Ah, those freaky 1980s!

I'm going to tell a story on myself, a memory prompted by the comic photo above.

It reminds me of a night (although I failed to see the humor at the time) not long after I came out as a 24-year-old gay man. I was in the Seahorse II Cabaret, THE local gay bar back in 1982. 

Ah, those pesky 80s when the gay scene in South Bend was a lot less sedate than it is today.

I was very shy (still am in a bar setting). If you ever saw me in the bar back in that day you would have seen me plastered as close to the back wall as possible--trying to be invisible, a wallflower, if you will.

On this particular warm summer night, I was standing near the bar with a friend when this guy strutted in. He was in his 30s, kinda swarthy in appearance, and he was wearing black leather chaps (with a jockstrap), black boots and a harness (and nothing else). 

I was horrified.

Naturally, somehow this guy (and he was high on something) gravitated towards me. He stopped and began hanging on to the guy standing next to me (who also was high). They were giggling away and I tried to make my escape from the two of them but no...

Somehow they both lost their balance and fell onto me. We three tumbled to the floor with the two of them on top of me.

I recall that a friend of mine who was with me at the time, died laughing as I struggled, arms flailing about, trying to extract myself from the two of them.

After a lot of effort, I crawled away and tried to recover some semblance of normalcy.

To be frank, I am kinda surprised I ever went back to the Seahorse again after that little moment in time.