The excitement of the first time

The excitement of the first time

For some of us it feels like a million years ago when we first stumbled across the LGBTI community. People who didn’t grow up in Sydney heard about it, but never really knew what it was all about.

My first encounter was through a girl’s Society and Culture project on the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras at school. Every chance I could I would thumb through it, looking at a world I’d never experienced.

It wasn’t until I’d finished studying and had moved to Sydney that I started to dip my toe in the waters. At first I was just happy to sit at Café 191 (Coco Cubano) and read the Sydney Star Observer, hoping the waiter would come and touch my shoulder and ask if I would like another “dreadful” coffee. The answer was a schoolgirl “Yes”.

The first club I walked into with a girlfriend from school was the Oxford Hotel in 1993. We downed two vodka and oranges very fast and scurried back to our hotel.

The next night I ventured out by myself for another two vodka and oranges (I’d seen someone on Sons and Daughters drink this, so it was my chosen poison even though it made my stomach do backflips).

I stood in the corner for about 30 minutes, smiling at a couple of people, but didn’t speak to anyone. I felt the music go through my body and was content to just watch others.

It was loud, there was pool and lots of men kissing each other. I headed back to my room, feeling sick from the vodka but dizzy with excitement.

I didn’t go back to another gay club in Sydney for two years when I actually lived in the city.

It took a long time but I started to make new gay friends and I wasn’t the lonely gay in the corner with my vodka.

I tell this story because I caught up with a friend of a friend last weekend from a small town in woop-woop. He had never really socialised with a large group of gay people and his gay life had largely consisted of anonymous hook-ups.

After we dragged him around the city, then dinner and out for drinks and to see my show, his protective walls started to come down.

He danced the night away, then we put him in a cab for the airport and home.

Have we lost that innocent excitement? Is it OK to just live in a gay world where everyone is the same as you and you feel comfortable?

Maybe we need to stop every now again and remember the excitement of the first time.

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3 responses to “The excitement of the first time”

  1. Maxi darls I love ya guts but you’ve written about your coming out and coffee reading The Star at cafe 191 so many times I feel like it is Groundhog day ! :-P

    I take your point though about us all gay or straight becoming damaged or cynical over time. if only we couold “stop every now again and remember the excitement of the first time.” GOOD POINT.

  2. Maxi darls I love ya guts, but you have written this story about coming out and your coffees at cafe 191 whilst reading the Star quite a number of times…… I feel like reading you I am stuck in Groundhog Day ! :-P Sorry darling I only want to be honest !

    I take your point of the article however. Unfortunately I believe many of us straight or gay do lose our innocence and become cynical or damaged over time.

    “Maybe we need to stop every now again and remember the excitement of the first time.”

    I defo agree with that sentence. If only it was that simple, hey ?

  3. Maxi, so true. I remember my first night out as a Gay man in Sydney also. Gillians on a Sunday afternoon listening to Kate Munro, whom I met that night and Kabi ! The rest is history and I loved it all…….we still have so much to do as a community around equality to effect positive change. My first Mardi Gras was the most amazing night of my life. It is a pleasure to be connected with the community with people such as yourself in it…..Love