BBQ not n ORGY 61
July 6, 2018 9:48 AM   Subscribe

5th annual 4th of July BBQ June 30th from 1 until ? Why do 90% of u think this is an orgy? it's not it's open to all. Is it because I'm on this app? I try to invite all types of people men, women, gay, bi, str8, trans doesn't matter to me.
The wholesome story of Chris Bowman's annual BBQ
posted by FirstMateKate (28 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
Love is real.
posted by howfar at 9:53 AM on July 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


Aw, that brought tears to my eyes. Older single people tend to be lonely in general but it seems especially true in the LGBTQ community.
posted by AFABulous at 9:54 AM on July 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


This is wonderful but it made my heart hurt in the same way it does whenever I think about someone not being nice to my mom. I just wanted Chris to be able to have a huge party full of friends without anyone being mean to him and it looks like that happened and yet I still feel so tense! WTH is wrong with me?
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 9:57 AM on July 6, 2018 [17 favorites]


S-Town RPG secret good ending
posted by theodolite at 10:09 AM on July 6, 2018 [15 favorites]


I want to give Chase noogies.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:13 AM on July 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


the thorn bushes have roses, I know exactly what you mean. I have a tendency to expect the absolute worst when hearing stories that seem genuinely good, or seeing media that seems like a setup.

I kind of wonder if myself (and maybe others, like yourself?) have just been trained to expect the punch in the gut when the setup seems genuinely good?
posted by phildini at 10:14 AM on July 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh, my heart. I needed this. This is beautiful.

I was struck by how he was/is an alcoholic in recovery, that he hasn't spoken with his kids in over a decade and that these BBQs were a way of giving back and of righting the world in small ways. I think that's an honorable and commendable impulse. He is forgoing the male self-pardon and instead working to just do some good for the sake of doing good.
posted by nicodine at 10:26 AM on July 6, 2018 [37 favorites]


And then Bowman finds himself in a place which is like a zoo for people, but when he returns to Earth, he's transformed into a kind of superman, and we can only imagine what happens next.
posted by condour75 at 10:33 AM on July 6, 2018 [8 favorites]


I loved everything about this article, except for them using the weird bathroom selfie. (Which: why?)
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:33 AM on July 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


(condour75, I really can't tell if you're accidentally posting in the wrong thread, and this amuses me to no end.)
posted by golwengaud at 10:44 AM on July 6, 2018 [28 favorites]


There's a whole deep undercurrent to this story about how older queer men can be lonely and have a hard time finding friendship, much less a date. I kind of like that this article mostly didn't go there, other than the slight acknowledgment at the end. This is a story of Chris Bowman being awesome.
posted by Nelson at 10:46 AM on July 6, 2018 [8 favorites]


;)
posted by condour75 at 11:11 AM on July 6, 2018


I loved everything about this article, except for them using the weird bathroom selfie. (Which: why?)
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:33 PM on July 6 [+] [!]


Twink
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:43 AM on July 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


AND HIS PUPPER
posted by praemunire at 11:53 AM on July 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


As the official town motto goes, Apex, the peak of good living.

I grew up just down the road from this story, and hoo boy can I tell you I never would have thought Grindr and Apex would ever appear in one story, much less one on BuzzFeed. Well done Bowman.
posted by matrixclown at 12:26 PM on July 6, 2018 [7 favorites]


Slightly off topic, but: In my mind, the concepts of BBQ and orgy are at odds - at a proper BBQ (for which I'd say the spread in the article definitely qualifies), people should be too happily full and logy to conjure up the energy to attend an orgy. And at a proper orgy, people should be too busy to load up on food.

