So its a brand new bag

So, up until recently, I was a gay man living in the Los Angeles area and pretty much loving it.  Yes, you can say what you can say about LA, but there are few places in the world where the "Gay Best Friend" is de rigeur and just works.  So, I have recently taken a professional assignment in Peru and have been offered a multi-year extension.  

Lima, while a large city is on the conservative side and the transition has been interesting to say the least.  How comfortable can you feel in a country where one of the two candidates for president has "purge the homosexuals" on his official political platform.  How do you balance being yourself with being safe and how do you deal with a multitude of well meaning family for whom matchmaking is practically sport.  They don't sell the Advocate at the bookstore, but everyone knows that the best salon in town is "Encounters" where they have "those boys" cutting hair.  It really is a place of contrast, of hiding in the shadows and living what can be a very full life.  Was the winter white overcoat too much for the office?  Is that cute guy I make eye contact with every morning jogging around the golf course actually interested?  Was that guy that followed me for a couple of blocks the other day cruising or a mugger?  Will the cab driver actually take me to the gay bar or somewhere else?  Should my mom and I not say in public that I pick out her outfits?

Lima is certainly not LA, but here on an engineer's salary I can have someone to cook, clean, do the laundry and then leave when I want my privacy.  There is no recession here, no fear of a "double dip" in housing prices.  It is like Manhattan in the 80's, you can smell the money in the air.  Career-wise this is a plumb assignment, contact with all the right execs in the company, a large interesting project and potentially a suite of expat perks that will make my bank account smile.  But then again how do you date if you are afraid of the kiss goodbye on the doorstep?  How do live an honest life if you feel you have to dodge the "your right hand ring is going to make the girls think your married" comments.  Certainly being gay is not the single thing that defines me as person just as being straight is not the single thing that defines non-gay people, but it is something I kept hidden for too long and not something I want to put away again.   What's the right balance?

The scientist in me wants a formula I can program to give me the answer, but the romantic knows there are too many intangibles to make that work.  Going back to LA means giving up what can be a career making assignment, while staying hear means re-learning what it means to live as a gay man in 2011.  I'll miss Gay Pride, but I won't miss doing my laundry every week.  I'll miss the local kareoke gay bar in town, but I won't miss driving in LA traffic since I walk to work here. I'll miss the shopping in LA, but the food here is so much better.

Still not sure what the decision is going to be, but it has been a growth experience just having to think about it.  But I'll save that for the next post.