This is bizarre. My life is bizarre.

My life has rapidly changed from "I-am-gay-I-feel-great-about-it-but-I-am-not-telling-people-about-it" to "I-came-out-Let's-go-to-a-gay-bar-gay-bar". And the immediate circumstances definitely played a major role. For this I am grateful, since it made everything much easier for me.

So I live in a "gay castle".

It's a student hall of residence. Sort of a private college-type accommodation. Old pretentious library with a blocked fireplace (safety rules, you know), massive dining hall (say hi to Hogwarts), three pianos, and, yes, many students.

About 140 students, actually. I lived here for the last couple of years, and our hall always had a reputation for wildest parties, liberal attitudes and certain affection for cross-dressing-then-drinking-then-running-around-the-town-naked. Yes, but ... we never actually had many openly gay students. Always two or three but not more.

Well, this year is clearly different.

We have 6 openly gay guys and 4 openly bisexual guys. We have two lesbians, a countless number of bisexual girls (girls in my dorms tend to be bisexual - they come to this university and go crazy exploring everything they have been deprived of in their tight neighborhoods in rural Alabama or Yorkshire), and a couple of camp guys who might be gay/bisexual but have not announced it yet.

I also have to say that our straight students tend to be more than tolerant. And we barely have any Christian fundamentalist kids this year. Straight boys don't seem to have a problem with us. Straight girls love us, cos... well, every girl needs a gay best friend.

The first week of the term was dominated by the gay scene in my building. 'Our' gays are super-sociable and are friends with gays from other student houses. Our residence, therefore, somehow became THE place to be for all young and pretty gays of this town! The first massive party of the year organised by our Hall Committee ended up as a gay party, really. 6 guys were making out with each other on the dance floor. Straight kids looked bemused at first, then they started snogging each other - to, sort of, correspond to the openness of their gay teammates.

Sometimes I go out in the corridor, walk past a crowd of people chatting near the TV room, and my thinking process goes like: "You're gay. And you're gay. I saw you the other night - you are also gay. You, the pretty one, are hugging him - that means you are also gay. You, the ginger one - are sooo gay. Oh... you, the one wearing a red jumper - you are straight. What are you doing here?"

Living in a gay castle is awesome. It certainly has its advantages in terms of finally experiencing living in the world where "gay" doesn't mean anything. Where it's so normal that is not even worth discussing. It is nice being in such a tolerant community, really. I do understand that this is my small world, the bubble, created artificially and sustained by young liberal people. The real world is different. But I am here now, and this is pretty damn cool.

11 October 2009