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"We were at a gay bar and two men bought me a drink so I sat with them and you'll never, ever guess what, because even socially liberal me sitting self-congratutorily in a gay bar in my leather pants didn't see it: THEY TURNED OUT TO BE *GAY*! AND THEY WANTED ME!!"
Golly!
The problem isn't that this guy likes leather pants or ironed shirts, and the problem isn't that his wife likes drindl skirts and birkenstocks.
The problem is that LW has an insatiable desire to be admired, and preeningly engages in it, even in front of his wife, thus relegating her to the status of an insurance card. You know that card, right? The one you keep in your wallet and never ever think about until something really bad happens, and then it turns out to be really really important, that card, about the most important thing in the world, because when bad stuff happens the people who were throwing all those drinks and leather-pants-compliments and smoky hot eyes at you go 'huh, too bad' and move on with their lives and leave you lying there, gasping and afraid and unloved and unadmired and realizing that the only thing you have in the world now is that insurance card, the card that you have been, up to this point, ignoring, thinking of it as a a sort of boring necessity that you make a payment on each month (and occasionally toying with the idea of just stopping because really, you haven't needed it, it's a waste of time and money, this insurance, think of all the hot clothes you could have with that money!), never realizing that when the really bad thing finally happens to you, that insurace card is no longer forgotten at the back of your raft, it is no longer a dubious investment relative to a new pair of leather pants, it is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD, a veritable fucking life raft that will sail you out of the rough seas and onto dry land.
No wonder she's pissed.
The LW is asking the wrong question. The question is not: if my wife changes x or y, will gay men stop hitting on me? the question is: if I want gay men - or anyone, really - to stop hitting on me, then why do I invite it?
Or, put another way: I'm thinking about buying a $400 leather wallet to house my boring old insurance card....would Jack Spade design be too gay, or should I go with something from Hermes?
