I Left The Rave Gay

It all started a few weeks ago, when I met a lovely couple, Ben and Max, at a Parti.LA event. Within a few minutes I secured an invitation to a pregame at their apartment, set for December 27th, 7:00PM.

I marked my calendar, picked out my outfit, and got there at 9:20PM.

Everyone was so nice, and very, very drunk. It was loud and hot and perfectly rambunctious. We left a few stragglers behind as we walked over to the hyperpop rave down the street.

Upon our entrance, the group immediately split up, and I found myself talking to some friendly strangers by the names of Jonah and Kyle. I assumed they were a couple, too. I felt like Queen of the Gays.

Chit chat stalled, and I decided to go dance. My new friends followed me to the dancefloor, where we found the original group I’d shown up with. Of course, I hopped onto the nearest platform and gave the hostage audience a sickening performance they never knew they needed. Jonah looked up at me, astonished, shouting over the music, “You’re so hot!” Jaded, sweaty, and out of breath, I responded, “Yeah.” We took turns on and off the platform. He was a good dancer.

Ben and Max went outside for some air, and I tagged along. Partial to doing my own thing, I approached a group of trans girls who looked familiar. I introduced myself, “Hi, I’m Tomi! I think we met at…”

“Trans Thursdays.”

“Yes!” I recalled, “Trans Thursdays!”

The leader of the pack turned to me with an inquisitive eye. “You were there with…”

“Evie.” Just saying her name out loud, so casually, nearly brought me to tears.

“Yeah, Evie,” said the leader, mulling the name over in her mouth, then quickly, under her breath, “Slut.”

What the fuck?

I remembered that Evie didn’t particularly care for them, and I could see why. I felt called to defend her, but we hadn’t spoken since September. Her choice, not mine. In my periphery, I saw Ben and Max heading inside with an intoxicated urgency I knew I had to follow. With a sharp “Bye!” I left the group of dolls. Evie was one of the only other trans girls I’ve ever gotten close to. I wished she were there.

I lost Ben and Max in the crowd but was greeted by Jonah and Kyle, the cheerful gay boys I’d left on the dancefloor. We pulled off to a railing on the side and got to chatting. I made some joke about being a dominatrix looking for my submissive (typical), and Jonah kindly pitched himself for the role. Is he joking? I scanned his face but couldn’t read it. Then, as is customary at Queer LA parties, the conversation turned astrological. Kyle revealed he was a Leo as Jonah struggled to guess my sign.

“Taurus?”

“No.”

“Aries?”

“No.”

“Gemini?”

“No.”

I turned it back onto him. “What’s your sign?” I asked him.

“I’ll give you a hint,” he said. “I’m a water sign.”

I tried to retroactively analyze his behavior throughout the night, but the truth is I never paid much attention to him. “You’re not a Scorpio, are you?”

He smiled. “I am!”

We locked eyes. “Interesting. Me too.”

Some outgoing and well-dressed strangers came over to talk to us, but as we stood side by side, all I could sense was Jonah’s shoulder pressed against mine. The obvious magnetism was overwhelming.

I don’t remember who kissed whom first, but it didn’t stop for hours. It’s rare to feel so in sync with someone right when you first meet them. From the first kiss, it just felt correct. He and I took turns pressing each other against the exterior wall of the venue, surrounded by onlookers, partygoers, and Kyle, making smalltalk with his new acquaintances.

After a while we went back inside to discover Alice Longyu Gao performing her song “Lesbians <3.” We alternated grinding, making out, and taking shots. We found Kyle again and moved to another room in the venue. This one was nearly empty, no DJ, just a mysterious playlist playing hyperpop bangers. We were into it.

I pulled Jonah behind the booth with me, so I could pretend to DJ. It was all fun and games until drunken ravers started pitching song requests.

“Can you play Snow Strippers?!”

There was a chair back behind the DJ booth. I sat Jonah down in it and gave him a lap dance. I straddled him, held his face, and kissed him passionately, grinding my hips to the music with trademark intensity. At one point I noticed a stranger filming us. I confronted the voyeur. They explained anxiously, “I’m sorry, it was just so awesome.” Honestly, fair, I thought to myself. It was so awesome.

“Send me the video.”

This is where I confess that the perverted romance of the moment had gotten to me. In my mind we could be this slutty Scorpio it-couple, destined for an ecstatic, exhibitionist union. My American Dream.

Lights came on, and ravers scattered. We went back to Ben and Max’s house for the afterparty. My rave bae and I spent the rest of the night sitting on the floor, making out, talking, making out, playing Mario Kart, making out, taking shots, making out.
I’m not usually the person to meet someone at a party who I actually like. I appreciated a lot of what I heard: his job, his pets, his love of nature, and I promptly shook off the various red flags he presented (mainly the excessive drinking). He felt like a compilation of my previous three boyfriends: A Scorpio like #1, a similar career to #2, a mustache like #3. Even his dog was a mix of their dogs’ breeds. He was like the final boss of boy crushes.

The afterparty came to a close, and we went our separate ways. I gave him my number, so he could call me. The next day, he did not.

Because apparently I live in a 90s rom-com, I called him and asked him out via voicemail. He called me back. He wanted to hang out but felt “hesitant.” He was still in contact with his ex of five years, off his medication, and potentially moving back home to the middle of nowhere.

