Traveling the Pandemic Via Grindr

Cold Body, Nobody

When the AIDS crisis shut down New York City, there was no Zoom. The queer community was surrounded by people who didn’t care they were lonely, where hetero lives sped on faster than the trains.

I start here not for comparison, but because there’s a picture I want to share of an early morning when the sun has yet to crest, and the birds are trumpeting Tuesday. There are two men on the rooftop, on two separate rooftops, with 148th Street in-between. They both bring up a cup of coffee, and find the perfect nook of the wall to corner themself against, masturbating together. From far away, you can barely hear their wet hands, their grunts like pebbles bouncing off the brick, but they find a way to let the other know, just like they did every other Tuesday from across the street:

I’m almost there.

Yesterday, Grindr offered me a free 24 hours of global access on their app, meaning I could drop my pin anywhere in the world and go cruising. The feeling of loneliness has evolved this past year. Where so much is just out of reach, my hungry hands have grown desperate for holding. I live in the greatest city in the world and yet it still takes days to remind myself I have the keys to my own cage. So I pack my bag and set out to travel the world via folks on Grindr from the corner of my bed…