that classic gay experience of wanting so badly to enter a gay bar and you finally do it but you’re uncomfortable and terrified the whole time because you both feel preyed on and like you’re the predator just for existing and all the other newbies to the scene feel the same way and this is your space but it’s not and you still feel like a stranger with no right to talk to anybody and you’re scared and you’re excited and you don’t know what you’re doing even though you’ve been to a million bars just like it before without even knowing what they were but this time you chose it, this time you admitted it to yourself and you actively decided it, you set foot in that place Knowing, and it’s wonderful and you want to talk to everyone and cry on them and thank them, and it’s awful and it’s way too loud so you don’t say a word, everyone is so beautiful and fitting — except for you