My first New Year's experience in Toronto was memorable (and a bit mentally scarring) to say the least. I did not yet know many people here in the big city and my options were limited. I had made friends with a girl from NS (Maria) and she invited me along to share in the NYE festivities with her and a group of her friends. I figured it was a good way to get out and have fun as well as possibly make some new friends.
The evening starts out as expected with drinks at Maria's with a couple of her friends. We have a few rounds and discuss where we're meeting the rest of the group. A pub just down from Bloor and Bay St. is the meeting spot for the evening. The night has a positive aura happening and the good times are rolling (people have commented that all my blog entries involve alcohol...and I reply that I don't need alcohol to have a good time. I can also start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, but isn't it that much easier with a lighter?).
The evening starts out as expected with drinks at Maria's with a couple of her friends. We have a few rounds and discuss where we're meeting the rest of the group. A pub just down from Bloor and Bay St. is the meeting spot for the evening. The night has a positive aura happening and the good times are rolling (people have commented that all my blog entries involve alcohol...and I reply that I don't need alcohol to have a good time. I can also start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, but isn't it that much easier with a lighter?).
We get to the bar at around 10pm and meet up with the other members of our party. I take my place at our table and sit on the side facing the door. We have a few more rounds and we're all enjoying ourselves, so much so that I do not take notice of the other clientelle in the bar. This 
crazy looking guy came in (looked like the lead singer of Econoline Crush - see picture to the left), noticed me and came directly toward our table. I look up and this guy is coming at me with the fist bump. I thought the guy was just hammered and being festive so I bump fists with him. I am not a fist bump snob, perhaps I should be. He leaves the table and continues on into the bar. He is mostly forgotten by the time I see him walking by again eyeing me in a peculiar way. The next thing I saw was him talking to the hot girl across the table from me (I was hoping the alcohol would give me enough courage to talk to her eventually). She looks at me and smiles, then shakes her head and the crazy-eyed guy walks away again. I am wondering what the heck the guy was talking to her about and what he said to make her smile. She smiles at me and leans over the table then motions me to come closer as well. At this point I am thinking 2008 is going to be a great freaking year. She whispers in my ear "That guy wanted to talk to you, but he was shy so he asked me if you were single and/or straight? I said I thought you were single and straight but I'd find out for him". Apparently the look on my face and the noticeable dry heave made it obvious she would not be playing the part of homo-cupid this evening. She looks a little disappointed. Then she reassures me I do not seem gay but "in this city, you always have to ask". I begin to feel a bit better about the situation and less violated by the visual assault I was getting earlier from the freakshow.
crazy looking guy came in (looked like the lead singer of Econoline Crush - see picture to the left), noticed me and came directly toward our table. I look up and this guy is coming at me with the fist bump. I thought the guy was just hammered and being festive so I bump fists with him. I am not a fist bump snob, perhaps I should be. He leaves the table and continues on into the bar. He is mostly forgotten by the time I see him walking by again eyeing me in a peculiar way. The next thing I saw was him talking to the hot girl across the table from me (I was hoping the alcohol would give me enough courage to talk to her eventually). She looks at me and smiles, then shakes her head and the crazy-eyed guy walks away again. I am wondering what the heck the guy was talking to her about and what he said to make her smile. She smiles at me and leans over the table then motions me to come closer as well. At this point I am thinking 2008 is going to be a great freaking year. She whispers in my ear "That guy wanted to talk to you, but he was shy so he asked me if you were single and/or straight? I said I thought you were single and straight but I'd find out for him". Apparently the look on my face and the noticeable dry heave made it obvious she would not be playing the part of homo-cupid this evening. She looks a little disappointed. Then she reassures me I do not seem gay but "in this city, you always have to ask". I begin to feel a bit better about the situation and less violated by the visual assault I was getting earlier from the freakshow. Hot girl seems to have taken a bit of a liking to me and we are conversing a little. At this point we both look at our watches and notice that it is 12:10am and that the bar did not even do a countdown. What the hell? What bar does not do a countdown on New Year's Eve?? I start to question what type of establishment we are in. Our table does our own staged countdown at about 12:15am and hot girl gives me a peck on the cheek. Life is good, 2008 seemed to be a keeper already. And then I got up from the table to go to the men's room...
I walk into the room and there are three empty urinals. Naturally observing urinal etiquette I choose the one furthest to the right to allow the one urinal buffer zone to be preserved should someone else walk in. Sure enough someone comes in and he clearly breaks the urinal code by taking the middle urinal next to me. This makes me uncomfortable. I stare straight ahead but I get this overwhelming feeling of being watched. I think it's just that I'm still rattled by the earlier turn of events. I can't shake the feeling. I glance over a bit and notice the guy is definitely not looking straight forward. I look further over and the guy is not only breaking urinal etiquette, he is looking straight down at my downtown bonanza. He was like a fat kid looking at an ice cream cake. Having never encountered such behaviour before I was not sure how to proceed. I made the uncomfortable cough noise (the "what the hell are you doing?" cough). At this point he looked up at me and smiled. I give him the "what the hell is wrong with you?" face and he just keeps smiling back. I get the hell out of that bathroom like someone threw a live grenade in there. It hits me that this may all just be a bad dream, or maybe I have stumbled into the twilight zone or something.I slowly make my way back to our table and immediately the ghostly look on my face causes people to ask me if I'm ok, what happened, why am I so pale?? I have a small audience as I recount the events of the visual molestation I received in men's room. The people at my table laugh at my hardship but I am a bit traumatized and not yet able to find the humour in this strange turn of events. I begin to look around at the other clientelle in the bar and to say they are odd is an understatement of epic proportions. A mixture of guys in pink shirts or blouses of some kind (as Charlie Murphy says "You know where you got that shirt and it sure as hell was not the Men's Department"). The other perhaps odder element were the number of chubby 50 something year old women with the makeup that looked like it was applied from short range with a paint gun. These two worlds were intermingling and making perhaps the strangest scene I have ever seen. I've always wanted to try Abscinthe and I imagine it might cause me to hallucinate something more normal than this. I could not bid that place a not-so-fond adieu fast enough. This experience almost made me reconsider my move to Toronto. I thought maybe people here were a bit too in your face for my liking. Somehow we ended up in Chinatown for chinese food so the ship was righted.
Moral of the story: do some background checking on the meeting location if you're going out with a group of people you don't really know. Also even if you are openly gay, you should still follow the rules of urinal etiquette (look straight ahead!). Consider this a public service message.
Stay thirsty my friends and happy holidays!
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