I’ve never been to a Pride parade before, even though I’d lived for a long time in cities that had big ones. I was never interested, to be honest. I have always been pro-LGBT, and I’d outgrown parades since I was too old to fight children for candy (thirty-three).

This feels like an important year, though, so I should show my support. Besides, I am part of the LGBTQIA umbrella. (It might surprise you to know this, but the A doesn’t stand for asexual. It stands for ally.) I also need to be in crowds sometimes. Did I need to be in the crowd this will likely be? What if I have a meltdown? I went back and forth on this all morning Saturday, until I decided to go for it. I took my four-hundred-dollar SmartCard and left my wallet behind (the credit cards for the pickpockets, and the ID in case the gestapo show up.)

The parade started at two, so I left and noon to beat the horde. I was not expecting what I found when I arrived before one o’clock. I assumed it would be several blocks from the start before I could even see the parade route. I arrived to an empty barricade. That meant I could get closer to the start, so I headed in that direction, until I felt like. I could stand anywhere I wanted.

Since the only place to cross Fourteenth was at the start, I did so and explored the neighborhood. This was 12:53.

There was an awkward, failed attempt to buy weed and a very condescending bookseller. Otherwise, I found nothing of interest. On the correct side of the street, I found a place in perpetual shade to camp out in. I checked my phone. It was 1:06. Fifty-four minutes until the parade, and gays were always late. [Editor’s note: I don’t think this is true.] This was going to be a long wait.

Facing the parade route let me observe the “PRIDE IS OF THE DEVIL,” “JESUS SAVES,” and “REPENT NOW” signs. With my back to the route, I could ogle the partygoers of all, and I mean all, genders as the crowd filled out. Some wore rainbows, and some did their makeup special. They were mostly normal people.

The swamis baffled me. While they hovered nearby, I tried to think of the best way I could ask them what was up with their clothes. “What’s up with your clothes?” was not the way I wanted to do it.

That was how I almost missed a young, cocky woman with purple hair, bouncing by. Her sleeveless top was also purple, as well the 25 percent of the flag rising from the back of her head. The flag also had white, black, and gray. “Hey!” I shouted at her. She was too far away, and it was getting loud.

I returned to the empty parade-lude to see a tall, black woman emerge from a limo to thunderous applause. I feel like I should have known who that was, but I couldn’t tell. She looked bored, but I could barely see her to tell for sure. Even though I was the first person here, a large area had been set aside in front of me for disabled people, mostly the hearing impaired. I watched them converse excitedly with their hands, talking over each other. Everybody was having a great time.

I decided to get back to people-watching and turned around, but that opened me up to the attention of the guy on the other side of the sidewalk, selling Jell-O shots. He was a salesman. He knew, if he could get me to come over there and talk to him, he would get a sale. He would not take no for an answer.

To free myself, I turned back around, and there she was, the asexual woman! Displaying the lack of fucks it’s taken me a half-century to build up, I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Hi, I’m ace!”

“What?”

“I’m asexual!” I shouted at her.

She devoted her full attention to me.

“I didn’t expect to see any asexuals here!” I shouted.

“Here I am!” she shouted back.

“I figure it out late in life, so I don’t know any people like me!”

“You know me! I’m Rachel!”

“Jeremiah!”

We learned a lot about each other for the next hour. She was born in Minnesota, but moved to Maryland when she was seven. She’s thirty. I asked her if she remembered anything about Minnesota, and she told me school, sledding, mostly the winters. We talked about art. We talked about music.

“I thought gay bikers were extinct,” I said, not referring to motorcyclists themselves, but of the leather daddy stereotype from the seventies and eighties.

She loved ASL, so she translated some of what I was seeing in the disabled area. Where I thought they were talking over each other, one was making the gesture that meant “Same.” Another gesture indicated that they were paying attention. “Like I’m doing now,” I said. She didn’t think it was funny.

She worked for the Maryland Parks department, and she also planned out their PR. If I’m ever in Silver Spring for a parade, she will be one of the mascots. The owl is the most comfortable suit, and the beaver sags in the crotch. I suggested a harness.

She told me that the day before was a convention for the Asexual Alliance of the Mid-Atlantic, which she’d only just found out about.

She said someone next to her was getting too intimate with her, and she was about to ask me to trade spots.

She wore a cross-body bag across her hip, so I thought it was an enormous fanny pack. Whatever it was, it was bigger in the inside than it was on the outside. She has to check for her watch, wallet, and keys periodically, and this took over a minute of digging.

I noted, after we’d been chatting for a while, that we were brushing up against each other. It was kind of flirty, but not in a sexual way. It was flirty in a cozy way. My personal bubble is a demilitarized zone, which is a strange thing for a man who likes crowds so much to say. She was pulling in close to me not because she had to, but because it felt safe.

“I like to do stuff like this alone!” she shouted. “If I had been with a group of friends, I never would have met you!”

The parade started, and it took a long time to get going. Each group pulled onto Fourteenth Street and waited, and waited. When it did get going, the main attraction at the beginning was an organized group hauling a large rainbow flag. And there was more flag. And there was even more flag.

“How do they clean that?” I asked.

She laughed. “It’s a flag you can measure in minutes.” It took four minutes for the flag to go by.

The celebrity from earlier was waving, half-assedly, from the back of a Corvette. This was Laverne Cox, whose name I recognized.

The gay bikers drove by.

After that, it was just another parade. There were banners, marching bands, fire trucks, and floats. Instead of candy, they threw balls into the crowd, which seemed to me to be a bad idea. Rachel almost got one in the face. Compared to bacchanal I was expecting, it was really wholesome.

When the parade stalled out again, Rachel told me she was going to see the vendors and figure out how to cross the street. There was a concert she wanted to see. And that was it. That’s what a one-night-stand looks like to an ace like me.

She was delightful, and she made an impression, and I wish I had gotten her number. But I didn’t because making friends at this age is like dating. You are just as likely to get ghosted as you are from someone you met on Tindr. What would be the point of making this into a disappointing memory? I just had an enchanting afternoon with someone interesting. She wasn’t asking me for my number.

The reason I didn’t go with her was because I was exhausted. I had been standing since I got off the train, and I had to walk ten blocks to get here. It was another ten blocks back, plus another mile home when I got to my station. In fact, I didn’t last much longer, and within an hour, my feet were propped up on my bed.

I’m glad I went. It was a little disappointing, to be honest, but I ended up connecting, however briefly, with a kindred spirit. I hope she tells her friends about this cool old person she met at the parade, so my spirit is floating out there freely, among the thirty-year-olds from Minnesota in Maryland.