Slouching towards Xanadu

I came to New York really not knowing anyone. I had put a continent between myself and any blood relatives, and the two acquaintances I had in the city, one of whom was a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend roommate and the other a crush object from Idaho who may have resented me, were the only two people I could have hoped to call friends. Coming to New York like this—anonymous, with a black storage chest from Target that would later become my coffee table (my mom insisted I buy it—“It’s so versatile!”)—seemed to me the way that most people come to New York. Or at least that’s what I imagined from what gay books and movies I knew at the time. It seemed like a right of passage. It was, you know, “New York.”

And except for the one time that my parents came to visit me—they drove, saying that it would take them two days but for whatever reason it ended up only taking them one (at this point they had moved from Idaho to North Carolina); they called from the Holland Tunnel needing directions while I was still at work, and my apartment was no kind of clean, largely because I had not yet Febreezed it of cigarette stench—I’ve never lived in New York in fear of running into or being observed by someone who’s opinion of me or my actions might be of personal consequence. I’ve never been kept in check here.

Not everyone is like this—many have family here or in Long Island or New Jersey or whatever (“I am not sure that it is possible for anyone brought up in the East to appreciate entirely what New York, the idea of New York, means to those of us who came out of the West. . . . one does not ‘live’ at Xanadu” —Joan Didion)—but for those of us who are gay and who came here for Xanadu, we needed friends and we needed something to fill that family-shaped hole in our new setups. Enter sprawling urban families. What a perfect solution, no? It would all be new and voluntary. Thanksgivings would finally be fun. We’d all get boyfriends and the urban families would grow and overlap. Lots of us would probably sleep with each other. We could be the emergency contacts when we fill out release forms at doctor’s offices. I was never one to grow wistful for college when I was away from it during summer and the holidays, but I can imagine that for some people this new urban family setup might feel like a natural evolution.

And in one way or another, this is pretty much what happened to me. (Though my bread and butter are some key straight ladiez, and the few gay friends I have are ones I had to be passively in love with for a few weeks or months before the friendships emerged.) Throw in a boyfriend who came and went. Basically, we found Xanadu.

But what happens when we all go searching for the next Xanadu? What happens as, one by one, people leave [that “leave” there was supposed to link to this great thing on Matt Gaymon’s tumblr about his roommate moving out to the prairie and which, while listening to “Plasticities,” has had me alternately bent over my computer weeping and jumping around in preparation for my next karaoke night, but I think he took it down]? The thing about blood family is that, for better or worse, uprooting yourself is not going to sever ties. The thing about the sprawling urban family is that there is no such guarantee.

I was in San Francisco a few summers ago and met a friend of a friend who was telling me about how gay people have redefined freedom for straight people. We didn’t get too far into the conversation, but the gist was this: by watching gay guys and lesbians chart out new lives without regard to what straight society dictates as right or wrong, straights have become emboldened to live more self-fulfilling lives themselves. I sort of took issue with it, first because I think we can also just thank the sixties, but also because I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I’m of the freedom-isn’t-free camp, the freedom-requires-discipline camp, the if-it’s-too-good-to-be-true-it-probably-is camp. And I really don’t think that this is bottled up gay self-loathing talking.

And then in a fight a few months ago, someone who was previously very close to me said that I’m too concerned with “what other people think” about how I’m living my life, too concerned with how everything looks on the surface, and that I don’t live my life “for myself.” Sure, okay, but here’s my beef.

I want to be able to trust people. In my dream urban family, when someone makes a promise, you know that they’ll keep it. I don’t know what structure, in the urban family, keeps this in place, but in the blood family you do it because you don’t have any other choice. Because that’s how people have historically lived together in communities. This is not to say that anyone not related to you by blood is innately untrustworthy. What I am asking is that if you are not contractually bound to your sprawling urban family, where does the sense of commitment and trustworthiness come from? What provides the incentive? If we are all wandering around, flaunting our self-fulfilled selves, how do we have time to look out for one another? “What other people think” is, to me, one of the ways that we build trust among ourselves and is one of the pillars of living in a community. Do people really stay alive only for the sake of their ego-tastic selves? No. Lots of them actually do do it for the sake of other people.

Of course marriages end in divorce and terrible human beings end up as fathers and mothers, and misguided witch-hunts happen, and things are far from peachy-perfect in the patriarchy. But there must be some comfort in having customs and structures that provide instruction as to what to do in a given situation and ensure that people take care of their own. Gay guys don’t seem to have figured this part out yet.

Which is all to say that, whether or not it is useful or necessary, I’ve never met a gay guy that I didn’t worry about. Most of us drink too much. Most of us never really quit smoking, let alone other stuff. Some of us are contentious about locker room sex, and we defend our porn addictions. Most of us are discombobulated by the idea of aging. Most of us are rigidly self-sufficient. Most of the role models we might have are dead. Most of our parents and non-gay elders don’t understand and don’t even know how we actually live. I told my brother and dad that my boyfriend and I broke up and I think that they are so baffled and alienated by the notion of a gay relationship (which is as much my fault as anyone else’s) that it didn’t occur to them to just say “I’m really sorry. I hope you’re ok”; they wanted moving-on details—So I’m going to move? How soon? How cool will it be to finally live alone?! “Oh man!” my brother said, as if I’d just told him that I didn’t win twelve million dollars in the lottery.

Point being: Dudes, we need each other. Dear sprawling urban family of mine? Please stop moving away from me, and if you must, know that I’m still going to need you.