On a whim, I went to a house party this weekend.

I had been chilling all day with visiting family at a backyard barbecue here in Atlanta…Although I guess I’m what they call “unclockable” and masculine, I was still the only gay person at the family barbecue.

Well, I think…maybe not though…my little cousin’s new college aged Kappa Alpha Psi boyfriend gave me a ‘gay vibe’ and he seemed to only want to talk to his new girlfriend’s hot brother-in-law the entire day and not her, but that’s for another blog post.

When they wrapped up the festivities around midnight, my old ass suddenly felt the urge to be around some openly gay people again…I didn’t want to go to a club though, so I thought about going to a bar for one more drink (or three).

One of the benefits to living in Atlanta is there is something for black gays to do with other gay men just about every night of the week. Especially holiday weekends.

I still get text messages about weekly parties so I pulled out my phone and started scrolling. Came across a text for a house party. When I got there, as expected, the cars were lined up down the block. 

The crowd overall was younger than I thought it would be (early-20s to mid-30s), but then again, I don’t really know what I was expecting. House parties are typically for the youngsters. Most people say I look a lot younger for my age so I figured I’d still blend in. Turned out, it didn’t matter, there were guys much older than me sprinkled throughout the crowd as well. 

It was a pretty big house, two stories, nice hardwood floors, new in style and appearance. And there were wall to wall guys there, even filling up the backyard. And most of them looked pretty good (at least from what I could see in the dim party lights). Good mixture of masc, fem and inbetween…good mixture of preppy, clean-cut, dreadlocked and tatted up urban. 

Even here at a house party there was a full DJ and a couple shirtless bartenders. The bar was “open” so no paying for drinks but the tip jars for the shirtless bartenders were in plain view. The short 6-packed twink bartender (with too many tatts that you could barely see all over his very dark skin) got all of my tip money (yes, I’m a thot for the pocket gays). 

As I held the wall and observed these youngins’ it just hit me that there will never be a shortage of new Black gay men in Atlanta. Say what you will about the city (and people do) but this is definitely a place for us to come and have somewhat as close to a similar youth experience as our heterosexual counterparts do (ie: house parties, clubs, bars, formal events, causal events, networking events, etc). Especially now that this shit is becoming (seemingly) so much more acceptable in our society. 

I mean, who knows if this new generation of gay men will be okay in the long run. While they can be more “free” with their sexuality, there are still risks that come along with that freedom. Especially when they are “freely” putting so much on YouTube, Porn Hub and Social Media…and the STI and HIV clouds still loom overhead when it comes to sexual “freedom.” 

But that’s the grumpy old man in me speaking. These youngsters seem to be living their best gay lives and I love that. Growing up in the 90’s and early 00’s in uptight Michigan, this is quite the opposite experience that I had.

Hell, it’s not too late for me though. I may be senior citizen age in the gay community, but apparently I still can pull ’em. I got a couple numbers at the party and even more than a few head turns and stares (slightly attractive tall masculine men are still and will always be “in,” I guess).

No, I’m not gonna pull a ‘Roy Moore’ and start making these excursions to house parties for young gay men a regular thing. But I gotta say, being around “family” in the evening after being around blood family all throughout the day, was a nice way to cap off a good weekend.