Advice - Spike Sez offers no-nonsense, practical advice for the lovelorn, lost, and stupid. If you feel you fit into one of these categories and have a related question, submit it to spike@onlineoffbeat.com, and if he feels like it Spike may respond.

Spike is NOT a licensed therapist and has NO training whatsoever in psychology or human behavior, but as he frequently says, “the fucking President has no qualifications for his job either, and look how well he’s doing.”

Dear Spike — I’m a 67-year-old gay man living in Boston. Yes, I know that the gay community would prefer to believe that we don’t exist, but there are a lot of us “mature” gay gentlemen around. In fact I’m part of a group called the Prime Timers that was started in Boston which now has 66 chapters in the United States and around the world. The Prime Timers is a social and recreational organization for older gay and bi-sexual men and the younger men who appreciate us.

Last night was our monthly dinner. In this case, it happened to be at a gay-owned and operated restaurant that also has a large cocktail lounge. I won’t say the name because I don’t want to sully the reputation of the establishment because of the actions of some of its patrons. In fact the staff of the restaurant was extremely welcoming and we had a wonderful time.

Prior to dinner we had a cocktail hour in the lounge. I was one of the first to arrive which gave me an opportunity to watch the reactions of the other patrons. As usual, when I walked in the younger men took a quick look at me then turned away and went back to their conversations, apparently deciding I could be safely ignored. As more of us began to arrive, however, I noticed the level of conversation began to drop and the other patrons began nervously stealing glances at us. Then they began whispering and snickering in small groups. Finally they began making louder comments as though we couldn’t possibly hear them because obviously we must all be hearing impaired. I overheard one patron (who frankly wasn’t exactly a spring chicken himself) say that it looked like an interview group for Jack Kevorkian’s next patient. I’ll admit that that was somewhat witty, but it was still mean-spirited and unwarranted. It’s not like we rolled into the places like an armada in our wheelchairs with tubes hanging out of our noses. In fact, most of us are quite ambulatory, thank you very much. And this kind of behavior wasn’t an isolated incident. The same thing happens every time we hold an event in a gay establishment.

The male patrons react to us like they’re seeing the spector of death and it makes them very uncomfortable (I should note that lesbians don’t have this same reaction). They try to ignore us, and when that fails they begin to make jokes at our expense. This doesn’t happen when we go to “straight” restaurants. There the other patrons react to us like they would any other group. They may be a little annoyed at the amount of space we take up in the bar before we’re seated for dinner, but there’s no special animosity because of our ages.

I just don’t understand it and it makes me angry. Are we as gay men supposed to die at the age of 50, or be locked away in closets or shipped off to institutions like some embarrasing family secret? Our generation is the one that stood up to the police at Stonewall. We’re the ones who first brought the battle for gay rights into the open and fought the most difficult skirmishes in that battle. The younger generations owe us a lot. If it weren’t for us they wouldn’t be able to hang out in gay bars without fear of arrest. They wouldn’t be able to walk down the street holding hands. They wouldn’t be able to get married and adopt children. And all we ask for in return is a little respect and to be treated with dignity.

I guess I’m not really looking for advice because I don’t know what could be done to make people more sensitive and thoughtful, but I just needed to vent. Getting old is difficult enough, but when you’re treated like a pariah by your own community for something which is natural and unavoidable and which will happen to everyone eventually (unless they die), it’s that much harder.

— Gray, Gay and Proud, Boston, MA

Dear Gray — Did you consider that maybe the reaction of the other patrons had nothing to do with your age, but rather with the mothball and linament odors being emitted by your group? That can be a pretty intoxicating brew...like a roomful of poppers. Perhaps they weren’t ignoring you and then making jokes about you. Perhaps they just fell into a stupor at first, and then as they revived they were just light-headed and giddy.