When I first started my website and blogging I didn’t give much thought as to who my “audience” might be. The blogging came out of winning the contest to be the Ultimate Fan Blogger for Project Runway (season 3) so I think when I first started, the people who read my blog were those who were watching Project Runway. (In other words, women in their thirties to fifties and gay men) And although I think that’s a rather accurate assessment of who is looking at my site today too I always find it funny that when a straight man comments on one of my blogs they invariably start out with, “I’m not gay but…” You don’t have to be gay to read Some Like It Scott! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m dying to become one of those “must read” blogs that ends up getting a corporate sponsor. I want everyone to read the site and to pass it on to as many of their friends as humanly possible. I want to be the Jewish David Sedaris and the Anti-Perez Hilton. So whether you’re straight or not, I’ll take you. Sort of makes me feel like the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your poor your tired, (you’re not so poor, your very wealthy who want to give me money) your huddled masses (sitting at computers with Cheetos stained fingers reading my blogs) yearning to be (entertained) the not so wretched refuse of your teeming shore (provided it’s a soccer team without shirts…oh, different team, sorry). Send these the homo-less, tempest (Bledsoe) tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside a red door (Elizabeth Arden).”  Well you get the idea.

As I have as many straight friends as gay ones I do find it rather interesting the dynamic between straight and gay men. You see straight men (if I may reduce them to a complete stereotype) come in two categories when they meet a gay man. They either think you want to do them or they think you want them to do you. The thing is that after you talk to them for awhile what you both discover is that you have more in common than you think and for the most part you’re just talking about an oil change (with no double entendre attached).

When I was growing up I always had more female friends than men. I guess you could chalk this up to my being a gay of a certain age who found it easier to relate to girls because they had the same goal in mind as me (to find a great man, get married and be supported the rest of my life). To be honest that was the mistake I made in my first real relationship with a man. I thought, “Wow, I’m finally Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady.” (See the musical Funny Girl for that reference) What I thought was that he was going to go out and earn the living and I would give dinner parties (I’m Jewish so that would really mean coordinating the caterer). Ouch! In retrospect no wonder it didn’t work. What most people don’t realize is that in a man/man relationship (and in a lot of opposite sex relationships) you are both working, there’s no one staying home and thus the reason most gays get cats instead of kid-dens.

For years I’ve felt as though there was a straight boys club that would never have me as a member. Late in life I discovered a group of straight guys who I work with whom I also consider my friends. One day my boss and the guys decided that we needed a day out of the office and that we should all go shooting. I had never shot a gun in my life (much less screamed, “Pull” and tried to hit a moving target) but suddenly there I was in the great outdoors with a rifle in my hand. These guys were not making fun of me, handling me with kid gloves or treating me any differently than anyone else that was there, even though I was the only gay in the group. It was a very moving experience for me because for the first time in my life I felt something I hadn’t found from my girlfriends or even my gay friends, what I discovered was that I was a man among men (and when you grow up being called a “fag” every day that’s something you never think you’ll be). I guess somewhere in the back of my head all that name calling had sunk in so deep that I didn’t consider myself a “real” man until that day (at age 44).

So while I admit that some of my blogs are not for the straight faint of heart, I get excited when I see a comment from a straight guy who reads me, even if it comes with the disclaimer, “I’m not gay but…”  But let me assure them, you don’t have to be gay to read Some Like It Scott! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Read More Scott @ www.somelikeitscott.com