By Mike McGinty

Whenever someone asks me where I live — the go-to icebreaker in San Francisco — it doesnsn’t matter if they’re straight, gay, male, female, or parakeet. The conversation always plays out the same way.

“In the Castro,” I say.

“Oh!” comes the surprised response. The unspoken subtext being: I had no idea you were a meth-addicted sex fiend obsessed with penises who spends 10 hours a week in the gym, weekends in leather, and frequents sex shops. You don’t seem the type.

After their initial surprise comes the follow-up question, “Where in the Castro?” This, in their view, is giving me a chance to earn the “normal” label. They are thinking: Well, so what if he lives in the Castro? He seems nice. He probably lives closer to Noe Valley. And he probably only dabbles in leather. On special occasions.

“On Castro Street,” I say (which is the truth), knowing full well this will amp up their shock even more. And the response, from gays and straights alike, is every bit as predictable as another George Michael public restroom bust: “Wow. You’re really in the thick of it!”

The funny part is, I’m so not. I live just up the hill from the HRC store at 19th Street. It’s a residential block. Even during street fairs, Halloween celebrations, and Pride festivals, it’s sedate up here. My apartment is in the back of the building, so I don’t even get traffic noise. In short, it’s a far cry from the thick of it. It’s not even the thin of it. At best, it’s the smidgen of it.

The location of my apartment isn’t the only reason I’m always having to readjust people’s perceptions. The bigger explanation is that I live a rather quiet life. A demanding job, good friends, and occasional dates keep me pretty busy, so there’s not a whole lot of time to look for, locate, map a route to, and trek to “the thick of it,” let alone to spend the bulk of my time there. After all, I commute to Marin for work every day, and there are all those Ugly Betty episodes on my DVR to catch up on.

What does “it” even mean? Perpetual partying? Sexual promiscuity? Certainly the Castro has its share of these, but I don’t know that we have a corner on the market. Log onto craigslist and you’ll see plenty of graphic M4M ads originating from Palo Alto and Novato. Go to Firewood for dinner any night of the week and you’ll see several guys eating by themselves. Not that there’s anything wrong or abnormal about that, but I’d be willing to bet the only thing they feel in the thick of is a bowl of tortellini.

To be honest, I guess sometimes I do behave in ways that might qualify as being in the thick of it. I meet friends for drinks at the local bars, and after a particularly rough week I have been known to drink my weight in Grey Goose. Luckily, I can stagger home because the route from Thickville to Smidgentown is a pretty short one.

More often than not, though, you’ll see me at the drug store, the barber shop, the wine shop, the dry cleaners, the coffee joint, or the corner grocery. I have yet to figure out how these places qualify as having a heightened thickness factor, but I am a big fan of them all. It’s incredibly convenient to have them so close at hand, and I love that many of the people who work in or own these businesses remember me when I walk in. But it’s worth noting that I have yet to see a group of drag queens dance down the frozen food aisle at Delano’s belting “I Will Survive.” In deference to Ms. Gaynor, however, I’ll keep my eye out.

One thing I do feel in the thick of is history. I can never pass Harvey’s without thinking of the man himself and what he did for gay people. I can never go by his old camera shop without his visage crossing my mind. And sometimes, when I’m walking the streets, or sitting in my apartment, I think of the decimation of AIDS and wonder how many stories these old buildings could tell. Who lived in my apartment before I did? For how long? Did they feel like they lived in the thick of it? And did they like that feeling?

Ultimately, I’ve come to realize that what I am in the thick of is humanity. To no more or less a degree than anywhere else in San Francisco, the Bay Area, the state, the country, or the world. And this is what I really want to tell people who react so oddly when they discover my address: It doesn’t matter where you live, there is no escaping the inestimable truth of our existence: Life is what you make it.

So is community, for that matter. It isn’t defined by your address or by the perceptions of others. It’s defined by the day-to-day life you lead among your fellow denizens. It’s walking down the street and getting a wave of hello from your coffee barista or the guy you buy your personal lubricant from. It’s realizing that everyone you see on the sidewalks owes a debt of gratitude to the pioneers who are no longer with us. It’s the shared guilty pleasure of staring at the shirtless men on the posters at the bus shelters lining Castro Street. [Come one, you know you do.]

Community is also defined by participation – at whatever level suits you – because that’s what determines the strength of your ties to the place you live. That’s what fosters your sense of belonging and how far into the thickness you are. But it’s a highly personal choice that strangers I meet at parties don’t know me nearly well enough to comment on.

I think about the neverending stream of well-intentioned people in front of the Bank of America building who ask me to take a poll, take a flier, take a dog home, or take my wallet out. If I stopped to engage all of them every time they approached me I’d never get on with the business of my life. I mean, some days I don’t want to stop global warming; I just want to buy toilet paper.

But that’s the great thing about community. One is presented with those kinds of choices daily – hourly, even. The next opportunity is always around the corner. We can pass it up or take the plunge, but our choice has little to do with where we live and everything to do with who we are.

So the next time someone tells me I’m really in the thick of it, be they from Boston, Brussels, Bangkok or Burlingame, I’m going to smile, look them in the eye and, in my best sage voice, quietly reply, “So are you.”

Mike McGinty is a Clio-winning copywriter whose personal essays have been published in the anthologies I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage, Identity Envy, and From Boys to Men, as well as on Gay.com, Outsports.com, in the Noe Valley Voice, and in Bookmarks, Betty, San Francisco Bride, and American magazines. See his blog at mikemcginty.com.