Coming, Part IV - Stimulation

“Wait, what?” I stopped. At my office desk, in front of my computer, my work came to a halt. I pressed my head into my open palm; I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Chu, the guy who had flirted his way into a month’s worth of online conversations before meeting up and then inadvertently hooking up—he was now coming clean that he was not gay at all?

“I think that, before we started making out, before we went into your bedroom… do you remember when we were talking?”

I struggled to keep my patience. “Yes…”

“Well, I remember you brought up a lot of things that were of concern to you.”

I flashed back to the moments before our hookup. We were in my living room, talking across from each other, building tension through body language, eye contact, and the space between us. Somehow, we began talking about the idea of moving too fast, and I brought up a few scenarios that my overly-analytical mind warned me to be cautious against: What if he just needed a homosexual outlet from his chaste Arkansan seclusion? What if he wasn’t really attracted and just needed an easy way to get off for the summer that we’d be working near each other? At the time, though those questions surfaced, he assured me that—despite the nonsensical part about knowing each other for just about a month and having met for just a few hours—he actually did like me, especially after finding out that I was a pretty decent guy not just online, but also in real life. And that’s when we started making out.

“Yes, I remember…”

“When well you asked if I was using you as an outlet because I had none in Arkansas, it got me to thinking...”

Had I opened my stupid mouth again?.

“…and I think that I’m not using you as an outlet in place of my Arkansas experience; I think I’m using you as an outlet because I have a hard time with women.”

I remained silent, waiting for him to explain. He didn’t. I prompted him for more.

“Well,” he continued, “when I was in seventh grade…”

MAJOR PAUSE. When you were in seventh grade? You’ve been thinking about this since you’ve been in the seventh grade, you’ve roped me into this years later, and now you’re saying you’re straight? UNPAUSE.

“…I started getting really shy around girls. I’d be friends with them, but I wanted to be more with them. But my self-esteem was awful—it still is. I couldn’t approach them in the way that the other guys could. I liked them, but I was so worried about what they’d think and how I looked and how I behaved that I couldn’t get myself to act on my attraction. So I think that’s when I turned to guys. I began looking at the other guys and how well the girls reacted to them. I began to get jealous, admiring the other guys for the things they could be and the things they could do and eventually the things they could get that I couldn’t. And so I began looking at them as reflections of who I wanted to be. My self-esteem issues kept me away from the girls and deflected me to the guys.”

I tried processing what he said, which was tough given that he had just shattered the only potential for actual dating that I had had in almost half a year—if not more. “Okay…”

“So,” he pressed on, “I think that reaction has been embedded so much within me that I’ve just gotten scared of approaching girls. And so I go with the next best thing—which is—well, guys…”

I didn’t know how to react. On one hand, he was obviously aroused when we were making out on Friday night. How do you fake that as a straight man? Random, accidental friction could not have been enough to bring about that strong of a reaction. And on top of that, how do you pull me along on a string for a month and go as far as hooking up when you have all of these doubts in your mind? In conversation, he even asked a mutual friend about what kinds of things he could say or do to impress me—that type of pre-meditated flirting is not at all indicative of doubt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to bring you into this. I just obviously don’t have this completely sorted out for myself.”

“It’s okay,” I forced myself to say. It obviously was not completely okay as much as it just had to be okay. “It’s just… you know… it’s just a lot to think about.”

“Yeah.”

My gut feeling was not to believe him. No, I thought, this had to be some deep-rooted psychological reply steeped in heterosexism; at the same time, who was I to impose my own theories on his own obviously confusing sexual journey? I was in no place to tell him he was wrong or not; if anything, I could throw him into much more of a maelstrom than he perhaps needed at the moment.

But I wasn’t done. I couldn’t be. So I had to throw a litmus test at him.

“Can I ask you a really blunt question?”

“Yes, please,” he said, wanting to make sure he entertained what I had to say so that he could feel better about throwing this on me.