Great.

Our conversation was nice, though. “Can I think about it?” he asked.

“How long do you need?”

“A day.”

“Okay.” And just like that, anxiety prolonged!

I went to the park, hungover and incredibly perturbed. I started recounting the night, and when I got to the part where Evie came up, I felt weird, spacey. Something felt off. I sat on a grassy hill and called her. A few minutes later, she called me back.
I told her about the girl I met who’d called her a slut behind her back. She was thankful for the intel, but honestly, who cares? I think we both knew that’s not the only reason I reached out. We had dated for a bit but decided to be friends, that is, until she cut me off out of the blue.

“I was so angry at you,” I told her.

“I know,” she said quietly.

She reaffirmed that we still couldn’t be friends but that she’d like to remain “in community” with me. “I’m sorry, but what the fuck does that mean?” I asked. Those sorts of queer euphemisms never made sense to me.

Apparently, it means, “I’ll see you around.”

“Maybe,” I said, “But I don’t know what version of me you’re gonna get. Right now, I feel fine, but sometimes I get annoyed, because you just cut me off with no explanation! I didn’t know you still had feelings for me. If you did, we could have talked about it! You could’ve said something. I didn’t deserve that!”

A long pause. “I know you didn’t.” Words I’d been waiting a few months for. Admission of guilt. It felt good, sort of vindicating.
“I just couldn’t,” she half-explained, “I couldn’t.” And with that, it was done. Closure?

The next day, I beat myself up over waiting for Jonah to call. I caved and texted him, “[crying emoji] [crying emoji] [crying emoji] what is going on??”

He called me. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna work out.”

Great.

I hung up and stewed for fifteen minutes before calling him back.

“Sorry, I got pissed,” I explained.

“That’s okay,” he chuckled.

At this point, I had taken so many L’s, so to speak, so why not ask the big questions: “Is it me? Honestly, this has nothing to do with you because I know we just met, but it’s happened a lot recently where I connect with someone, but then it turns out they’re not available for some reason, and at this point I’m like, ‘Is it me?’ So is it? Or what– what is it? Is it your ex? Is it something else?”
“It’s not you,” he responded calmly. I felt the embarrassment creeping in, but I’d taken it this far, so why not get the perspective of a near-total stranger?

“That’s happened to me before; I meet someone, have this connection, and get attached quickly, but the other person isn’t in the right place. For me, it’s just timing.”

Our call ended okay, but I still cried. Why did no one want me? And the people who did – e.g., Evie – I didn’t want back in that way.

According to the Common Rules of Womanhood, you should never check your ex’s social media, especially when you’re feeling bad about yourself, but I was on some sort of excavating rampage, determined to mine the truth. I visited my ex-boyfriend’s Instagram. It turns out he’s dating someone. He’s been dating someone for months. In one of the pictures his new partner posted of him, he’s wearing my Peppa Pig t-shirt. I thought I’d lost it. I guess I did, in the breakup.

I lay there, scrolling, mouth agape. I didn’t feel jealous, though. If he could move on, maybe I could too. Before I knew it, I was calling him. We hadn’t spoken since September 2023. His choice, not mine. He didn’t answer, of course.

Who to call next? My dad! Why not? I explained in choppy prose my dilemma, how no one wants me, and the people who do, I don’t want back. He asked me some valid questions.

“When you go out, who are you attracted to? What type of people?”

I gave him a brief rundown of people I’d pursued in the past, but that’s not what he was asking. I knew the answer: I like women. When I go out, I notice them; I want to get to know them, be close to them.

Evie wanted me in the summer, but she wasn’t the right person for me, clearly, and grabbing Jonah’s waist in the club, touching his chest, I knew something was missing. I remember thinking, “It’s okay, I’ll date just one more boy, and then I’ll figure it out! It’s fine!”
Compulsory heterosexuality is a bitch.

On the phone my dad convinced me to come home and light some Hanukkah candles. I drove to the Valley and hung out with my sisters, one of whom had recently broken up with her boyfriend who was cheating on her, and the other who’d just been dumped the night prior. She had tried to convince him not to break up with her.

“He says he needs time to think about it. What is there to think about?!” she asked the room.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, staring at the ceiling.

Out in the living room, I watched a singing competition show with my parents, pointing out the beautiful women on screen.
“Who is that?” I asked my mom, emphatically. “Who is that?”

I felt the knots of the past few months unwinding. Maybe it’s okay to be mostly into women.

I left my parents’ house and watched “Shame” by Contrapoints, a video essay where the narrator grapples with her identity as a trans lesbian. I rewatched Veneno, I listened to Ethel Cain, I listened to the Queerified podcast hosted by Gigi Gorgeous. Queer trans girls are pretty cool.

It’s amazing that this rejection-fueled, rainbow-colored, self-acceptance tailspin began at a hyperpop rave in Koreatown and ended with me somehow even gayer than before.

My ex called me back a few days later. It turns out he’s not dating that guy on his Instagram after all. He’s living in a big city, just like me, working full time, just like me, trying to make space to be a reckless bitch, just like me. I ended the call with a cheerful goodbye to the last boy I’d really loved and stepped into 2025, a bit of a mess and a kind of a lesbian. Cheers to progress!