Anyway, that's a great story.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:17 PM on July 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


As an avid advice column reader, I have read a million variations of "I was a horrible parent but that is in the past, please tell me how to make my adult children want to be around me now" and I found it so refreshing that Chris Bowman is taking a different approach.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:27 PM on July 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


The very idea that some people just want to do nice things ... (sniff)
posted by DrAstroZoom at 1:56 PM on July 6, 2018


Something in my eye... probably just smoke from the barbecue SHUT UP I AM NOT CRYING
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:02 PM on July 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


What's really interesting is that he had a *lower* turnout this year, even after the story went viral. It's almost as if people are using liking, sharing, and commenting online as a substitute for the thing they are liking, sharing and commenting on.
posted by subdee at 2:03 PM on July 6, 2018 [6 favorites]


Is there evidence that global barbecue participation is declining?
posted by howfar at 2:27 PM on July 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


LGTBBQ!
posted by chavenet at 2:33 PM on July 6, 2018 [30 favorites]


Edeezy, that totally made me laugh!

What a lovely idea, to have a big barbecue where lots of different folks mingle and get to know each other. I particularly liked reading the bit about the young guy and his friend who showed up but were a little apprehensive until they got there, when "the second we pulled into the driveway, we knew everything was going to be fine."

This one goes straight into the "restore faith in humanity files."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:03 PM on July 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


I was struck by how he was/is an alcoholic in recovery, that he hasn't spoken with his kids in over a decade and that these BBQs were a way of giving back and of righting the world in small ways. I think that's an honorable and commendable impulse. He is forgoing the male self-pardon and instead working to just do some good for the sake of doing good.
---
As an avid advice column reader, I have read a million variations of "I was a horrible parent but that is in the past, please tell me how to make my adult children want to be around me now" and I found it so refreshing that Chris Bowman is taking a different approach.

This actually made me wonder a tiny bit whether he's doing the easy thing, rather than the hard thing, in the way that sometimes people who seek new beginnings do. As one who's quasi-estranged from some of my family members because of their alcoholic and abusive patterns of behavior, I occasionally suspect myself of doing the easy thing in not engaging with them more (and then counter that by wondering if the guilt I feel is just the result of codependence). So that's the only reason I wonder. Is throwing this barbecue and making new friends a way of avoiding dealing with the more difficult relationships, and in fact sort of embracing the male self-pardon? I hope not!

That said! the notion of family of choice is a real and good thing, and I also appreciate that it's hard to find and make friends when one is older, and that we find our people where we find them. It's also awesome how inclusive he is with this. I'm trying to judge my own older family members less for their impulses to be exceedingly generous to random people on occasion. (It's sometimes difficult when I feel like in doing so, they invite people to take advantage of them.)

This guy seems like a generous human who should be able to have fun and enjoy holidays like this without having to forever live in servitude to toxic notions of family obligation. So don't worry, I'm not raining on his barbecue. It just stirs up feelings that I suppose basically capture my own ongoing struggle with difficult family relationships, and I wonder if that's also part of why people feel some tension reading this.
posted by limeonaire at 3:25 PM on July 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


I love this guy. I love that he had a "4th of July" BBQ on June 30. I love that he cooked all that food, on faith, that people would come. I love that he donated the leftovers to a homeless shelter. I love that he's a lumpy older guy just putting himself out there and hoping for the best. Looking to make things better. A lovely story.
posted by Kangaroo at 5:11 PM on July 6, 2018 [15 favorites]


Is throwing this barbecue and making new friends a way of avoiding dealing with the more difficult relationships

If those particular family members told him to fuck off due to alcoholism-related misbehavior, which seems like the most likely (though sad, obviously) reading of what he says, then, no. Doing this and making new, healthy connections and not creeping around to extort love from people who he didn't treat properly when he didn't realize he needed them is exactly the sort of thing he should be doing. Maybe at some point some of his family will want to reconsider--I hope it works out to everyone's best happiness. But, until then, there are few things more distasteful than the spectacle of the older man whose desire to "reconcile" with the family he mistreated blatantly tracks with his realization that he needs someone to drive him home from colonoscopies. Respecting whatever boundaries they've set is absolutely the right thing to do.
posted by praemunire at 6:09 PM on July 6, 2018 [21 favorites]


This sounds exactly like most of the MeFi meetups I've been to.
posted by bendy at 10:14 PM on July 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


> bendy:
"This sounds exactly like most of the MeFi meetups I've been to."

Some day... some day...
posted by Samizdata at 2:17 AM on July 7, 2018 [1 favorite]


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