She was joking. But I took her advice seriously; which goes to show I'm still not as free as I pretend to be.
It reminds me of President Obama jumping through hoops to assure some of his wackier critics that he's not a Muslim.
For the last three years, my wife and I have marked the end of summer with a group of close friends in Provincetown, Mass., a colonial whaling village and artist colony with a year-round population of about 3,400 people, located at the spiraling tip of Cape Cod.
In the summer, the Provincetown population explodes to almost 60,000. No wonder. It's a beautiful little place, filled with shops, restaurants and history -- the Pilgrims landed here before moving on to that famous rock in Plymouth -- beaches, dunes, bike trails, ocean breezes, incredible nightlife and lots of gay people.
As one tourism Web site describes P-town, "Gay life is everywhere.''
My wife and I started coming here because our friends invited us. Usually, there are seven of us in various salt box shingled vacation houses: My wife and me, two gay couples -- Carlos and Michael, John and his partner -- and Joyce, a straight woman whose brother is gay.
This year our group was joined by Jane, our friend from Chicago.
Our gay friends -- for the most part strait-laced, middle-aged Ivy Leaguers and Manhattanites -- come to P-town because it is one of the few places in the country they feel completely free to be themselves without fear of consequences.
Visiting gay bashers would be badly outnumbered -- and out-muscled by the looks of some of the guys strolling down Commercial Street, P-town's main drag. No pun intended.
When Carlos is in P-town, he says, he doesn't have to edit his behavior. He can reach across the table in a restaurant and touch his partner's hand without having to pretend they're fighting over the check.
"Michael and I never hold hands anywhere else,'' he says.
That stopped me short. If my wife and I want to hold hands, we don't think twice about it. We've been married seven years. Carlos and Michael have been together for more than 15. But if they want to feel safe holding hands or any other innocent display of public affection, they have to drive six hours from their home in New York and go to P-town.
"Any population that has to go somewhere to feel free isn't free,'' Jane said. "In a way, this is like Brigadoon: We will leave and it will be like it never existed."
That's true. Even so, the gay and lesbian rights movement has made tremendous progress over the last 40 years.
But there is still a long way to go, and that is one reason our friend John keeps returning to P-town.
"Being here is like taking a big deep breath,'' John says. "Everywhere you look, there are gay people. When I'm here I get this rare feeling of being in the majority.''
As a black man, I recall having that same feeling of inclusion and belonging 14 years ago. It was during the Million Man March.
It felt good. But it felt fleeting. It, too, was like Brigadoon.
"We've manufactured a gay Mayberry here,'' an actor named Douglas said at a dinner party. "But it's a false sense of security. It doesn't represent society at large. Tomorrow we have to go home.''
But when we unpack, we will all be carrying a piece of P-town with us.
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