four nights a week, it turns out, is the cardio equivalent of running a marathon every week. My friends and I would roll up to the local dance hall three or four nights a week, polyester and glitter trailing behind us, dropping it like it was hot and cage-dancing the night away. I was basically a gay anime character a-la- Dragonball-Z, and I fucking loved it. Blonde highlighted spiky hair to the heavens.

Having begun my training so young, by the time I was actually legally able to drink I had cultivated quite the twink aesthetic. I was rebellious, angsty, but also damned crafty: I forged a fake membership card to the local disco by scanning my provisional driver's license, editing the birth date, and laminating the edited print-out opposite a downloaded JPEG of the club's logo from the their website. Tired of being the punchline of my hetero peers' jokes, I desperately searched for a community to call my own.

I started going to gay bars when I was 15.