On a typical Saturday night of bar-hopping in New York City, a friend’s birthday brought a few buddies and I to Evolve. Formerly know as O.W. or Oscar Wilde bar, Evolve is located on the Upper East Side, a section of Manhattan which is rarely gay and rarely frequented, a least by us.

“Oh my God, look at that go-go boy,” a friend exclaimed.

“Hideous!”

“He’s so ... old.”

“And just not cute.”

“Is he flexing his pecs to the beat?!”

“EWWWWW!” we all chorused. We couldn’t stop looking at the train wreck on the make-shift stage.

"He’s really not a go-go BOY," I pointed out.

My friends jumped in with, “Go-go man?”

“Go-go guy?”

“Go-go home.”

We soon did, or at least off to another bar, but I left wondering: are we too judgmental?

It reminded me of the night in January when Martinifun and I went out in Miami before leaving on the gay cruise the next morning. We went to Twist, one of the larger and more popular gay bars in South Beach. One room in the back was full of rotating go-go’s who may or may not have done a little more than dance, if the right amount of cash were offered. But as we looked at them, we couldn’t believe anyone would pay them for private time. There wasn't one we found attractive. We reached that agreement just as a host announced over a microphone: "Welcome to Twist! Hope you’re enjoying the dancers - we got some of the hottest guys in the United States!”

We gave each other wide-eyed looks, and gulped our margaritas.

Back in New York, a new gay bar opened in Hell’s Kitchen.

“Have you been to Bartini?” asked GarrettJuice, as we sipped grape vodka at The Ritz.

“That’s that name of it?” I exclaimed with disgust. “Awful!”

“It’s a cute space,” he replied. “It’s the crowd that’s the problem.”

“Not cute?” I asked.

“Oh they’re all cute,” he replied. “They’re just all bottoms. I look around the room like Cute? Bottom. Cute? Bottom. Cute? Bottom. It's Bottomtini.”

I slammed my empty glass on the table. “We’re going immediately.”

Bartini did turn out to be a cute space, and on a Saturday night was indeed filled with lots of cute boys. We stood at the bar, looking around.

“That bartender is hot,” GarrettJuice said. “Do you think he's good in bed?”

“No,” I replied after watching him for a moment. “See how he shakes that martini?”

“Lazy?” Garrett observed, as the bartender listlessly waved the shaker back and forth.

“Exactly. He's lazy in bed.”

“Probably just lays there,” added Madambien.

Just then, one of their friends who was visiting from out of town walked up.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. We explained our theory about the bartender.

“Y’all are crazy!” he exclaimed. “That bartender is hot, and I bet he’s great in bed. You New Yorkers - y’all are just too judgmental!”

“Shut up,” replied Madambien, “you’re crazy!”

“Yeah,” added Garrett, “You’re from the South, you don’t know anything!”

I just shrugged.

A couple months ago, I wrote a blog post about the number of men my friends and I sleep with, and whether it’s too many. After posting it, I didn’t think the subject would be resurrected so quickly.

Last month, Time Out New York published their “Calling All Singes” issue. “Meet 104 eligible New Yorkers inside!” the cover exclaimed. I quickly paged to the main article, anxious to look at the gays (TONY always features some gays when publishing an issue like this one.) I began scrutinizing the tiny headshots, paying close attention to the males who’s pictures had the little blue man symbol in the corner: men who liked men. I had only covered about half a page when my eye settled on a cute boy.

Hey! I thought. I know him. Actually, I’d slept with him not too long ago. How funny - someone I hooked up with is famous! Well, has a one-inch-by-one-inch photo in Time Out, anyway.

I continued browsing, noticing a couple cute boys on each page of the article. Then I noticed another smiling face.

Hey! I Know him, too! Actually, I’d slept with him, too. This one was a while ago, years in fact, but nevertheless, I’d had sex with 2 out of the hundred and four New Yorkers in Time Out.

Really?

I frantically scanned the article for the next ten minutes, to be certain that it was only two. It was. I put the magazine down, and laughed. It was funny, right? I decided it was, and Twittered about it.

Not long after, I sat down to dinner with my friend and colleague, AccidentallB. She’d seen my Twitter post.

“You’ve slept with TWO guys in Time Out?!” she exclaimed.

“So what?” I laughed. “You’ve slept with more than two people.”

“NOT the same,” she scolded. “How many singles were in that magazine?”

