I haven’t missed a Pride Parade since 2000. Well, except for the summer of COVID-19 of course. I was 20 years old when I attended my first one, and I wasn’t out yet so I went by myself.
It was in Manhattan — the summer I interned at a music magazine — and I didn’t yet have a problem with addiction. The parade in New York, where I spent my twenties with fellow friends who worked in creative fields, is a mostly cordial affair that starts in Midtown and takes over all of the West Side downtown, ending in Greenwich Village at the famous Stonewall Inn — where the modern-day gay rights movement began.
I used to go to the parade with my NYC gay posse and we always had lunch at a nice restaurant afterwards. There was no heavy drinking involved.
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