Revenge, like chocolate milk, is best served cold

On a carton of chocolate milk: "Delicious served cold". It seems a peculiarly qualified statement, as if there is an unsaid "horrible served warm" or "vile served hot" that a sly marketing manager removed. This thought has been with me all week, and I would have shared it in the real world except I'm a little embarrassed about buying chocolate milk.

This week's big breakthrough has been to attend a social event. I am gay. I was about to say I am obviously gay - which apparently I am - but it's a characteristic I do not recognise and am always a little taken-aback by: campness is a difficult thing to gauge, of course, but it's not as if I'm turning-up to work in a sequin dress and yelling "coo-eee" across the trading floor. I occasionally indulge in guerilla campness, threatening to hug people unless they deliver the work I need and on time; this is a surprisingly effect form of project management.

"Who asked for these system changes?"
"Laphroaig."
Shudder. "Best get them done else he might give us a kiss."
"But my workload!"
"That might be with tongues."
"I'll work night and day."

Tangents about my character to one side, this was a gay event. I approached it with an extra-large slice of trepidation, partly because it was for people who do not like The Scene. I do not like the gay scene either as it can be brash, shallow and very superficial - that gentleman with the lovely body is not dancing topless in the hope of a fascinating conversation about the influence of the cold war in post-modern geo-political international tensions. This is not to say that he lacks intellectual muscles to rival his (really rather gorgeous) pectorals, of course, but he's not there for a night of animated political discussion and nor is anyone else (except if they are it raises the interesting image of muting the music, shouting "let's discuss the relevance of Orwell's dystopian vision to today's society" and having the entire dance floor cheer you on in agreement). Aside from night clubs, though, there are precious few other options: online dating has gained increased acceptance, but my brief encounters with it were depressingly seedy. Then there are always gay bars.

"So where did you meet?"
"In a bar."
"I see, hang out at bars a lot do you?"
"Well, sometimes, to meet men. What is this, the 1950s?"

So this is a club. A social club for men of a certain sexuality (gay, of course, straight men who want to socialise with other men with a healthy dollop of homo-eroticism can join a rugby club), and who do not like the scene. This filled me with trepidation. I don't like the gay scene either but this is purely because I relish intellectual discourse and is in no way related to jealousy over my lack of lovely, lovely chest muscles. Not everyone's motives may be so clear-cut.

In the end, though, it was exactly what it seemed. A lunch at a pleasant enough London restaurant. I was quite disappointed by the lack of interesting anecdotes and (although I would never admit it) the failure to meet the love of my life.

Afterwards someone phoned to find out who you liked and who you, erm, did not. The club prides itself on not being clique-y, apparently. This, I soon understood, was because they had outsourced the whole organisation of the clique to someone else.

This is hardly the stuff of romance novels ... but nor is having anxiety attacks and social paralysis so yes, I confirmed, I would be interested in attending further events. But there was one thing it confirmed: I am a class-A introvert - I was exhausted by the time I arrived home.

Or maybe that was the free wine.