Island Getaway

Who doesn’t love a good tap dance?

My friends and I spent Labor Day weekend on Fire Island. Our first night there, after a rousing game of Musical Chairs Flip Cup (You’ve never played Musical Chairs Flip Cup?! You’re doing it wrong.), we headed out to the bars. Our chosen bar’s dance floor was almost completely empty. But we were all riled (and liquored) up from our game and instantly claimed it as our own.

During a dance break, my friend Carol and I headed to the bar for a drink, where Carol started chatting it up with random guy Steve. During a break in their conversation, she turned to me to say, “I think he’s gay.” Side note: If I had to describe Carol’s gaydar, I’d say it’s 100% godawful. Really. Sure enough, as soon as we’d migrated back to the dance floor, Carol and Steve were making out.

Steve’s friend approached me and introduced himself as Dan. We got to talking and eventually dancing. He seemed like a youngen, so I asked how old he was. He was 22. OK, so there’d be no hook up here. (I don’t do younger men.) He leaned in for the kiss, I ducked it.

“I’m gonna go back to my friends,” I said, pointing at the group that had gathered to watch me and Carol stumble with these boys. As I was about to walk away, Dan grabbed my arm. “Wait,” he said. “I can tap dance!”

And he started to tap dance.

I considered exclaimining, “Wow, Dan, how did you know I had a tap dance fetish?!” But instead, I asked, “Wait, has this EVER worked for you?”—a question I’ve been tempted to ask many, many times in my dating career. Dan apparently thought I was kidding and kept on tap dancing. The dance floor was still relatively empty, so my friends had a clear view of what was happening and died of laughter behind him. I did, too—as I walked away.

Carol eventually rejoined our group, telling us that her guy was not fun, super young, and still definitely secretly gay. We moved on to the next bar.

The next night, Steve started texting Carol early (apparently, despite his alleged sexuality, he had asked for her number). She had no interest in meeting up again—and I certainly didn’t want to see the tap-dancing man—so she ignored him or sent him vague responses as we headed out again. But Fire Island is small, so we suspected we might  have no say in the matter. Suprisingly, we only had to duck behind our friends once, while waiting in line for a bar, to avoid them. Great success.

The next morning, thinking we’d never see the twosome again, we boarded the train for Manhattan. Suddenly, Carol panicked. “I just made eye contact with the gay guy!” she said. Sure enough, I glanced to my left and made eye contact with his tap-dancing friend. Saved by the train, we quickly boarded.  But as we left the train at Penn Station, they were in line to go upstairs directly behind us, thankfully ignoring us as much as we were ignoring them.

The moral: Don’t hook up with someone at the beginning of a Fire Island trip. It will haunt you. But more importantly: Never tap dance at a bar.

—Raz, 26, NYC