To my dating detriment, I always assume that most men I see in public are straight. Especially Black men. And I live in Atlanta.

There’s a higher chance of a random handsome black man in this city to be Gay than probably any other city in the world. Yet my primitive, Nas mixtape listening to, lizard brain still automatically places non-effeminate men in the “Straight” column when I see them in public or in the media.

That brings us to Daniel Baker aka Desus Nice of Showtime’s Desus and Mero and the Bodega Boys podcast.

Those of you who come to our Forums know that I have a growing crush on the brother. And those of you who are also fans know that Desus always jokes about being the opposite of his comedy partner The Kid Mero, having no kids or a wife…only a pet dog and cat.

So after watching a new episode of his show, I hopped on the Google machine and searched his name. This is one of the first pages I came across:

Damn. “Wife” and “Gay” are in the fuckin’ headline.

Not that I should expect subtleness or accuracy from a site called “Wiki Networth.” For example, they didn’t seem to get Desus’ age and birth year right:

They say he’s 35 and born in 1983, yet Wikipedia has Desus born in 1981.

Reading further on their page about Desus made me think their “research” consisted of searching through Lipstick Alley “who he’s fucking” threads:

So after all that investigating, they slid in that last line, almost as an afterthought:

Thankfully, we’re long past the days of Angie Martinez and Wendy Williams hunting for “The Gay Rapper” on morning radio [News Flash: The gay rapper is Lil Nas X]. But Desus is is clearly a child of the Hip Hop community, so I don’t think he would be immune to gay rumors…nor do I think he would shy away from them.

In a recent episode of their show, Desus joked about seeing Mero’s dick before…and that it looked like a mushroom from Super Mario Bros.

Is it odd for a handsome, successful, young straight man in the Bronx to be single with only a cat and dog and no girlfriends or dating life on social media? Hmmm, not really…What does make it a bit strange is that this same man literally puts everything else on social media.

Hell, his comedy career was built from the popularity of his Twitter presence with his comedy partner. So it’s not like he’s shy about putting his life on social media.

Again, I don’t think Desus is gay or even bisexual…at all…Like I said, my brain is wired to assume every guy is straight until I see them engaging in a homosexual act.

But it’s mad hilarious to me that there are entire media industries built around investigating who celebrities are fucking. They bookmark and share every little detail they can find that informs them about others’ personal lives.

I wonder how many times it’s happened to me. Are female (and male) co-workers secretly Googling me to see if I’m married or seen in intimate photos with women or men? Are they skimming through my social media to see who I might be dating? Have squad members and readers of Cypher Avenue been speculating and whispering about this as well?

I can honestly say that I give no fuks about who other people are fucking. This may be why I never got into reality shows or dating competition programs. I just don’t care.

True, I may speculate if that handsome guy I see in the grocery store is gay. But it usually ends up with me convincing myself that he isn’t and then going on with my day.

But I realize that I’m probably in the minority.

Gossip is as old as civilization itself. If there are tribes of people together, there will always be a large percentage of them that wants to know who’s fucking who.

Even if we colonize Mars hundreds of years from now, there will be people gossiping about who those new fine niggas from Hellas Planitia are fucking.

Where do you fall in this?

  1. Do you speculate about and/or follow who’s dating who when it comes to celebrities, coworkers, classmates, guys at the gym, etc?
  2. Do you also assume guys in public are straight until proven otherwise?
  3. Are you as private as Desus when it comes to your personal life? Is this normal?