Bachelor Party

Two friends of mine tied the knot this past fall. They are the first people I've known to get married. I'm betting they also not the last, since my general groups of friends are reaching the age when the weddings will be exploding from left-right-and-center.

I've never before been invited/attended a wedding. Oh god, it was fun. But more importantly for this post, I had never attended a bachelor party.

Leading up to the bachelor party, I couldn't help but think of the circumstances: parties like this are the stereotypical stag night where all the straight-guy friends of the groom come together and bond over their macho-ness and the groom's last night of freedom, typically by getting drunk and hitting up the strip clubs. They're a group of loud, annoying guys who walk up and down the popular bar/clubs streets, making as much noise as possible and being the biggest douches known to man. And this night, I was gonna be part of that group!

It didn't bother me at all being the only gay guy there - like with everything else I do, I rarely feel out of place in straight environments. I did however make a bit of a slip-up when I first met the bachelor group at the restaurant. I didn't do a good job of censoring my first thought to the group:

Wow, 20 guys hanging out all night. This is like the gayest thing ever.

Ten of their faces gave an awkward expression. I did my best to save the situation:

Oh wait, wrong crowd to say this stuff around...wrong crowd...

As we left the restaurant I found myself being a sort of leader for everyone, picking out the bars where we'd rush in, take a shot, then skip out to the next place. The best man didn't really know where to go, so he didn't seem to mind. I had a good time chatting with the guys. I had met most of them before, at one time or another. I found myself sort of focusing my attention on one of the guys who clearly was high and a little tipsy early into the evening. He has these naturally light grey eyes, black hair and super white skin...which made me consciously compare him to a zombie... a hot zombie.....no, I have no idea why.

zombie dude

As part of the evening, the gang had created a list of dumb things that the groom had to do over the course of the night, take a body shot off someone or get a girl to spank you. I liked my addition to the list: show a random woman your penis. Unfortunately, the groom did not seem to appreciate my creativity.

As the night progressed, we stopped off a one last bar before heading to the strip club. As usual, I got a bunch of pitchers and shots for everyone. I was pretty happy at that point - drunk happy. On my way back from the bathroom, I ran into a guy I went to highschool with. He was clearly in the same alcohol-induced happiness as me.

Guy: Holy shit, Thomas! How've you been!

Me: Heeyyy [Guy]! I'm doing great! I'm out here with a bunch of guys for my friend's bachelor party! We're stopping off here before the strip club.

Guy: Oh cool! The one around the corner?

Me: Ya

Guy: I hear that if you give a stripper $300 bucks she'll give you head!

I was a little surprised that he would say that, because to me the "I hear that if..." part actually means "I once payed 300$ for a stripper to give me head". Lucky for me, I'd oddly good at hiding shock and coming up with quick responses when I'm drinking. So I made up this doosy:

Me: Really? I'm thought it was $150?

That response blew his mind. I'm pretty sure he went home that night convinced that I go to strippers for blow jobs, just like I'm now convinced he does the same.

Soon the last part of the night began: the strip club. I have to admit that I was REALLY EXCITED to go to the strip club. Only a small part of my enthusiasm was because of the drinks: on a few other random occasions I had petitioned my friends to go to one but they always "didn't feel like it" or were "morally opposed" to going. From my perspective, I thought it was going to be so hilarious seeing naked women everywhere and overly excited guys. I was not disappointed. It was almost completely packed, with groups of guys all talking and having a good time. There were women on stage and others walking around, offering dances. Some of the guys from our bachelor group banded together to reserve a private booth, overlooking the whole floor.

I spent most of the time laughing at the completely fantastical nature of the strip club: completely naked women rubbing themselves all over guys; the intense focus some of the guys showed when they got their lap dances; the amount of ass and tit grabbing. I was definitely more excited than some of the straight guys in our party.

Toward the end, I was so drunk that I decided to make one of the dumbest mistakes you can do in a strip club: take a picture. I pulled my camera out of my pocket, and coyly put it down at my hip, out of view. I turned the flash off, and slowly listed it over my leg and took the photo of a stripper straddling on of the guys in my group.


So now I have the above blurry picture of a stripper, and a blurry picture of some other stripper's vagina, which I'm obviously not posting.

.....Sweet.....

(Argh, it was so stupid - although executed really well. No one noticed, since I clearly still have all my front teeth and didn't get the shit beaten out of me by a bouncer.)


The vag-shot aside, I can;t wait for future bachelor parties.

ETA 1.5 Months

Over the last 4 months, the local government of Montreal posted up adds all over the city for...living in the city. They seem to want people to stay in Montreal, as opposed to moving away. I don't really understand the point of the adds, since the city is definitely not suffering from a falling population. We are the second biggest city in Canada after all - if anything we're only getting bigger.

Quitter Montreal, mais pour aller òu? - Leaving Montreal, but to go where?

In my Not Dead Yet return post, I said I had some big news. Here it is: at the end of January/beginning of February, I will be experiencing a change of environment. It won't be permanent, but I definitely won't be back in Montreal, or Canada, for at least 9 months. In fact, I'm traveling to the opposite side of the Earth.

Where am I going? Australia.

Tired of not having some big goal to look forward too, I decide to head to that other former British colony. My 1-year visa has already been issued and I'm now in the process of deciding my exact plans whilst there. Alicia lives just outside of Sydney, so that will be my first landing point. It'll be amazing to see her again in person. From there, I'm not sure if I'll simply rent a place around Sydney, or if I'll travel around for a bit before settling. Two other options are that I'll stick to some quasi-nomadic routine of moving around every few weeks or I'll use Alicia as a home base and travel back and forth from there.

My job is following me to Australia too, although my boss already knows I'll only work periodically. While I've saved tons of money from living at home with my parents, this'll guarantee that I still make some money while away.

With me being less at work and out doing fun things, I assume that activity of this blog will go up. I've also been thinking I might need to change the banner to something more appropriate...like me riding a emu? Or how about this picture representing my Canadian invasion?


Hmm, maybe I'll have to find something else...

My friends' reactions to my plans is mostly joy and excitement. Alicia can't wait to have a North American visitor from her old life. Xav, Kieran and Liz are really happy for me. My plans seem to have triggered Tim into wanting a change as well, so he announced he's moving to Vancouver this summer (while I'm gone) with his girlfriend. Mike's reaction seems to be the exception: he's freaked out because he'll be losing me and later on Tim, the two main/close guy friends he has.

I stared off my post talking about the advertisements because I like to imagine that the city of Montreal posted up those Don't Leave Us adds just for me, as a last ditch effort to get me to stay. They really did coincide perfectly with the initiation of my plan. Seems that I'll unfortunately have to write a letter to the city saying I'm sorry my fair lady but I'm still leaving.

She shouldn't worry though, I'll be back to continue our love affair - though I do expect a whole bunch of Thank God You're Fucking Back posters.

Not Dead Yet

No-no, I'm not dead.

And no-no, the blog's not dead either.

I've been really busy at work. Unfortunately as time at work (at the computer) increases, my willingness to be in front of a computer when not working decreases. Sorry internet blog!

But things will change soon - oh, how they will change. I won't elaborate in this post, but I'll let you guys know real soon. I think I might even need to change my banner...

Over the last ~3 months I've written down a nice, fun list of things I need to blog about. Hehehe, plenty of good moments to write about as I play catch-up.

My blogging absence has gotten a bunch of you readers, in particular ones I did not know existed, to message me. I really appreciate the feedback and it's always an amazing encouragement to hear that someone enjoys reading all my crap! Thank you Same-Old-Faces and New Ones.