Not that there's anything wrong with Charlotte...

September 25, 2005 - In the interest of full disclosure, I’d just like to say: I’m not gay. No really, I’m not.  Let’s forget that I’ve been on basically a year-and-a-half losing streak with the ladies, and that I wear black-rimmed glasses from time to time, and that I like cappuccino.  Don’t read anything into that.  I’m not gay.   That being said, I’m finding out more and more that I possess some sort of gay magnetism.  A homosexual gravity, if you will.   Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  But I digress.   Friday evening, without much to do and without much in my apartment, I ventured out to Caribou Coffee on East Blvd. here in Charlotte.  I was finishing up a book I was reading on 50 great American explorers, so I decided to do a little exploring myself and stop in and get a cappuccino.   Five minutes into the chapter on John Ledyard, the dude behind me commented on my WVU hat.  Turns out he’s originally from Beckley .  How interesting.   So I met Matt.  And, a moment later, Jimmy.  Then Brad.  And after a bit, Miles. Now, if you know me, you know I often give people the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe these guys were meeting after work, I figured.  Maybe their girlfriends were all out of town.  Perhaps they all had tickets to the same concert that night.  I mean, some guys like Cher, right?  Not me, personally, but some guys do. And then Jimmy asked me if I was gay or straight.  And that erased all doubt. Here’s the thing, and think about this: straight guys are usually too afraid to ask another guy if he’s gay.  Me too.  You usually wait suspiciously until some girl tells you, or they tell you, or you have to ask it jokingly, like “Uh, you’re not gay are you?” If somebody asks you if you’re gay or straight, question answered.   So, I told Matt, Jimmy, Brad and Miles that the ladies are more my speed.  And then, they proceeded to try and hook me up.  With women.   How awesome is that?   As they rattled off bars I could go to and good places to take a date, I felt bad for not having a notepad to take this all down.  This was really good stuff.  Jimmy also informed me that Caribou Coffee has about a 50-50 gay-straight ratio and that Wednesdays are, in his words, “totally gay.”  They also told me that a lot of the cute girls that work behind the counter are single, and would totally go out with a customer.   I vowed to go get something else to drink.  This time, though, I got a coffee.  Dark roast.  No cream.   Sometimes we all need a check on our manhood, and that check doesn’t always come with tailgating at a football game or swilling beer or kicking somebody’s ass.  Friday, that check came when I sat down at a table with four men who weren’t into football, beer and ass-kicking, and I was ok with it.   Oh, I like to drink the occasional Tom Collins as well.  But ladies, I don’t mean anything by that.