How I survived 40 days and 40 nights without Grindr & what it taught me about gay culture

1. Certain bathhouses give you discounts if you're under 25.

When I discovered this, I knew it was likely because most of the clientele was above the 25 age mark — which proved true — but that didn't keep me from venturing out at 11 p.m. to the nearest all-night sauna.

The reason I was researching bathhouses is that, after two days, the itch that Grindr scratches was throbbing badly. These apps do a remarkable job of keeping you horny and hunting, even when you're doing mundane, unsexy tasks like going to the grocery store, eating a burger, and doing laundry. Take that away and my hour-by-hour impulse to cruise had no vent. Forty-eight hours was all it took, which either shows their alarming addictive quality or my alarming addiction to them.

2. Don't take sips of Gatorade from anyone at a bathhouse.

It's filled with G (gamma hydroxybutyrate, a club drug that is easy to overdose on and lethal when mixed with alcohol). I knew this rule of thumb from making the mistake at a gay circuit party two years ago, so I asked the dude, "Be real with me. Is it just Gatorade?" His honesty confirmed my fears: "No."

3. You notice the world around you more.

Los Angeles may not be the most beautiful city in the world, but there are beautiful parts of it. There is no better place to be on Labor Day than on the Santa Monica pier, and there is no harder place to find parking than near the Santa Monica pier on Labor Day. Shirtless and sweating, I felt giddy as I joined the throng of people eating funnel cakes and riding roller coasters over the frigid Pacific Ocean. I actually lost the impulse to check Grindr for a solid two hours. It was incredible, heightened by a sense of really being there without Grindr's familiar, bubbly ping every few minutes telling me a message was in.

4. You appreciate your favorite gay bar more.

I started to feel lonely. Much of my sense of community is sustained by my place in a grid of selfies on a screen no bigger than my hand. Most exchanges between me and other gay men start with "Hi mister" or "Hey boi." Without those messages, I found myself traveling to the L.A. Eagle twice (twice!) last weekend and actually starting conversations with men there.

I believe that gay men need each other. We often pursue sex as the only form of connection — and sometimes it's enough — but what we sometimes need more is just a conversation. Not to be overly sentimental, but there are parts of my life that I can only talk about with a fellow queer. Ours is a powerful shared experience that, no matter where we come from, tends to follow a common trajectory from intense isolation to sudden sexual companionship: We go from closets to the club and are forced to navigate alone through both.

The result is a brotherhood of often harsh people who cannot admit their loneliness. I realized that whatever ill the apps do, they at least provide a 24-7 reminder that even when you're sitting alone in your cubicle or closeted in your home, there are men out there who want you and need you too.

5. Cruising in person is admittedly better.

On my first day in San Francisco last year, I made a stupid mistake. I was waiting for a urinal in a mall bathroom. There was only one available and one other guy in the bathroom, who was using it. But for some reason he was standing very far back from the urinal and shaking his massive member as he peed. Watching him (and his dick), I thought, Why is he standing so far back from the urinal like that? It wasn't until after he looked at me and waited by the sink before finally leaving did I realize what just happened: a tragically missed opportunity.

I was determined not to make the same mistake in Los Angeles. On the first day of my no-tech challenge, I went to a famous gay restaurant in West Hollywood and my waiter was very cute. Normally, I would have said nothing and just searched for him on Grindr, which uses the geolocation devices on your phone to find nearby users. But this was a moment where I needed to talk to a handsome, real-life stranger — with no digital safety net and no way to block him if it went badly. Calling him to the table, I used my classic pickup line: "What time does this place close?"

What followed, beautifully and awkwardly, was an actual conversation. And although I was looking for fun, what happened instead was more akin to making a friend. Yes, it did turn into a hookup, but the person-to-person exchange changed my wants a bit — something that has never happened to me online. Both of us seemed to come away from it surprised that these things still happen. All it took was a little bravery and the absence of that little orange app on my phone.

So what *did* I learn?

Over a month ago, I challenged myself to stop using hookup apps. I confess: It was easy to go without Grindr, Scruff, Recon, Daddyhunt, Adam4Adam, MISTER, or any of the other hookup apps during the final two weeks of my sabbatical, because halfway through them was the Folsom Street Fair.

