Butch Night at the Phillies

Rockies: 8
Phillies: 3
Sold: 5 cases beer

Compared to Gay Pride night in Washington, the Phillies' Gay Community Night is a pretty minor affair. Or maybe it seems so because the Phillies can actually pack a house on Tuesday anyway, and the gays and lesbians there tonight blend in with the regular fans who'd be there whether or not there's a special promotion. Some of the Phillies vendors excitedly took note of improved tips, but I saw no such uptick, and if any factor induced the natual stinginess of the Philadelphians -- gay and straight -- who were there it was that the home team got behind early and stayed there. Maybe that's and example of the difference between DC and Philly: even on gay night, it's not just about the meet and greet -- they still want to see the team win.

The other difference: Philly's gay night is a much....dykier event than D.C.'s. Lots of mullet-short spiky hair and figure-unflattered tee shirts and sapphic hand-holding. I'm not intending to promote stereotypes here, but just reporting what I saw. Somewhere out there, in Philadelphia and beyond, there are beautiful, overtly feminine lesbians, the kind who would break my heart with their patent disinterest in me. But they weren't around the stadium tonight, and one suspects that lipstick lesbians remain a small part of the population (mainly housed in the male mind).*

Near the end of the game I looked down the standing room only aisle and saw a woman in a brightly striped skintight dress and heels, about 6'5" and built like a linebacker, holding hands with another woman. But then I realized that the linebacker was really a man, no doubt about it. He held hands with his woman, each of them seeming to be pretty happy with each other. This was a male-female couple with alternative sartorial choice thrown in the mix. Does Gay Community night really applied to them? I'm not the one to ask.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, every game I work scanning the crowd for sales, I'm thinking that maybe I'll meet the girl of my dreams. She'll look at me in the eye and smile sweetly there in the upper deck will begin a fresh romance. And maybe this will happen and maybe it won't, and maybe I'm kidding myself and my chances are reduced while I'm in manic, sweaty beerman mode. But whether or not it's possible or not, it sure wasn't going to happen tonight.

*On this topic, I will climb the soapbox and declare that most dudes get it exactly wrong when they express disgust at gay men and excitement at lesbian woman. The appropriate response, as I see it, is to be quite pleased that other guys are pairing off and reducing the number of competitors for the available women, and disappointed when they realize that some number of the women out there are pairing off with each other and making themselves unavailable to us.