Delehanty excuses himself to go to the bathroom, after which the conversation turns slightly more serious. Everyone at the table is intrigued by Meyer's job at a company that creates brand names and logos, and the Regular Guys wonder about alternate names for Regular Guys.
"The Assholes," Delehanty says, having returned from the bathroom and forgotten to zip up his pants. "We could call each other The Assholes. That would be about right."
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Meyer points to Delehanty's zipper: "Um, that much action in the bathroom?"
After a brief discussion about past bathroom sexual experiences, talk turns to the best city gyms. Delehanty fondly tells the group about the YMCA in Atlanta, where he used to live.
"There are plenty of gyms with back-room action, but this one, I swear, it doubled as a bathhouse for 'straight' guys," he says, fingering his fries. "Their fat wives would be working their little hearts out on the treadmill, and meantime, the husbands are in the locker room jerking each other off." (He makes jerking motions.)
The gym story leads to a debate about bisexuality and sexual labeling, and Delehanty listens in amazement as one Regular Guy mentions that he still likes girls, and another offers a graphic re-enactment of a past experience eating out a girl.
"OK, I just lost my appetite!" Delehanty says. "Call me a big old queen, but I don't have any bisexual tendencies whatsoever. None at all."
Meyer raises his arms in mock victory. "And women the world over are celebrating! They're dancing in the streets!"
Mike Schaefer gets calls and e-mails from married guys who would like to know how, exactly, they can get in on some Regular Guys "action."
Schaefer politely e-mails them back ("They're not big about giving out their home numbers," he says), informing them that their unsuspecting wives may pose some logistical problems, and that Regular Guys is not a sex club for closet cases or bi-curious married men. He rarely hears from them again.
Over lunch at a cafe in the Castro, Schaefer is sure to make clear that Regular Guys is not a dating service. "The group is a sort of fraternity for male bonding," Schaefer says. "Bonding in the traditional sense."
The task is simple, really. After the Giants game, Schaefer and I must cross from one side of the Embarcadero to the other. I choose the most direct route, which requires that we cross the Muni tracks, jump up on a 3-foot-high platform, then jump down again.
Two athletic-looking ladies in their 40s (lesbians, perhaps?) have just chosen the same path, executing the simple exercise without incident. I jump up on the platform, then jump down again, turning to wait for Schaefer, who is having some difficulty with the jumping down part.
He eyes the 3-foot drop with trepidation. He gets on one knee, hoping he can avoid the jump altogether by simply lowering himself down. He can't. He eyes me eyeing him and smiles bashfully, finally deciding to take the big plunge and jump. He stumbles slightly on impact.
"I guess I didn't look like much of a Regular Guy there, did I?" Schaefer says, shaking his head. "And I bet you're going to put that in the story, aren't you? It would make for a great ending. The founder of Regular Guys is too chicken to cross the street! What a girl!"