For one weekend, Grindr and Scruff were completely forgotten. Hot, hairy, kinky leathermen from all over the world had booked every hotel room in San Francisco, and most of them would be gathered into a few narrow blocks in San Francisco's South of Market district, many clad in leather harnesses, for the infamous fetish festival.

And although sex was certainly a major goal of the weekend, it was not the only reason I was excited to go. I wrote an op-ed for The Advocate about how Folsom is an important event for anyone whose sexual interests fall outside the vanilla realm and wants to meet up with like-minded folks. For one weekend every year since 1984, San Francisco becomes a city filled with both experienced and novice kinksters, teaching each other new fetish techniques and playing hard.

In other words, it’s a great time to cruise tech-free. I parked my car on a precarious San Francisco slope and carried my suitcase filled with leather gear to a townhouse in the Castro where I would be staying. The final lessons I took from going off the apps are certainly inspired by the weekend that followed, but they are applicable to gay men everywhere and anywhere.

I stayed with a friend through the weekend, and together we made plans to hit the best parties happening across the city. At one point during the official pre-Folsom dance party, Magnitude, my friend stood at the bar talking to a cute guy who kept checking his phone. Finally, my friend patted the guy's shoulder and said, “Dude, get off Scruff. Look around you. It’s here.”

The view was pretty stellar. Guys didn’t actually start having sex on the dance floor until closer to the end of the party, but there was a large tent erected in the parking lot that acted as the official backroom. Inside the tent were spaces partitioned off by black tarp and chain-link fence. Some of the spaces had leather sex slings that would have been immensely more comfortable if they had leg straps. Cruising the apps was needless — I was already at the fun.
If you choose to take a break from hookup apps, don’t do it because of "app shame." Gay men have always hunted for sex, objectified each other, and treated each other poorly. The apps have hardly destroyed gay life — they have simply digitized it. Meaningful connections are truly hard to find on Grindr, but in today’s fast-paced world, meaningful connections are hard to find anywhere. So if you’re considering a sabbatical, do it with a spirit of adventure and curiosity, not because of generalizations you’ve made about guys online or about the apps themselves — generalizations that are more likely a reflection of your own insecurities rather than the perceived flaws of others.

It was a long and crazy weekend. After every party, my friend and I stood outside in the cold, waiting for our Uber. Something magical happens in those moments between the circuit party and the ride home. People emerge from the dark and you see them as they really appear. Guys you thought had perfect bodies look less perfect. Couples start holding hands again. Everyone is a little bewildered to discover how much time has passed. As the drugs wear off, everyone is reminded how life continues outside our mad little world.

After a few nights like this, I stood on my friend’s doorstep with my suitcase, ready to say goodbye. And right there, I realized he was a good friend, someone I could talk to about my fears and insecurities, someone I could call if I was drunk and needed a ride home.

I met him on Scruff over a year ago. We initially hooked up, but since that time we have become more than a hookup to each other. This is gay culture, the one I live in and see every day; friendships often start with sex, friendships often lead to sex, and friendships often include sex at some point.

If anything, this should illustrate how needless it is to vilify hookup apps. Sex is what we are going to do, because it is what we have always done, and there's nothing ugly or shameful about it. It is an ancient human instinct that gets horribly repressed, feared, and fussed over in today's climate, when it should be celebrated. Anything that brings us together — whether it is Grindr, Scruff, a dating website, or a sex dungeon — should not be scoffed at, because we need each other.
My friend told me to text him when I made it back to Los Angeles, and I knew he meant it. He cared. He was family.

I'm back on the apps now, but I'm definitely using them less. It was more fun to meet guys in person, but harder. The apps offer an easy way to tell guys what you're into sexually or what you're looking for; you just write it on your profile. Cruising in person requires you to say, "I want to have sex with you so bad, and this is what I want to do." But I must stress how awesome and empowering it feels when you finally bring yourself to say that — far better than a texted "'Sup?"

ALEXANDER CHEVES has written articles on sex, dating, and relationships for GC Magazine and is an intern with The Advocate. Follow his blog, The Beastly Ex-Boyfriend.