twenty-something

Even with all the excitement of moving around and living in cities, it's funny that the new life I love is a heck of a lot more ordinary than the one I had back north. There's no grand, dramatic love affair here. No haunted apartment on North Street. I'm not hanging out with Dane Cook, Gavin DeGraw, or Wanda Sykes in my new job. I've lived in a nice, but overpriced, apartment with a -- I'll be polite -- quirky roommate for nine months. I work a vaguely dissatisfying job for a fairly mediocre monthly paycheck. Heck, now I'm a child of divorce. I'm terribly average and I love it terribly.

Life here is just simple. I have friends. We hang out. We have a blast. The end. Being gay isn't a big deal. I work with a bunch of other gay guys and there's actually a dating pool here (well, in Boston, not at work). Being gay takes virtually no effort here, where it was almost a chore in Vermont. It's still hard to make connections -- real connections -- and there's certainly still some loneliness. But I never feel alone here, which was a regular occurrence just a year ago.

This simplicity has helped me define who I am, and this experience has helped me define who I want to be with. The verdict? I'm just a man who wants to fall in love, get married, buy a house, get a dog, have some kids. I want to drink good beer on the porch and grill every night in the summer. I want to spend every damn day I can at Fenway Park. And I want to be with someone who can appreciate these simple pleasures, too. Yes, being surrounded by a real gay community has turned me into a straight man -- who knew?

The Alternative Routes sing, "would you love, could you love to be ordinary?" And I do. I totally do. I thought I left Vermont for a life less ordinary, but all I wanted -- and needed, really -- was more normalcy in this decidedly unfabulous little twenty-something life.

So bring on the 'burbs. Bring on Year Two.