End segregation now

So I took a little hiatus.

Not from blogging or anything else in particular, just kind of took a break from human interaction; at work I was more quiet and I found myself not participating in social environments and found myself holed up at home during the weekends just not wanting to talk to people. I’ve been this way from time to time all of my life and the people around me have come to accept it. I am now back to being my normal, overly-caffeinated self again

I’ve decided that after a rather interesting year I’m giving myself a well-deserved vacation and that means someplace I can curl up on a beach and read and just generally be lazy for 6-7 days. I’ve starting looking at Haulover beach and I think that next month I’ll treat myself to a week there. I’ve been researching it and it sounds like it’s one of the most diverse and unified beaches in the US. After a week of internally debating about being fiscally responsible (paying my car loan off) or spending a week with a bunch of other naked people, well I have to tell you that I am pretty sure that being naked is going to win.

Now, I am always slightly torn whenever I look into taking a trip to a nude beach, as there always seems to be one last mark of segregation still affecting us-

Which side is the straight side and which is the gay side?

First of all, please let me tell you that I am not “Pollyannaish” about the state of racism in these United States, however you won’t find any beach directories telling you which is the black side or the white side - at least we’re getting better about that even though we have a long way to go still in terms of racial equality.

With that said, when I tell you that I’m torn I have to re-emphasize that I’m a gay man, but unless you and I are in a gay bar and you buy me a drink and tell me that you’d like to get to know me better, then I assume you’re straight. So when I go to a beach I am conflicted in that yes, it is great to be among your own, to be safe with others that are like you and maybe you even think that if you start talking with someone you are at least approaching someone within your own dating pool. But when I go to a beach and talk with others enjoying the sun and the surf and the breeze, I like to think that I don’t exclude the chance to met wonderful, funny, insightful people that I might exclude myself from should I look for the area predominately full of men on rainbow-colored towels and then set my own towel among them.

My first trip to a legal nude beach was to Sandy Hook in New Jersey and I had done due diligence before I went, knowing exactly which side of the beach I was supposed to station myself on and I did such. I spent most of the day alone, not talking to anyone until I walked to a concessions stand. On may way, and by a chance encounter, I started talking with a family and ended up having the best afternoon. It wasn’t until after we said goodbye and thanked one another for the day that I realized I had broken the boundary that I thought would give me comfort; to this day I am still conflicted when I step foot on the sand at then end of my destination and have to decide between going left or going right.

Someone want to fix this for me? So far, the only thing that I can come up with is to lay down in the middle so I get to enjoy the people on both sides.