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"The Party
Boy"
from Finding Your Leading Man
By Jon P. Bloch, Ph.D.
PERSONALITY
It’s been said that life is a cabaret, and no one believes this more
than you. Most gay men like to cut loose now and then, but if you more
or less live to party, then you’re a true Party Boy type.
You associate having a social life with having a party life. Party Boys
such as you are, of course, likely to be found in big cities, where you
can keep up with all the circuit events. But even if you’re (supposedly)
the only gay man in Turkey Creek, Nebraska, your presence guarantees that
a social gathering will be the biggest thing since Farmer Bob celebrated
Bessie the Hog’s triplets.
At gay bars, some men lurk in the shadows, but not you. You’re talking and laughing up a storm, with your inevitable drink in hand. Probably you know a lot of people to hang with, but if you don’t, you’ll meet some. If nothing else, there’s always the bartenders, whom you’re likely to address by name.
You like to keep people entertained, though your wit might not be as sharp as you think; you probably laugh the loudest at your jokes. In any event, you enjoy feeling sophisticated by drinking and saying brittle things. You want people to think you are completely comfortable with yourself. If the gay press is covering an event, you’re eager to pose with your arm around another guy to show how sociable you are. If you’re young, you probably still have the energy to work out, and you like to take your shirt off on the dance floor, so that everyone can ogle your buff body. (Or if you like the ol’ beer and potato chips a bit too much, you might feel it’s your duty to get dressed up like Divine.) In any case, you’re vulnerable to alcohol and substance abuse and probably exercise less over time.
When you get drunk or high, you’re likely to say and do things that are thoughtless or even intentionally cruel. But you see it as all part of the game. If a guy can’t stand the heat, he should stay out of the kitchen. You hardly feel it’s your fault if someone got his feelings hurt when you snubbed or insulted him.
If you have a partner who doesn’t like to party, the difference in your lifestyles will erode your relationship over time. If your partner does like to party, you both want to be the center of attention, so conflicts will emerge. Either or both of you might even pick a fight, so that each of you can create his own circle of devotees for the evening.
Over time, life in the fast lane will take its toll on your energy level, and your professional life may suffer. You then might switch to a low-pressure (and lower-paying) job because you need to slow down for "health reasons." But you keep on partying.
Regardless of whether you do drag, there’s something of the drag-queen, Auntie Mame spirit about you. Life requires huge body gestures. But sometimes, you’re more like Auntie Mame on a bad day. You’re so determined to be "outrageous" that you sacrifice connecting with people. As others tire of your shenanigans (or grow afraid of being hurt), they move on, and you find new people to party with. Yet what you never quite succeed in doing is convincing people — starting with yourself — that you aren’t in pain. There’s obviously something in your past — be it your childhood, a past lover, or both — that you keep trying to party out of your life. But you never quite succeed. In fact, as you weaken yourself physically and mentally, your wounds hurt all the more.
BEDROOM BEHAVIOR
For
all of your carousing, you may not be as sexually driven as people assume.
Since you first and foremost want to be perceived as socially confident,
you might be content to go home alone, once you’ve proven your main
point. IF you do score, at least part of your pleasure is demonstrating
to onlookers that you are indeed skillful at interacting with others.
Partying tends to diminish one’s inhibitions, so you’re pretty much an anything-goes kind of guy in the bedroom. This can, of course, but a lot of fun, but you have to be extra careful to avoid anything unsafe. When you engage in a six-way harness (or whatnot), you’re at least as concerned with showing off what a good sport you are as with actually enjoying what’s going on.
Sometimes, you frankly will be too inebriated to do much of anything besides get yourself to the nearest bed to pass out. But assuming you’re sober enough to engage in sex, you’ll regard it as another chance to show off. A night with you is to be remembered as decadent beyond all decadence. Even if you’re too tired to do much of anything besides lie there and jerk off, you will do it with a spirit of wickedness that is meant to be seen as an extension of your party spirit. Even behind closed doors, you seem to be saying, the party isn’t over. The dance-club tracks you’ve been hearing all night is your idea of music that puts you in a "romantic" mood. In fact, you might be so conditioned to associate this music with sex, you have difficulty performing without it.
If you’re genuinely attracted to another man, he probably won’t know what to do with your sudden modesty or vulnerability and may interpret it as disinterest on your part. Also, if your personality has switched from the false bravado to the rather shy and uncertain man you really are, your sex partner might be turned off by your apparent dishonesty.
INTIMACY BLOCKERS
Probably at some point in your life you’ve joked about how unshy
you are — how you haven’t got a shy bone in your body, or some
such. It’s as if to be considered shy is a fate worse than death.
But the truth of the matter is that you are shy, painfully so.
Back where you came from, you probably felt like a social outcast or wallflower
and are hell-bent never to be that person again. Much of the time, you’re
unhappy, which is why you relentlessly drive home how happy, gregarious,
and carefree you are. Me thinks thou dost protest too much.
Because you’re presenting a front to the world, you aren’t really connecting with people. People tired of you (even when you present them with booze or drugs) because over time they want more of a connection than what you give them.
Partying was a big part of your coming out. It’s as if you wouldn’t know how to be a gay man without music in the background, a drink in your hand, and a snappy one-liner emitting from your lips. In a way, you haven’t ever come out, because you haven’t ever revealed much about yourself in a sober, everyday context. Though you might give thousands of dollars a year to gay causes, you still have a great deal of internalized homophobia to work through. You try to party away the aspect of yourself that’s uncomfortable with being gay, and it never works.
You confused standing out in a crowd with being liked. Yet when the craziness dies down for a minute or two, you are reminded of how lonely you are. You’d like something more than what you have, but you have no idea how to go about it, because you take for granted that how you live is what it means to be gay.
POSITIVE ASPECTS
OF THE PARTY BOY
Spirited, fun-loving, community-builder, active supporter of gay businesses
and events.
CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME
Overreliance on stimulation, overconcern with other’s opinions, lack
of confidence, shame-based gay identity
Copyright © 2001 Jon P. Bloch, Ph. D.
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