I went on a date this evening. An utterly unexpected date, for which I had to be cajoled to go. I made the person I was going to meet think that I was this completely horrible person who judges people solely on the basis of their online picture profiles... which is not completely untrue, but then...!
And I actually had a great time. The person in question, whom I shall call GA because of his black Giorgio Armani tshirt, was funny, intelligent and quite attractive. We had the most mundane date ever - burgers at MacD's and then he smoked outside Barista's - but then, this wasn't really supposed to be a date in the first place. We just planned to 'meet up' - because, in spite of me acting like a first rate bitch online, GA came to my side of town all the way from the suburbs, even though he had to get back to Juhu by 10 pm for a night out with his pals. I was flattered, if nothing else. And that 'nothing else' quickly became a lot of 'elses' when, getting inside the cab that was to take him back to Juhu, GA leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. I stood there, quite stunned to respond, because for all I knew, a million and a half people on the street had seen that brief kiss. Whoa!
Of course, on the way back home, I've promised myself that I'm not going to make mountains out of molehills. I'm not going to imagine a big and bright future with GA after just one great date. That's the easiest way to go downhill from here. I'm going to say to myself, Well, CT, that was a great date, and it remains to be seen what else is there to follow... but that's it. Nothing more.
But that's the crux. That's the crux. Sometimes... things happen. Things happen when you least expect them to. Nice things. The other night, I was having a conversation with a friend who lives across the border, and he was in a deep funk over another conversation he'd had earlier with a common friend. My across-the-border friend, ATB, recently moved out to his own place, and since he hates eating alone, he has this very real psychological problem facing him at mealtimes... and then the mutual friend screws it further by telling him: Hullo! You're gay, so chances are that you'll never find anyone to share the rest of your life with, so you better get used to eating meals alone! Wowch. That hurts.
But that's a truth most gay men have actually taught themselves to deal with. We may not force ourselves to face that truth every day, but we have our own way of dealing with that. Gay men have an excellent friend support system. Gay men are extreme optimists. We party. Hard. And then harder. Yet sometimes, the chink in the armour shows, as it did with ATB, and then you wonder: FCUK! How am I going to end up?!
I don't have an answer to that. I really don't. I didn't have one for ATB the other night when we were chatting, other than to tell him, that that kind of shit might even face him if he were straight. Who you end up with depends on the kind of person you are, and your luck in finding that person, and not so much on your sexual orientation. That's the eternal optimist in me talking. In the meantime, you depend on your friends, knowing that the really genuine ones will not desert you in your hour of need, no matter what familial commitments they may have.
And then of course, there are those little incidents, like an ordinary coffee meeting turning into a very delightful first date, that reinforce the optimism in you...
That reinforce the optimism in me. ;-)
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