The novel's protagonist is a writer who has come to a gay bar to learn how to write about love. He asks the bartender to teach him how to talk about love, but the bartender refuses, saying that he is not interested in learning about love until he has experienced it himself. The protagonist, however, is not intimidated by the bar's snobbishness. He tells the bartender that he wants to learn about love because he has never experienced it, and that he has tried writing about it but has not been able to do so because he does not have the imagination to understand what it is like to experience it. The bartender tries to calm him down, but he refuses to give him an explanation. He then tells the protagonist that he cannot write anything about love unless he is able to understand the emotions of the characters, and the protagonist agrees that he will be able to learn more about love in the sequel he is writing