There’s an old saying: If you want something done, ask a busy person.
As someone who majored in psychology and minored in economics and general-management studies at the College of Arts and Sciences in Syracuse, Brian Rodin would surely fit that bill. Rodin graduated summa cum laude with a GPA of 3.85 and was on the dean’s list seven consecutive times before joining the business world. In addition to volunteering for the Delaware Valley legacy Fund, he currently works as a research manager and is one of the founders of the popular Qventures group.
PGN: Like me, you grew up in the suburbs. What was the best and worst part of suburban life? BR: Looking back, I’d say the worst part was not being exposed enough to the city and all that it offers. I went to Radnor High, which is not terribly diverse, and then attended Syracuse University, which was also in a suburban bubble, so I never really even knew anything about Philadelphia. I prejudged it before knowing anything about it. Now I absolutely love being a city boy. The best part was having a really nice place to raise a family. Suburban life really instilled a lot of my long-term goals of wanting to eventually settle down there and raise a family. There were a lot of opportunities to play outside and see green and grass. I do miss that part.
PGN: It’s so funny you mentioned not being exposed to the city. I’m from Radnor too and I was just having a conversation last week about the fact that I used to go into Philly almost every weekend to go to museums, see shows and go to parties. On Monday, kids at Radnor were aghast. They’d come up to me, “Oh my God, you were in Philadelphia, weren’t you scared? I’ve never gone, it’s too terrifying!” BR: [Laughs.] When I first moved into Philadelphia, I moved into the Rittenhouse Square area and it was like I was moving to a foreign land. I mean as a kid we occasionally came into Philadelphia to go to Chinatown for dinner, but that was it. My nights in suburbia consisted of movies at my friends’ houses. It was all I knew and I loved it, but I would never have considered going into the city and exploring what was there. I guess I was too afraid and didn’t know any better. But after two months here, I found out how much I loved it.
PGN: [Laughs.] Yeah, I’d come in to theater class with our teacher, Brian Morgan, and talk about some play I’d seen in town and people were shocked to see I’d made it back alive from the big city. BR: Wait, you knew Brian Morgan? I’ve heard so many stories about him. His wife, Mary Anne, took over after he died. I was in a lot of plays in high school and she got very close to everyone in our theater class. I’ve been to her house many times. Everyone says he was an amazing guy.
PGN: Yeah, Brian was pretty amazing but always on the brink of being fired for something controversial. We had a really strong group of people in Radnor Actors Workshop at the time, and we did plays by Gore Vidal, and even Lillian Helman’s “The Children’s Hour,” which was about a teacher who is accused by one of her students of having an affair with another teacher. The student is mad because she was punished by the teacher and makes up the story, but it turns out the teacher really was gay and in love with the other teacher. All hell breaks loose and the play ends with her hanging herself. Not exactly the kind of play most 10th-graders usually do for the spring program, especially back over 20 years ago, but Brian was fearless. BR: Wow, who was in the class?
PGN: A lot of us who went on in the arts: comedian Jim Daly, actor Barbara Geary, David-Michael Kenny, my last boyfriend Tom Wilson, who played Biff in all of the “Back to the Future” movies, of course, director-producer Lee Daniels and me. I co-hosted and was one of the producers on the “Bozo the Clown” show. But back to you! Tell me more about the family? BR: [Laughs.] Okay. I’m 25, turning 26 this week. I’m originally from Broomall, so that’s where I spent my early formative years, but I moved to the Radnor area in second grade. I went to Ithan Elementary, Radnor Middle School and Radnor High. I have an older sister. We’re close now but we didn’t have much of a relationship until my parents separated during my senior year of college. But growing up was nice. I was close to my parents. My dad owned his own small real-estate appraisal and property-management firm and my mom was an HR director of leadership development at GlaxoSmithKline.
PGN: What cliques were you a part of in school? BR: Definitely the theater clique; I did theater all four years. We weren’t the most rowdy group and, compared to my sister, I was definitely the good kid. But I had a great time and loved my high-school experience.
PGN: What was a favorite role? BR: Well, I guess this was a foretelling of my later sexual orientation because my favorite roll was from Molière’s “The Learned Lady.” I played Trissotin, who is described as a “foppish wit” and, looking back, I played him as a pretty flamboyant gay guy. [Laughs.] Everyone said it was the best acting I’d ever done and that I was extremely believable! Mary Anne actually had to tell me to tone it down a little. PGN: We got to do some traveling with RAW. Tom Wilson and I even won a dance contest in a nightclub in Paris on a theater trip and won a bottle of champagne — even though I was only 16. Did you have any cool adventures? BR: No! The arts are so under siege we had to struggle just to stay alive. The arts aren’t valued nearly as much as the sports. For my entire four years, everything was about getting funding and trying to figure out what plays to do, weighing artistry versus making money with something more commercial. Mary Anne talked a lot about having to consolidate her classes more and more each year. She was hired as a theater teacher, and that was her passion and interest, but they made her teach English as well. So we were just barely hanging on, never mind getting to do anything like that.
PGN: What would we find in your high-school locker? BR: Ha! I don’t know. I was pretty OCD back then so I was pretty neat. My locker was clean and proper, everything lined up and no extra paraphernalia.
PGN: How old were you when you came out? BR: I was 21. I did the whole, I think I’m kind of, sort of bisexual route, but I wear my heart on my sleeve so when I did realize what was going on with me, I didn’t keep it a secret. I was in a fraternity and in our senior year, one of my really close friends in the fraternity came out to me and in a sort of Freudian association, the first thing that came to my mind was, Hmmn, I think he’s going to be the first person I tell, and then I told him and then my roommates. I had a really serious girlfriend at the time so I grappled with that for a few months before telling her, and then after we broke up I told my parents. The whole time I wasn’t fully sure myself but after the last girl I hooked up with the winter of my senior year, I flipped sides fully and haven’t looked back.
