So this one time a long time ago, I was in a gay bar with some friends, having some drinks and shooting the shit, basically just killing time before we had to be somewhere else.

Anyhoo, I'll never forget that night, because it burned a serious impression into me. See, these two older guys, probably in their late 50s, were standing at the bar chatting. Both looked (to my eyes) ordinary for their age. Neither seemed to have gone to a great deal of trouble with their hair or clothes, but both looked respectable, not very different from how my dad dressed at the time.

At one point, they walked over to the dance floor and had a slow dance together. I thought nothing of it. Until I offered to go to the bar and buy a round.

Then, one of the guys I was with (all of us in our 20s) said, "Watch out for trolls under the bridge."

"Huh?" said I, in a burst of rhetorical eloquence.

"Those old guys. Don't they know how ridiculous they look being here? They call guys like that trolls. They should act their age. What if one of them hits on you?"

I looked at him blankly for a moment, gears spinning in my mind. Finally some actual rhetorical ability returned. "Um, if they hit on me," I said, "then the universe will obviously collapse into a giant black hole, and I'll never know the terrible fate I escaped."

A couple guys I was with had the good grace to laugh. But I don't think the dude I directly addressed got the joke.

Today, I'm older than those two "trolls," and I am even more aware of how older women and gay men are often silenced and disrespected just for existing with joy.