Straight Men are the New Dinosaurs

This morning my best gay friend (BGF) and I attended church at St. Thomas Episcopal, which was celebrating All Saint's Day with a guest speaker: Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop ordained in the Anglican church. My BGF really wanted to go, and since we take turns picking churches, I acquiesced. (Coincidentally, "Gene Robinson" was a trivia answer at Wonderland last Monday--I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about). It turned out to be a beautiful service--one of our best so far, despite my BGF botching communion--but I couldn't help but notice that I was alone in a congregation of beautiful, hipster gay men. So much for meeting a guy at church.

This wasn't the first time I was invisible this weekend. On Friday, my BGF learned he'd passed the Maryland State Bar, so we celebrated properly by going to the new, hot gay bar in Shaw. Now, even though I relinquish all opportunities of being hit on, it's not so bad going to gay bars with my BGF. He is like the Homecoming King: men compete to hold court by lavishing attention on him and buying him drinks. As his No. 1 sidekick, I manage to at least get a free drink or two out of it. Nonetheless, I was stumbling home alone at 1 a.m. while he was closing down the bar with a hot bartender. So much for meeting a guy at a bar.

And then back to today. Following our Sunday morning ritual of church and breakfast burritos from Dupont Market, we began our Sunday afternoon ritual of shopping in Georgetown and checking on our fantasy home (currently under construction at 35th & Prospect). While bouncing between the Lucky Store, Urban Outfitters and every other merchant on M Street, my BGF laid claim to every hot guy we saw (meaning: his team versus my team). Unfortunately, he was right. So much for meeting a guy at Kiehl's. Er...wait a sec.

I recently heard a mycologist (The Mushroom Man!) speak of the sixth cycle of extinction on Earth. Apparently Earth is currently losing species at a rate that threatens to rival the five great mass extinctions of the geological past. In fact, a Harvard biologist has estimated that Earth is currently losing 30,000 species per year. Could the straight man be one of them???