“Well, if we are to understand sexuality as heterosexuality, homosexuality, and other sexualities—we have to talk about sex. And if we’re talking about sex, Chu, then—can I ask what turns you on?”

“What turns me on?”

“Yeah: dick, vagina, what…?”

“Do you want to know the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“Boobs and ass.”

I took that in. It wasn’t what I expected until he asked if I wanted to know the truth. “Okay, well, so what’s gotten you off with guys since the seventh grade?”

“Well, when I’m with guys, I enjoy the stimulation. But I don’t like stimulating. It doesn’t turn me on.”

“Okay,” I acknowledged. I didn’t want to question him further. I had to accept this, maybe because I could empathize: maybe if I were blindfolded and a girl was providing adequate stimulation, then maybe… maybe it’d work. Maybe the self-esteem is such a huge issue for him—as it has been for me—that it’s had this huge of an impact on dictating his actions and interactions with the world. Maybe, when I boiled the types of people in the world down to the sex they were having and enjoying, maybe he was best defined by his feelings and thoughts rather than his actions.

But maybe he’s just overanalyzing himself. Maybe he’s just digging himself into a bigger hole by rationalizing his apparently deviant actions. He was telling himself that this wasn’t like him, and who else could tell him who he was aside from himself? Not me.

The problem is that I understand it all. I see both sides. The only thing I don’t get though: the making out—the scratching of scruff, the redness that remains only after male or male tongue twisting. How did you come to enjoy that stimulation, Chu? Doesn’t that count as stimulation? Stimulation that I doubt replicates the guy-girl experience whether you close your eyes or not? How did you rationalize that one?

The next day, Chu changed his all-important Facebook interest from undefined to very definitely, “Interested in Women.” And I—hundreds of miles way—still could only wonder, “What if?”

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Coming, Part III

That first night together ended up being our last. As quickly as Chu’s interest in me had materialized, it had disappeared—and not for reasons that I’d have ever imagined.

There were never any clues that anything was wrong—or maybe wrong is too judgmental of a word. There were never any clues that anything was not right. His passion seemed clear and true. The evening we met, we made out on my couch and moved to my bed; there were no doubts about it: I observed physical proof that he was—well—moved. He had worked hard for this, had been forward with expressing his interest and flirtatiousness for more than a month prior to the evening we locked lips. Finally, at our serendipitous meeting, he was getting what he wanted—and I, well, I was reaping the benefits: a Friday night frolic for my sheets, the attention of a guy who seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, enough sparks to hint that butterflies could’ve been waiting at the end of this moment.

I don’t know how long we were there or how long it took me to come to my wits. After his scruff brushed against my clean shave and our hands began to wrinkle our clothes, he positioned himself atop me, both of us still decently dressed, but with our minds wandering elsewhere. I hadn’t found this in months; a resident of rural Arkansas, he hadn’t found this in longer: the sought-after temptation of lingering fingers and tongues, lost to reason, surrendered to “Why not?” It would be easy to keep going, to feel good, to make him to feel good, to light the easy lust of here and now…

That’s when I did the unthinkable: I said stop.

Wary of moving too quickly and the potential of the moment to be a simple vent for the unsexed, I drew back. I opened my mouth and let my rationality dribble with hesitation and righteousness: I liked the promise of this situation too much to let it explode on the night it first began. We had to slow down. We had to stop.

I thought about the excuses that he’d use to retort: A fear of risk. Prudishness. Blue balls.

Instead, he reciprocated perfectly with an equally reasoned, “You’re right.” We brushed our wrinkles off our clothes. I drove him back to his hotel and let our respective Jiminy Crickets cut our night short… but not without a final kiss goodnight.

The next day, like any evolving crush, he texted. He called. We talked on the phone for an hour. By Saturday night, I was convinced: the butterflies were coming. Although he was boarding a flight back to Arkansas the next day, I knew he’d be back in two weeks for another conference. This was not over yet.

