On our way out of a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place in Midtown Atlanta, Candace and I were accosted by a self-described gay homeless man from Nashville who was super chatty and apparently a bit insecure that he was asking for money. That said, for someone who seemed ashamed to be begging, he was awfully persistent, following us around, telling us to look him in the eyes a number of times, and even quasi-forcing us to shake hands with him (which we reluctantly did).
In fact, he was so atypical for a homeless man in his shtick that it wasn't really clear at first what he wanted from us. Eventually he admitted that he was "addicted to cigarettes" and could really use some...now that I think about it though, he never actually asked for money, I just suggested it and he somewhat-reluctantly took it. Afterwards though, perhaps in an effort to make it up to us, he proceeded to tell us three sexual jokes, none of which were particularly funny or vulgar (despite his assertions that they were). One even included a gay midget!
Other weird parts of our conversation included him insisting (almost more for his sake than ours) that he wasn't being unpleasant, his acknowledgment that it wouldn't be appropriate for him to follow us towards our car, that if he were straight I should be worried because he thought Candace was hot, and even talking about his inability to tell people he was gay back in Nashville for fear of the "good ole' boys" that presumably wouldn't take kindly to that kind of lifestyle.
Strange encounter. Totally bloggable though, which really makes it worth it, no matter how awkward the whole thing was. And hey, it was kinda refreshing to encounter such a unique homeless person who had a totally different approach from all the others I've had to deal with in recent memory.
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