Last night, after an entertaining dinner with friends in SoMa, I met a different group of friends who were already out in the Castro, in the hopes of getting some dancing in before going home. Within 10 minutes of entering the club:

• somebody randomly grabbed my ass
• a creepy old guy in a sweater -- you know that guy -- leered at me
• a drunken queen in a muscle top grabbed my shoulders and said something unintelligible
• a muscle mary.... well, just existed
• two gays got into a fight over the same guy
• a cute guy hit on me... and when mildly rebuffed immediately hit on another guy, then 2 minutes later another, until he finally started making out with a fourth guy.
• a tweaker with a ravaged face, clearly high on crystal meth, walked past
• an ancient man who looked like Ross Perot hit the dancefloor, dressed in glitter and a sleeveless top
• hundreds of guys openly checked each other out, their hunger undisguised, unsubtle and vulgar

It was like some kind of sick parody of what the religious right thinks gay people are like. I know that there's no such thing as "gay culture", that the people in that bar were just a tiny fraction of the glorious, diverse group of people who happen to be homosexual and don't let it define their lives or their interests or their fashion sense. But watching the horror of that room, I could understand why, if that's what you thought all gay people were like, you could be homophobic.

Memo to self: stop going out in the Castro. Those are not your people.