PGN: Speaking of flipping, I understand it’s one of your favorite things to do? BR: [Laughs.] Where did you hear that? Yes, it is true. I used to do gymnastics and during my fraternity years, if I’d had a little too much to drink at parties, I’d entertain and impress people by doing back flips.
PGN: Did you have to pledge to get into the fraternity, and what was the worst part? BR: We didn’t do any physical hazing, though there was a lot of sleep deprivation trying to pledge and get schoolwork done and trying to attend classes. By the end, I was so sleep-deprived I was like a zombie. I have no idea how I managed it.
PGN: What were you doing if not sleeping? BR: They wanted us to build a brotherhood so we had to be with each other all the time, doing exercises and things I can’t really talk about to non-members. The school has cracked down since, not allowing frats to keep pledges up until all hours of the morning before they have to attend classes. But I pledged before the crackdown so there were nights where we were out until 3 a.m., and then I’d have to study for three-four hours and then go to class.
PGN: I read that your fraternity, Phi Kappa Phi, was a Jewish fraternity that “served as a brotherhood of young men who came from similar religious backgrounds and who had experienced the same prejudices against their religious beliefs.” Have you experienced much anti-Semitism? BR: Not really. I mean, I was definitely a minority at Radnor but I never felt or heard anything negative. A lot of my friends were Jewish and Lower Merion is right next door, which is Jew-central. I think the main reason I joined Phi Kappa Phi is because we had a reputation for being very much not like a typical frat. We were the nice Jewish boys on campus. And frankly, in high school, most of my friends were girls, though I didn’t have any girlfriends. I never hung out with boys so when I got to college, it was great to be accepted by a big group of guys. I think it was one of the reasons I didn’t come out earlier, but to my surprise when I did come out, everyone in my fraternity was extremely supportive and I still have friends from that group.
PGN: What made you become a psychology major? BR: I love understanding things, getting to the root of stuff and analyzing it. When I was in 10th grade, one of my friends was struggling with a lot of issues, eating disorders, etc. I talked her through a lot and she really improved. It felt good and made me want to be a therapist. I’ve since altered the kind of behavior I analyze but the passion for understanding people is still there in what I do now. I also liked business and numbers so it’s a nice merge of both. I work in market research so basically if you have customers that you don’t call customers, we help you with your client relations. So if you are a hotel and you have guests or if you’re a sports team and you have fans, or if you’re an organization and you have members, we do surveys and focus groups to help you measure customer satisfaction and/or what they think of your brand or product. A casino may want to find out why they’re losing their gamblers or, say, a classic car association wants to know why members are dropping out. It’s my job to do the research to find out why.
PGN: So in college you did get to go abroad. What was that like? BR: Yes, I got to study abroad in Spain for four months and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I lived in Madrid but took the opportunity to travel to seven or eight other cities — Barcelona, etc. My host mom was extraordinary. She took care of me when I was sick, made me little sandwiches to take with me when I traveled. I learned so much from her. It was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
PGN: What was the craziest adventure? BR: I’m not a big party person, but in Madrid, there’s a saying that for a good night you take the last metro into the city and the first metro in the morning to go home. So living that club life, dancing until 6 in the morning and then going out for frozen chocolate before going home to take a nap as my host mother got up for work was crazy and fun.
PGN: And speaking of adventures, tell me about Qventures. BR: It was founded by me and two friends, Steve McCann, who runs Philly Gay Calendar, and Zach Mosley. I’d been working for Living Social Adventures, where we take people for fun outings like paint balling followed by a pub party. It was a fun side job and one of my friends who wanted to find a way to meet other people and do other things besides going to the bars contacted me about starting Qventures. It’s really taken off. We were originally struggling to get people to the events and now we have to put a cap on it.
PGN: What are some of your favorite Qventures so far? BR: Well, my favorite was rock-climbing because I met my boyfriend there! We climbed at Go Vertical and then went to Yards brewery for a tour. The tour guide was the most awkward guy ever and we started doing a drinking game for each time the guide said something off-kilter. We started flirting with each other and we went on our first date soon after. At Qventures, we’ve gone skiing, done wine tastings at local vineyards, gone on museum trips and been ice skating. Last month we went to The Flower Show and tomorrow we’re going glass-blowing. I’m really excited about that; it’s something on my bucket list that I’ve always wanted to try. We try to do the gamut, from things that are more adventurous and physical to things that are more social and relaxed.
PGN: You need more women, though! BR: I know, we’re having a meeting next week and we plan to address it. QV was started by three gay guys and the first people to join were our friends. There’s a misconception that we are boys-only but that’s not the case at all. We want an extremely LGBT-inclusive organization but people see pictures from our events that are mostly attended by men and it perpetuates that idea that we are men-only.
PGN: Let’s do some random questions. Best and worst smells? BR: Worst, something called sthaz, and all I’ll say is it has to do with pledging. My favorite smell is garlic mashed potatoes.
PGN: What show do you DVR the most? BR: I don’t have a DVR but I watch a lot of HBO. “True Blood,” “Girls,” “Game of Thrones,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Once Upon a Time” are really fun. I loved “24” and “American Horror Story,” “Archer.” I’m really excited that “Arrested Development” is coming back on Netflix.
PGN: Favorite line from a movie? BR: That’s so hard! “We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about.” That’s from one of my favorite movies, “Best in Show.”
PGN: Which of Snow White’s seven dwarves would you be? BR: I’d say if Happy and Grumpy had a kid, that would be me.
PGN: If you were on the cover of a magazine, which one would it be and why? BR: Forbes. I’d like to be the poster boy for a successful gay man.
For more information about Qventures, visit www.facebook.com/qventures.
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