So, my friend and I drive down to the Southern meetings, in ColdLanta.
Arrive about 11:30 pm, pretty quiet, go into the lobby at the Buckhead Intercontinental. Nice hotel, nice part of town, all that.
Desk clerk, calls up the reservation (it's in my friend's name; I am bunking with him, as I didn't think I was going to these meetings, until I realized that my colleague Paula McClain was giving her Prez address, and I really wanted to be here for that).
Desk clerk, looking at reservation, glances up at friend and me (we were laughing and talking). Desk clerk, increasingly agitated, looking down, looking up at us.
Desk clerk: "I'm so sorry. We are almost full, and don't have many rooms. The only room we have has two beds!"
Questions:
1. What does it mean to "look gay"? I have never noticed any correlation between looks and sexual orientation. I mean, sure, there is the stereotype, but I have never found that to be very accurate as a classification model. Type I and Type II error.
2. What things have to be true, in the clerk's mind, for his default assumption to be that two guys traveling together are gay?
3. I told my friend (I won't give his name, but his initials are Scott de Marchi) that he must look like a chubby chaser. (I am not thin, and he is). He had not heard the term. Is it that rare? Is it offensive? (I do not consider it to be offensive, but I may just be misinformed) (See example in context)
Neither Scott nor I were in the least offended or upset at the assumptions of the desk clerk, but I did find it surprising....
Friday, January 06, 2006
Chubby Chaser
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5 comments:
I lived down there for quite a while, and one possibility is that the clerk was projecting (Midtown has a huge gay population). Once I got my hair cut to 1/2 inch length, I'd regularly get hit on while around there in my bike. Unfortunately, it wasn't the girls doing the hitting.
Piedmont park (is great for running, and there are some good restuarants in the Ponce-de-Leon area.
I would like to add that we went back to the room and drank port.
See, I told you you shouldn't go around holding hands with your colleagues!
I think it was your hair that gave him that impression. :-)
You should have been more offended that the clerk didn't think the 2 of you could fit in one of the two double beds! My husband's fairly metrosexual and gets lots of looks when he drives my blue Jetta, not just in midtown, but anywhere in Atlanta. While I understand the clerk's mistake given the context, I'm wondering who he would have guessed was the sugardaddy--Scott? because the reservation was in his name? Not that's something to grin about. :)
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