At work on Monday, I was completely distracted. The possibility of something fun, flirty, and maybe even meaningful on the horizon was one that I couldn’t shake off. In the middle of the day, I decided I’d take a page from his playbook and email him something completely raw, honest, and forward, a simple line to echo the sentiments I perceived from him during the weekend: Hey Chu, Can’t stop thinking about you. Give me a call back and let’s plan a date for your next visit. I figured this was something he’d appreciate. He had been transparent over and over again; it was my time to try his strategy. Maybe my walls of shyness and safety had been wrong all along.

4:30pm. Cell phone rings. Caller ID: Chu.

I pick up. My voice: careful to be nonchalant.

Me: Hey.
Chu: Hey, how’s it going?
-Good, just here at work, still—working.
-Yeah, I’ve had a long day too. I got back in late last night and still made it to work today. Sorry I didn’t call you last night like I had said I would.
-It’s okay.
-I just got in too late and didn’t want to wake you up.
-I was up, but I understand: you’re still recovering from that big conference. You need your sleep.
-Yeah.
-But hey, you’re calling now, so it’s all good. Oh, and hey, I sent an email a few hours ago.
-Yeah, I saw—
-Did you read it?
-Yeah, and that’s why I wanted to call you.
-Uh oh.
-Don’t give me that uh oh.
-Well you sound like you’re about to say something important.
-Well…
-Just say it.
-Well, okay. I thought about everything we talked about on Friday night and on the phone on Saturday. And I had a lot of fun hanging out and talking with you. I think you’re a great person, and I really look up to you with everything you’re doing your life…
-Mmhmm…
-But, um, I think that when we decided to slow down—
-Yeah?
---that was the right decision.
-Oh?
-Yeah. I’ve been thinking about what you said—about making sure I don’t do this because I don’t have anyone here in Arkansas…
-Yeah?
-…and, I think you were sort of right.
-What do you mean?
-Well, I think—that—I’m not quite sure—that—I think—I’m more – into women. And… it’s complicated. I’m sorry.

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Coming, Part II

A half hour from midnight, I peered into the back seat of my Toyota Camry and thought that if anything could be more of a turn-off to a hyper-organized, almost-OCD workaholic like Chu, it’d be this: a portable dump of file folders, broken backpacks, old Playbills and magazines (with the occasional scattering of uncapped pens and—more dangerously—markers). I could not let that be my first impression. I scrammed into my bedroom and stole a sheet to cover the whole thing up.

Ten minutes later, I pulled alongside our local Holiday Inn and called him down. In the next minute of waiting time, I set the scene I wanted him to see: I looked away—out my window—instead of waiting to see him at my passenger side door (so that I didn’t look too eager); I programmed my iPod to a playlist of a mellow Sufjan Stevens selection (his Facebook page claimed he was a fan); and I checked my back seat one more time for anything that remotely gave away my messiness (just in case the sheet shifted). All was ready.

As I was looking in the other direction, he arrived at my passenger door. I acted sufficiently surprised that he was there. I unlocked the door, he sat down, and we pulled away from the hotel..

On his part: Small talk. Hesitant eye contact. Nervous laughter. At the time, I didn’t know whether to attribute the awkwardness to him, to me, or to the overall furtive aura of our rendezvous; it even could’ve been the reasonable shakiness of a first live date from an online friend. Heck, the probable truth was that this was a case involving all of the above. All I knew, as I searched for a place to get midnight ice cream, was that we needed to get out of the car, get something to eat, and shake the shakiness off. ASAP.

And then we got caught by a train at a railroad crossing. Stuck in my car. For a good—oh—ten minutes.

And in those ten minutes, he spilled.

“So… is this a date?”

I froze. What was I supposed to say? I laughed out loud, while my mind screamed, “WHO SAYS THAT?!”

