By Tyler Gillespie
Two Saturdays ago, my future-roommate and female friend Roach and I set out on the most epic of quests — finding a reasonably priced two-bedroom apartment in downtown St. Petersburg. Roach and I had lived together for a year in Orlando, and it hadn't turned into a situation like The Roommate — oh wait, you didn't see that movie with Leighton Meester in it either?
Anyway, Roach and I had decided that we were going to shack up together again — the economy and apartment-gods willing.
That Saturday, she picked me up from where I currently live in Clearwater, and around noon, we arrived downtown. A friend of ours from Orlando met us there to help us look for an apartment and to catch up a little.
With downtown daydreams floating in our heads, the three of stopped at Central Café & Organics on Central Avenue and ordered food. Sitting in their open-air patio, our lunchtime conversation started out about relationships past and present, which led to a discussion about the present state of our social lives.
"I think I want more straight friends," Roach said. “I think it could be fun."
"Straight friends can sometimes be a lot of work," I said. "Some people think that just because they have a gay friend or know a gay person that they are progressive or an activist or something."
