What men want

Rather than summarizing my entire day, which was pretty unremarkable, I just want to tell one very short anecdote.

After I finished work around 19h00, I biked home and stopped at the Monoprix at the top of the hill near my place (near Goncourt) to buy some tomatoes for tonight’s curry and a few other things. As I headed towards the cash register, my path was crossed by a guy who was…well…pretty emphatically gay. I don’t mean he was especially feminine or limp-wristed, but rather that he had groomed and dressed himself into the epitome of the middle-aged Parisian gay man who claims to be “over” the scene while being totally in the scene: a meticulously-trimmed “oh, I just let this grow” three-day beard; buzz-cut hair that announces that he is balding gracefully; a simple navy blue knit scarf knotted at the throat; a brown leather motorcylist-style jacket to give his skinny frame the appearance of musculature; a discreet and solid-colored designer shirt; expensive designer jeans that are just tight enough to show off his ass; leather ankle boots with a low heel.

Anyway, I list all of this because he was broadcasting “gay” to me from the moment he entered my field of vision, and he was heading to the cash register with something small in his hand. He pulled into the aisle across from mine, so I could get a clear look at his purchases: two large packages of “personal lubricant.” We’re in a grocery store in a mixed-class ethnic area of town, surrounded by mommies and screaming children piling the cash registers with food and household items, and this dude plops down TWO boxes of lube as his only purchase.

The boy is buying in bulk, yo.

(Good for him if he’s going through lube that fast, though.)