I continued with my shrugging, and he continued: Over the past month and a half of conversations, he found himself getting more and more attracted to me. He clearly had been thinking about it: he knew he’d be working in my area this summer; our professional goals were very much aligned; and the conversations we had in the past—although they were online—flowed quick-wittedly. It was a good match to at least explore. His intentions for this random late night ice cream trip: to gauge whether or not the chemistry he perceived online carried over into reality.

With this out of the way, the balloon of tension and unease deflated. His bout of transparency pointed out what should’ve been obvious: our earlier awkwardness was because we had never acknowledged an attraction between us. The lack of definition in whatever it was we were doing—talking online without direction, then meeting up in real life without explicit purpose—left us to inferences. Yes, it was fun to flirt on the internet without relenting to pressure or worrying about risk, but when our LOLs became audible, when there were physical consequences that couldn’t be clicked away, the need for honesty became not only necessary, but also palpable. His confession—as abrupt and forward as it was—was what we needed to get anywhere.

The railroad crossing gate lifted, and with some of the weight removed from the whys of our late night meeting, we had a more comfortable ride to my nearest 24-hour Starbucks (decidedly the closest thing to ice cream). There, I neatly evaded answering his earlier question of whether or not this was a date, deflecting discussion instead to my newly-acquired knowledge of his interest. His willingness to be open opened the door to my own: How long have you been thinking about this? What experience do you have meeting relative strangers on the internet? How do I know you just need an outlet for your homosexuality—something you clearly don’t have in rural Arkansas?


After our drinks were ready, we couldn’t find a seat at Starbucks, so we brought our conversation to the next most convenient place: my apartment. And there, on a loveseat across a table from me, he returned to his question: “Is this a date?”

“Well… I paid for you drink.” As much as I had learned about the evil of forcing inferences, I couldn’t help—out of nervousness or fear or lack of clarity of thought—but be indirect.

He probed further. He was very clear about being interested in me, but what did I think about him?

And I had to admit: I enjoyed this—the back and forth banter, the surreptitiousness of whatever it was we were doing, the interest of someone who actually was pretty much on the same page as me as far as work ethic and goals.

There was a smile of satisfaction.

“So… would I be crossing the line if I kissed you?”

As I did earlier, I laughed and shrugged. But this time, I was able to utter out a small, secretly-confident, “No.”

And as he came over to my couch, I thought about the junk in my car, our awkwardness at the railroad tracks, and the Java Chip Frappucino in my breath. And when he leaned closer, it made sense that I didn’t need to make sense of any of those things at all. He wanted me. He wanted the me that he got to know and not the circumstances surrounding it all.

A half hour after midnight, within hours of meeting Chu for the first time, there it was—our first kiss.

To be continued…

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Coming, Part I

On paper, Chu seems to be a good catch. Formerly a fraternity president at a large city university, he decided to move to the Deep South post-graduation in order to work with children in some of the poorest towns in America. His coming out story is the stuff of movies: he came out just before he was elected as the leader of his brotherhood, subsequently inspiring eight other brothers to also step forward more openly with their sexuality. Blurring lines between being stereotypically gay and being a stereotypical frat boy, he’s been catching up on college ball while accompanied by a cat he owns, loves, and spoils with its own room in his house. According to those who’ve worked with him, he is organizationally crazy; he’s so on top of things that—and this is no exaggeration—he’s about a year and a half ahead of where he should be as far as work he’s accomplished. He’s close with his family, has ambitions to rule the world (or at least pursue graduate work at Harvard), and seems also, from what I hear, to be the life of the party at social events.

So when someone with such a strong personal resume enters your life in the most random and unexpected of ways, it’s a little jolting.

The first time we met was actually more than a month after we first spoke. Or really—in our case—instant messaged. In February, he found me on The Facebook, his excuse being that I worked last year for a non-profit’s summer venture, and he was in the final interview stages with the same program. He said he wanted an insider’s guide on the job I had, as my profile made it clear that I had moved upward in the organization. I was more than willing to help someone who was proactive enough to reach out.

