I brought no significant other on this trip, even though I did invite my man down. I have not had that long of a stay with all of the people in my immediate family since I was in sixth grade (back before my parents split), and I have never stayed that long with my sisters' men factored in. I spent last week, from early Monday to earlyish Sunday, in a rented house in Davenport, Fla., with 11 members of my family: My (divorced but friendly) parents, my four younger sisters, three of their significant others (all are men, but only one's a husband), my one sister's two children. Why do anything when you could be checking Grindr? It'll only take a minute, and looking at people is fun. Grindr is something you can pick up and put down, providing the distraction of an iPhone game without requiring any of the concentration. The promise of easy sex may never lose its novelty.
The receiving and, to a lesser extent, giving of compliments between strangers is intoxicating. I'd blame last week's particularly compulsive bout of Grinding on my job for which I am writing this piece, but then that is me making addict excuses. I do quit it sometimes, going as far as deleting it from my iPhone, sometimes from my iPad, once from both.
It is time-wasting and addictive, and I think about quitting it often. The gay hook-up app Grindr is as much of a drug as anything whose end result is pleasure. What I experienced was an entirely different kind of 4D. Grindr offers the kind of rides that theme parks don't. There is no cuddling in this story, but if you turn back now, know this, at least: This is especially true of the cuddly ones with loin-grabbing drops like Splash Mountain, the Song of the South-themed log flume in Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Those who've stupidly waited on long lines can render that time spent utterly wasteful by taking those exits and effectively bypassing that cheap thrill that brought about this empty moment in your life in the first place. Many theme park attractions have last-chance/turn-back points.
There's more to being gay than Grindr (thank god), but for some of us, Grindr plays a key role in being gay. We are connected via GPS and our iPhones, and interested parties have embraced doing naughty and queer things with them. You now have the gist of it: Push buttons and you get laid. Hooking up in an American theme park is almost disappointingly easy if you are gay, and the reason for that is Grindr.