Yes, I'm almost proud to pronounce I have Attention Deficit Disorder! I may not have been born with it; perhaps developing it when I first snapped up a remote control panel to switch channels ~~ again and again, sometimes not even sure what I saw on the station I bypassed. "What was that? Go back!"
I recall, however, as a pre-remote child, standing in front of our tv, bathed in cathode rays, clicking from one channel to the next until my mother caught me, wrangling me away from the dial with a gentle slap on my hand as she shoved me onto the couch, scolding: "I told you to keep your paws off that tv, Buddy darling! Now stay where you are and I mean it!"
Sometimes, I realize I don't have a clue over something someone just said to me. I always respond: "Oh, I love the way you expressed that! Could you please say it again?"
My ADD has gotten so bad that I get all my news from the "Top Headlines" on the monitor in my office building's elevator en route to the 33rd floor. Who needs a newspaper, tv or a computer when I have elevator newsfeed?
They say ADD is prevalent amongst gay men. I knew this the day music videos hit the bars via projection videos back in the '80s. AIDS crisis be damned; this was my cause for a cure! Cruise/ watch Olivia Newton-John/cruise/Patti Labelle/cruise/Cher! Boys, diva, boys, diva, boy... it was exhausting and dysfunctional, just like the Reagan era itself!
Now, what was I saying? Oh, right: ADD! I've been with men who, when I spoke for over 30 seconds, tuned me out. I could tell by the glazed-over look of the eyes. If Buddy B can't hold court then, Whitney Houston, we've got a problem.
Modern technology has brought everybody up to speed when it comes to divided, or just not paying, attention. At today's gay bars, guys ignore the boys and the music videos (but not, of course, the booze). Everybody's multi-tasking and how relaxing is that? I miss my salad days when people went to bars to talk and hook up. No internet "hot bod like a swimmer, straight-acting bottom" in those days! You knew whom you were talking to, and what you were getting into (so to speak).
People in bars are now hooked up to iPods, iPads, Twitter and Facebook (both designed for people with ADD, self included), blogs (ahem!), e-mail and whatever else. Be there/not be there at the same time.
Even my attention spans have become truncated since self-diagnosing myself as a victim of ADD! What have I trended, what have I wrought? Our culture is becoming more and more ADDleminded.
If you've read this to the end, then I truly must add: "Hope springs eternal."
They say ADD is prevalent amongst gay men. I knew this the day music videos hit the bars via projection videos back in the '80s. AIDS crisis be damned; this was my cause for a cure! Cruise/ watch Olivia Newton-John/cruise/Patti Labelle/cruise/Cher! Boys, diva, boys, diva, boy... it was exhausting and dysfunctional, just like the Reagan era itself!
Now, what was I saying? Oh, right: ADD! I've been with men who, when I spoke for over 30 seconds, tuned me out. I could tell by the glazed-over look of the eyes. If Buddy B can't hold court then, Whitney Houston, we've got a problem.
Modern technology has brought everybody up to speed when it comes to divided, or just not paying, attention. At today's gay bars, guys ignore the boys and the music videos (but not, of course, the booze). Everybody's multi-tasking and how relaxing is that? I miss my salad days when people went to bars to talk and hook up. No internet "hot bod like a swimmer, straight-acting bottom" in those days! You knew whom you were talking to, and what you were getting into (so to speak).
People in bars are now hooked up to iPods, iPads, Twitter and Facebook (both designed for people with ADD, self included), blogs (ahem!), e-mail and whatever else. Be there/not be there at the same time.
Even my attention spans have become truncated since self-diagnosing myself as a victim of ADD! What have I trended, what have I wrought? Our culture is becoming more and more ADDleminded.
If you've read this to the end, then I truly must add: "Hope springs eternal."
So true! And you forgot Grindr. There was just an article about the "older" guys in The Pines of FI (in their 40s) who are decrying all the guys now on the Grindr App to meet men. No need for a bar or the Meat Rack!
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