Buffer zone, please!

Blogging away while eating microwaved Chef Boyardee spaghetti & meatballs for my supper at 11:30 at night. This, my friends, is the life…

Saw Walk The Line tonight. I thoroughly enjoyed it. While Joaquin was Johnny almost from the start, I just kept seeing Reese Witherspoon rather than June up there. Make sense? But I think maybe that has more to do with the fact that I am so much more familiar with Johnny Cash and how he’s supposed to look and sound, and know little about June. Anyway, it completely kept my interest. Never found myself wondering how much longer until it’s over, which to me, is the simplest way to judge if I think a movie is good or not.

So went my second trip into a theater in 2005. I really like the filmstrip roller coaster they show before the movie. Do you have that where you are? And as far as the previews, Munich looks enticing.

Well, that wasn’t the entire story. You may remember the proper restroom etiquette post I did just a few weeks ago. Well, it has come to my attention that a related post needs to be done on proper theater etiquette. That’s right friends, the complex interworkings of homophobic male relationships don’t end once we zip up and exit the friendly confines of the men’s room.

So I’ll just get right into it. I met a friend at the theater tonight. I walked in and sat down in the third seat from the aisle. This was carefully pre-planned so that he would be able to skip one seat between us and sit on the end. But did he? No. He crowded under me like a newborn puppy does to its mother. He sat right next to me! This is wrong! Two guys should never sit side-by-side in a less-than-full theater. It’s just abnormal. Not to mention less than 100% hetero. I thought about moving, but for some reason didn’t. I don’t want to be the one who has to tell him about proper theater etiquette. He’s in his 30’s. He should know this by now. What are we teaching our kids in school?

So what do you do? You skip a seat. It’s called a buffer zone. It’s really quite simple when you think about it. For example, if we had been at my place, sitting on the couch watching TV, would we sit right next to each other? Of course not. We’d sit on opposite ends. Maybe even with a pillow in between. Why? Because there is little, if anything, more awkward in the life of heterosexual man than for his hand to accidentally come in contact with the hand of another man. If and when that ever happens, both parties feel extremely awkward and uncomfortable. Not a word is said. It must never be spoken of by either of you in any context ever again. And it may take several minutes, even an hour or more, to put it behind you. To prove my point on all of this, two guys came into the theater and sat two rows in front of us, leaving a seat between them. And you thought it was just me.

On a similar note, if you’re double-dating at the movies, you don’t sit girl-guy-guy-girl. You sit guy-girl-girl-guy. This is so that the girls can chat, giggle, and plan when to go to the bathroom together. And also… there’s a 0.001% chance they might… kiss.

After the movie, I stopped at the restroom. Two urinals. Both open. I take the one on the left. Midstream, some guy comes in and, you guessed it, sets up shop right next to me, with at least five perfectly good enclosed stalls available.

In the name of all things hetero, has the whole world gone mad?!

“Why are you so far away, she said. Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you? I’m in love with you…”