Flirt a little maybe

Flirt a little maybe

Flirt a little maybe

I was up early on Australia Day and following my earlier conversation with Bec and her friends in Brisbane I knew what I would be celebrating later in the day. I thanked Kylie for a fun few days in Adelaide with her and her family before being dropped at the airport. I was on my way back to Melbourne, the place where I had started my Australian adventures over a month previously. I was staying with Damian who I had been introduced to by Other Dale when I was staying with Dale. That was the night we had all gone out and triumphed in the pub quiz. I landed on time, dropping Damian a message to let him know that I was on my way from the airport.

I had directions on how to get to Damian’s but when I arrived into Melbourne I found the road the tram I had to catch was closed for a big procession. I decided to try and get to the end of the procession in the hope that the trams would be running further along the line. I had to go against the flow of people, which with a large suitcase in tow was not such an easy task, especially as the crowds were more interested in watching the procession, rather than watching where they were walking. After a minute or so of making slow progress I decided to try pushing my suitcase in front of me rather than pulling it behind me. It made my progress a little quicker as I used the suitcase a little like a snowplough to part the crowds. I only took out one small child who wasn’t watching where he was going. Thankfully I soon reached the end and the road was open. The tram was running and I hopped on.

I had not had any response from Damian by the time I arrived at his. I knocked on the door and was thrown slightly when a woman opened it. I explained that I was a friend of Damian’s. Her response was “Oh yes, you’re the gay who is staying with us”. At least I had the right house and Damian had briefed whoever the woman was. We did proper introductions and I found out she was Lara, one of Damian’s housemates. She invited me in & offered me a cup of tea. I declined and we instantly bonded over a mutual indifference of the drink. She got me a glass of water and we sat in the lounge and chatted for a while until Damian surfaced. He had been out the night before and it had been a late one. He apologised for not being up and ready for my arrival, I told him not to worry. I asked what the plans were for Australia Day and he said that we were off to a house party for drinks and a barbecue. I was told that this was a fairly standard approach to celebrating Australia Day. I asked who was hosting and Damian said it was some friends of his, Sammantha and Karen. He said they were a lovely couple and that they had extended the invitation to me after hearing about my visit, which was very nice of them. Almost as an afterthought Damian added “Oh, and they are transgender lesbians”.

Once everyone was ready we headed up the road to purchase some beers and food to take with us. Lara said that she was going “to do a bucket of cheese”. I was scared to ask what she meant and was relieved when she picked up a large tub of halloumi cheese in the shop. The shop had an offer on “Rim water” (cue much giggling at the sign) and the butcher next door where we got our meat had a deal on “lamb butts”. Once back at the house we were joined by Ryan and after introductions I recounted the tales of my travels to date. I suspected it would be a story well told by the end of the day after meeting lots of new people at the party. We called for a taxi, loaded it with our supplies and headed over to Samm and Karen’s for the party.

I was introduced to Samm & Karen and I thanked them for the invite. Samm said I was more than welcome and any friend of Damian’s was a friend of theirs. Samm got us all drinks and then showed us out to the back garden. There were already about a dozen people there and having made sure the rest of our beers were on ice introductions were done. I knew I would struggle to remember all of the names but committed the name of one of the guys that I thought was cute to memory. The majority of the other people seemed to know each other and were all chatting away. The day was getting hot and soon the back garden was filling up with people as more guests arrived.  After chatting to a few of the people there and telling them my story I needed a bit of a break from talking so I headed into the kitchen to help Lara with her bucket of cheese. It was a good joint effort - Lara sliced the cheese, fried it all, plated it up and gave a good squeeze of a fresh lemon over it. I carried the serving plate out to the waiting gays and took all the credit for it. I made a lap of the garden during which time the plate was quickly emptied. I headed back in to find Lara frying up another batch. She commented on how quickly it had all gone. I said that I had received a number of compliments on how tasty it was and what a good chef I was. Lara took the second plate out.

By the time I headed back out the barbecue was in full swing with Karen taking charge of cooking. I had once had a discussion with some friends as to who is second in the barbecue cooking hierarchy, after straight men. I argued that it would be women. The two women I was with argued it would be gay men. I ended up losing the argument on that occasion and had to do the cooking. I was complimented on having “a neat meat arrangement”. I said that whilst it looked nice and tidy on the barbecue I couldn’t guarantee it was cooked properly. Karen had no such issue on the large gas barbecue she was using. I can see the benefits of a gas barbecue but feel sorry for the generation of children growing up who will never get to toast a marshmallow over the glowing embers and still eat it after accidentally getting ash all over it.

The afternoon was spent eating, drinking and chatting to new friends. It was a scene that would be repeated across the whole of Australia – a group of friends celebrating together, beers chilling in an ice-filled esky, the barbecue going and laughter and conversation filling the air. LGBT people do the same things that straight people do, just better dressed and with a better soundtrack. It was nice to be part of it and I had been made to feel very welcome. I even got to chat to the cute guy for a while. He worked in a gym and it was possible to tell he was fit even without him taking his shirt off. He seemed like a sweet guy so I didn’t subject him to my attempts at flirting and instead we just chatted for a while.

As the party started to wind down a small group of us headed off to DT’s to carry on the celebrations. Trying to get seven tipsy gay men into two taxis seemed to take an inordinate length of time but we were soon on our way. Getting seven tipsy men out of two taxis at the other end when we were close to beer took a lot less time. DT’s was lively when we got there and it looked like a lot of people had been enjoying the day off. I remember we had a few jugs of beer and there was a bit of dancing and singing before we headed back to Damian’s. We got home around midnight which I thought was fairly early until I was reminded we had started at midday. I was awake long enough to blow up the airbed, which I should have done before while sober. Fortunately there was an electric pump so I didn’t have to inflate it manually. I wouldn’t have had enough puff to do it.

“Flirt a little maybe” 
Lyrics from Does Your Mother Know from the musical Mamma Mia