It sounds as if your attitudes on bisexuality were due for a thorough thrashing. Keep reading this blog, baby—we'll make a believer of you.

Almost to prove the point: it is unclear from your note whether you are male or female. Yet as I ponder your invitation to meet, my slutty mind thinks, say, d'ya think he or she is making a move on me?

Let me know more about yourself.

The writer apologized for the mystery, and sent a pic.

On the weekend of March 4-6, I had a date with an attractive black woman in her thirties, an avid churchgoer from Chicago in town with the girls.

She wanted to meet someone like me to be sure she wasn’t a freak for being a normal person who has “nasty” thoughts.