61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Hooksexup's videogame blog: We put the fighting behind us with Mirror's Edge and reminisce about the modal powers of Mario Paint.
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Today on Hooksexup's TV blog: Possible Gossip Girl season two spoilers include Chuck Bass threeway. Plus: Zach Braff leaving the show that wouldn't die.
Scanner by Emily Farris Today on Hooksexup's culture blog: Scanner Nicole falls for the world's biggest nerd.
Dating Confessions by You "I want to dump my good-looking, clean-cut, polite boyfriend... for my awkward, goofy, nerdy and crass friend. Because I want to be with someone more like myself."
The only things that can lure me to the suburbs are sex and Dunkin' Donuts blueberry muffins, which come marbled with exquisite saturated fats like fine Kobe beef.
Sex is far less predictably appetizing, so when you're crossing the city line via surface transit for a questionable encounter with a stranger, you begin to wish you were heading muffinward instead. Nevertheless, this particular muggy June afternoon, I found myself on my way to the suburbs for the non-muffin reason, from Washington, D.C. to the cultural abyss of Rockville, Maryland. I surveyed my fellow bus passengers. Most of them gazed despondently out their windows like freshly convicted inmates being transported to a facility for long-term supervision.
I was twenty years old, and their despair inspired a smug twinge of superiority within me. Unlike them, I was being whisked toward adventure — and possible dismemberment — after being persuaded by a man in an America Online M4M chatroom to meet him "IRL" (in real life). Because this was 1998, my 2,400-baud modem hadn't allowed me to download his photograph onto my Gateway 2000 — all I knew was he was four years older than me and named Sean. I had written my own name on my bicep with a Sharpie in case my face was mutilated beyond recognition when they found my corpse suspended from a ceiling like in Silence
promotion
of the Lambs.
The bus hissed to a halt across from a Blockbuster parking lot, and there was Sean, leaning on the hood of a sepia '81 Oldsmobile Delta like James Dean borrowing his grandpa's car. It was my favorite model of Oldsmobile, and the fact that he'd mentioned he owned one had played no small part in my decision to come out here, so I was relieved to find he was telling the truth. What's more, he was cute, with shaggy hair and a humanizing scorch of razor burn. He greeted me with a locked-elbow handshake while using his other hand to remove his sunglasses with a cartoonish Hollywood-agent sweep.
I was already eyeing the Dunkin' Donuts in the next parking lot over, but I knew Sean had made dinner reservations and I didn't want to be rude by buying a muffin for the ride to the restaurant.
"You like fish, right?" he said.
"Totally," I replied, thinking he meant the band. The massive hood of the car stretched out before us like a king-size
I felt wonderfully reckless, braver than anyone I knew. Who else would agree to meet a stranger from the internet?
bed as we soared down the interstate.
"I thought we could go to Legal Seafood," he said. "It's good."
I smiled and nodded enthusiastically, immediately deciding to order the most expensive item on the menu.
I rolled down my huge passenger window and adjusted the side mirror so I could watch the car's exterior as we drove; the retreating sun set the chrome fenders ablaze. I felt wonderfully reckless, braver than anyone I knew. Who else would agree to meet a stranger from the internet? I was Indiana Jones stepping out over the chasm and onto the invisible bridge, a practitioner of modern-day derring-do.
Our waitress glowered at my driver's license, then snatched my wine glass and brusquely walked away. I sat there asexually, like a child who'd just been caught cheating on a quiz. Sean ordered a glass of wine and I ordered a Sprite. He asked me some questions that were, if a bit bland, at least polite. I was used to lecherous guys who laced their questions with lewd innuendo, so the mild banality was refreshing.
In fact, everything about the blandness of this date — the corporate restaurant, the antiseptic shopping mall that housed the restaurant, Sean's nerdy demeanor — was strangely comforting. Living in the city, you almost don't realize how strenuous sociability is: the competitively witty banter, the desperately hip dating venues. I thought ahead to what Sean would be like in bed: quiet, orderly, very little foreplay.
Eventually, I remarked that because I was working for the local gay magazine in Washington, I would be manning a booth at next week's Gay Pride festival.
"So it's Gay Pride in D.C., huh?" Sean said with a snort, not looking up from his chowder.
"Yeah," I said. "Why? You want to go?"
"I don't think so."
"You should come. It's fun."
"Not my scene."
"C'mon."
"No." He was still staring into his dish, and his pitch had dropped half an octave lower into an unnatural baritone. We munched on our fish and hoped that the waitress would stop by to snap the awkward spell.
Then Sean said this:
"It just seems really weird to me that gay people go around asking for things like acceptance and tolerance, and say stuff like, 'We're the same as straight people, so you shouldn't discriminate against us,' and then go and have parades in the middle of the city, and it's all pink floats carrying leather guys in chaps humping each other and flamey guys in rainbow Speedos simulating oral sex. I mean, gay people can't expect to ever be accepted into mainstream society if they do this stuff in public, and prance around like these screaming queens in front of families and kids and stuff."
