The rest of my U.S. trip (part 3)

My secret entrance to the NYC gay scene

I traveled to NYC with eight friends (none of which know I'm into guys) Five of us were staying at the New York City Hostel, and the rest were staying with relatives or friends they had in town. I have to say that when we reserved our beds online, we expected a very grim place, full of rats, bugs and maybe being run by a family of serial killers. It actually turned out to be pretty good...It had a funk artsy vibe I liked a lot.

The whole week I tried to satisfy both my foreign tourist side and my gay tourist side. And of course, doing it without my friends knowing. So I would spend each day going with them going to all of the traditional landmarks (Times Square, Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, etc), and then making up some lame excuse to go all the gay places I could find without my friends being suspicious ("You guys walk too slow for me!", or "I forgot my sunglasses at the Hostel!", etc). I also managed to go away partying the first two nights: I waited until they went to their room (we were in separate floors), then quickly took a shower, put on some of my new clothes, and hit the streets. The third night I wanted to go out was a little harder, because Will, one of our friends, decided to check in the hostel for the remaining days of our trip (he didn't like sleeping in the floor of a friend's house in Brooklin), and got a bed in my room...I still ended up leaving the hostel without him noticing it. I used my trips to Chelsea to ask people in stores for recommendations on restaurants and nightclubs (one of the sales clerks at American Apparel was really helpful). That way, I found out about the Food Bar, where I went to calm my hunger and planning my nights.

The first night I went to a nightclub, I felt like a pig in a hunting trip: I had no idea what I was doing. Everything was just shocking for me: groups of guys making out and fondling each other, most of them with very little clothes on (which I found really hot, but still very shocking), dark rooms, it was crazy. The first hour I just walked around, looking at everything that was going on as if I were in a museum: I was really interested, but still looking at it from a distance. I didn't really wanted to dance, since I've always thought dancing by yourself in a nightclub is just plain desperate...so I just hung around the place. Most of the guys were really hot...I felt like a kid in a candy shop, just willing to grab everything I could. Of course, I felt too shy to do that. At some point, I spotted this really hot asian guy standing by the bar. He was probably in his 30's (yes, I have a thing for guys older than me), and you could see he had a really nice body. I was staring at his physique, when he realized I was looking at him. I inmediately turned my head away, making my "I'm so hot and cool no one deserves me" face, so he wouldn't know I was checking him out (I don't really know why, since he was hot and alone, and I was alone as well). When I looked back at him, he was gone. I walked around the place some more, when I saw him again, looking at me. I realized this was the perfect opportunity to start developing my flirting skills with a guy, which I considered non existent. I mean, the worst thing that could happen was that he rejected me and went away, and if he didn't, I could say I managed to have a nice pointless talk with a stranger. So I walked towards him, and somwhow, I managed to nerviously say "Hey".

Of course, at that moment I couldn't have predicted that next day I would be leaving his house at 6am in the morning, running as fast as I could so I could be at the hostel before my friends woke up and realized I hadn't spent the night there.

(To Be continued...)