But as we excitedly filled in our classifieds (and preferences), trends changed once again.ĪLSO READ: Food plays a central role in LGBTQIA+ culture and it deserves its place at the table The periodical welcomed men to write letters to others like them, making personals popular much before. Then the 90s happened and India saw its first LGBTQIA+ platform in the guise of Bombay Dost, a queer magazine that completely transformed how gay men met each other. Over the decades, we’ve gone past searching for each other under streetlights, signalling with colourful handkerchiefs at traffic signals, and bumping into one another at seedy, dingy bars. And they’ve been finding each other ever since. Gay, bisexual or transgendered - it’s evident that queer-identifying men have always existed.
Throughout our ancient texts, there have been various descriptions of saints, gods and demi-gods breaking gender norms and myths about love being heteronormative. So, how did men find each other before Instagram let us slide into each other’s DMs? Much before Instagram became a phenomenon and a platform for guys to leave hearts behind on other men’s profiles and complain about why they won’t flirt with each other, the queer dating landscape was a very different place: this journey from the streets to sheets has been a long one. There’s no denying the fact that Aryan and Kiaan have had it easy.ĪLSO READ: Is online intimacy bringing us closer or driving us apart? You leave a string of strategic hearts on another man’s Instagram profile, and you’ve ‘officially’ made your first move. Somewhere between their matching flower-crown filters and millennial names, they found and added each other, and hopelessly fell in love.Īryan calls it fate Kiaan calls it public privacy settings.įinding love is that simple in 2022. The Pride colors made it easy to find.Aryan, 24, and Kiaan, 20, met each other on Instagram.
I did, too - not on a packed beach or sweaty dance floor, but in a quiet coffee shop at the corner of Union and Coryell. They came looking for a place to feel comfortable with like-minded people and found it. “Even if you live in Flemington, coming down to Lambertville and New Hope is like going away somewhere.” “Coming down here is a breath of fresh air,” Ms. Gaestel called “a much more open Catholic church” than the one in Flemington, the “more country, conservative” New Jersey town where she lives.
The two friends, both in their 60s, had just come from mass at St. My Sunday got off to a splendid start when I paired a lavender oat milk latte with some ridiculously moist apple-pear bundt cake from Factory Girl Bake Shop in New Hope.īefore I left there, I struck up a conversation with Marian Gaestel and Mary Lloyd. In Lambertville, it’s hard to miss the rainbow-colored tulle that wraps Under the Moon, a Spanish-focused restaurant where I got a fat slice of quiche and a sweet watermelon gazpacho.īut I really fell for Union Coffee, a charming Lambertville cafe where rainbow-colored art in the window complemented the “Trans Rights Are Human Rights!” poster in the quirky little shop in the back. Popular stops include Bowman’s Hill Tower, which rises 125 feet and offers a panoramic view, and the park’s visitor center, where you’ll find a replica of Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting of the crossing.Īs for dining, the Salt House is an intimate, candlelit gastro pub inside an 18th-century stone building, where the four-salt deviled eggs were my appetizer of the weekend. It provides a level trail for walking, jogging, biking and horseback riding, and there’s access for canoeing and kayaking.Īnother outdoor option is the Washington Crossing Historic Park, which extends over 500 acres and preserves the site where George Washington famously crossed the Delaware River. New Hope and Lambertville adjoin the Delaware Canal State Park, which has an almost 60-mile towpath that runs along the Delaware River. (“Gay Stereotypes: Which One Are You?” asked a 1988 copy of The Advocate that I came this close to buying.) The store’s popular East Village outpost, seen in the film “Desperately Seeking Susan,” closed in 2009, and much of the merchandise traveled to New Hope. We strolled across the steel-truss New Hope-Lambertville Bridge and into Love Saves the Day, a delightful vintage shop where I rummaged through old copies of Vogue and Playboy.