“A hundred and four.”

“And half were men,” she said. I nodded. “And,” she continued, “how many were gay men?”

I shrugged. As if I hadn’t counted. “Eleven.”

She smiled smugly. “Eleven. Two out of eleven.”

“So what?” I asked, for the second time, though slightly less confidently.

“So,” AccidentallB replied, “that's a random sampling of gay men in New York City. Do the math. You've slept with 15 percent of all the gay men in Manhattan.”

I opened my mouth to reply ... and then closed it. A second later, I tried again. “That’s not... Are you... How could I...”

She looked back at me, cocked an eyebrow, and said nothing.

“Huh.” I sighed. “I really need to move.”

I was with a work colleague when I found a cell phone in the back of a cab.

“Should I give it to the driver?” she asked.

“No,” I sighed. “I’ll take it. I’ll do my good deed for the month.” I figured I could use some good karma.

I went back to my office and started looking through the phone - contacts, incoming calls, recently dialed numbers. Many were Italian names, with numbers that clearly dialed outside the U.S. Finally, I settled on the recently dialed number for Josie Cell, which also appreard in the contacts next to Josie Home and Josie Country.

“Hello?” a voice answered after four rings. I explained that I had found the phone in a taxi, and was trying to find its owners.

“Well that’s very nice of you,” she said. “Do you know who’s it is?”

“Um, no...” I replied. “Unless maybe it came up on your phone?”

“Oh! Well, the number did! It’s...” she proceeded to tell me the number. Useless.

“Well, I’m still not sure who’s it is,” I replied.

“Well, maybe if you read me some names in it,” she suggested.

“Sure,” I replied, trying to figure out how to set it on speaker phone and view the Contact List simultaneously. Who owns a Motorola Razr anymore?

Eventually, I figured it out and began reading her some contacts, no doubt butchering the names, which were mostly European. After only 5 or 6, she interrupted.

“Oh! It’s my mother’s phone! Or my father’s. Those are their people.”

I thought, “Their name didn’t come up on your caller ID?” but said nothing.

“Oh they’re probably in hysterics over it being missing. You’d never know it, but they are 85 and 92! They’re crazy artists who live in tribeca.”

“... Oh.”

“Thank you so much!” she went on. She gave me their exact address, which I wrote down though I had no intention of visiting. I was going for good karma, not sainthood. Then she gave me their home phone number, and their names. “Just call them at home,” she said, “and tell them you have the phone. They’ll send a messenger or something. Thank you so much!”

I disconnected, curious about these “crazy artists” who lived in what was probably a very nice loft in TriBeCa, judging from the address. Maybe I should deliver the phone in person.

“Hello?” a male voice answered when I dialed the home number. I once again explained I’d found a phone in the back of a taxi, this time adding that I’d gotten their home number from their daughter, and I thought the phone was theirs.

“Oh, thank you so much!” exclaimed the father. “That’s a very nice thing you’re doing. Where are you?”

I told him I was in the Times Square area, and he said to someone else in the room with him, “Can you go to Times Square?” After a beat, he said to me, “Talk to Christie, she’ll arrange to pick it up. And thank you!”

A second later, a female voice got on the line. Younger, definitely not the mother - a personal assistant? A Nurse?

“Thank you so much!” she said. “Tell me where you are, I’m happy to come up to you.”

I gave her the address, and she agreed to meet me within an hour. Then just as she was about to hang up, someone, presumably the mother, said something to her. She listened, then repeated it to me.

“Do you like olive oil?” she asked.

“Um... well, yes,” I replied, which was true. “I like it very much.”

“Well,” she said,”Mr. and Mrs. LostPhone make their own olive oil. They live half the year in Italy. They want to know if you’d like a bottle?”

SCORE!

“That’s so nice of them,” I replied. “I would love a bottle.”

“Great, see you soon!” she said, and hung up.

“HOMEMADE OLIVE OIL ON THE WAY!” I shouted to my colleagues as I hung up the phone.

“What??”

I told them the story.

“Crazy artists?”

“Half the year in Italy??”

“Homemade olive oil!?”

“You got it,” I laughed.

45 minutes later, we were dipping bread into some of the most amazing olive oil I’ve ever tasted.

“This is incredible!” cried a co-worker, licking her fingers. “It’s like crack in a bottle!”

“Better,” I said. “It’s Karma in a bottle.”