If you find the stories of co-dependent, emotionally overwhelmed single women amusing, then you would’ve loved the one-night-only spectacular showcase of fruit flies that was the first annual Miss Fag Hag Pageant at Comix on Sunday night.

The performances included everything from an “evening wear” competition (Miss Soho “put the Ho in Soho” in an electric blue mini and stilettos) to a talent competition (Miss Jackson Heights jiggled her pasties for the crowd) to lightning-round interviews. In that last one, none of the contestants could  name all of Madonna’s records.  

That isn’t to say the show wasn’t entertaining. A tardy Caroline Rhea arrived looking distracted only to shun this reporter at the end of the night before sneaking out to “get her coat.”  

Downtown drag mamma extraordinaire Hedda Lettuce plugged her bid for RuPaul’s Drag Race, and comedienne and guest judge Katina Corrao provided much of the night’s humor. What makes a good fag hag, we asked. “You gotta have that extra spunk,” Corrao confessed, “And giggle a lot.”

Downstairs, contestants and their gay sponsors primped and prepped with the kind of sparkle reserved for the Tony’s—including one gay wearing white briefs with red streamers hanging out of his ass. His “hag” was wearing tampons as barrettes.

“This is why I don’t have a faghag,” said one judge, but it was Rhea, lovely in a pink jersey wrap dress and with a highball glass in hand, who said it best: “Behind every gay man there’s usually another gay man. But behind him, there’s a girl screaming, ‘Does this make me look fat?’”