It turns out, however, that he was interested in a little more than my job.

Our online conversation about my non-profit organization turned into a month of chatting back and forth—good conversations that provided a much-needed diversion to long, stressful days in the office, punctuated by friendly cracks and jibes that could’ve been construed as coy had I the knowledge that he was gay. It wasn’t until three weeks into our G-chat dialogues that the all-too definitive g-word surfaced in conversation, and I was able to put two and two together and realize that maybe he was flirting with me. Which, in my current drought of male-to-male gay relations, I didn’t mind.

Just as I realized he was coming on, I found out that he was coming to my city for a conference.

And so, intrigued by this work-turned-online friend-turned- flirt, I decided to give him a try. After all, we had talked for a month—hadn’t it been past time to put a face and voice to the screenname?

Unfortunately, by the time the weekend of his visit arrived, we had forgotten the most important key to actually meeting up—an exchange of our phone numbers. Oops. The meet-up did not seem to be in the cards.

On the weekend of his arrival, my friend Jen gave me a call after my Friday happy hour routine and said that a dinner event she had been organizing wasn’t going so well—only 2/5 participants had shown up to the restaurant on time. She thought she’d invite me to fill in the gaps and inject some additional conversation to the meal—and because I could get there in a jiffy; the restaurant was five minutes away. I thought: eh, why not? I enjoy meeting new people anyway. I asked if I knew either of the two folks, and she replied that I probably didn’t—a girl named Beth from Hawaii and a guy named Chu from Arkansas…

Now, if his name had been Joe or Jeff or Matt or Chris, then I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But Chu? Really? The cards were such a tease. A meet-up was apparently going to happen, whether we had set it up or not.

Despite the fact that this was anything but a first date, I somehow felt this first impression to be important. I decided to change into first date-appropriate clothes—casual, but flattering. A splash of cologne. Carefully molded hair. Ready to go.

I arrived at the dinner event and immediately found Jen, and with her, Beth and Chu. The problem of how to first greet someone you’ve been talking to for a while—the awkward handshake or hug dilemma—solved itself, as the group was busy digging its fingers into a bucket of crawfish. Over the course of dinner (and for me, two Shiner Bocks), I learned about Chu in a different way: by seeing him interact in a group setting. He’s a storyteller. The type that throws out humor and drama that either flies or fails. He’s friendly, social, and—despite being in a group setting—managed to pay some extra attention to me, referencing previous conversations we had had. Though this may have alienated the rest of the party for a few moments, for me, it showed me that he was attentive—a listener.

At the end of dinner, Jen had to take Beth and Chu back to their hotel, and closure took the form of “see you all later”; as it turns out, all of us—myself included—would be attending another conference in two weeks. Part of me wished Chu and I had one-on-one time, but I figure that the chance meeting Jen arranged was more interaction than we would’ve gotten otherwise.

Five minutes later, I turned on my computer and checked Gmail. Within a minute, a GChat beep: Chu. We talked for a bit, and though it was 11:30pm, he asked if I wanted to get some ice cream. And underneath that request, the subtext: You. Me. Midnight.

I decided to take him up on his offer.

To be continued….

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On The Move

In October, I began to think about moving. As an organizational nerd, I formally brainstormed the pros and cons of the possibility on a Microsoft Word document, weighing factors like job satisfaction and professional development, cost of living and contact with friends and family. Among these attributes, I listed under pros: “perhaps better dating scene elsewhere.” I sent the list to some of my closest friends here in Texas and asked them for additions, revisions, and feedback.

After analyzing my list, one of my friends replied: Your personal life is something severely lacking, apparently, and you seem to really want to find someone to date.

No shit.

And so, when I applied for jobs, graduate programs, and other transfer opportunities in the following months, I looked at the potential to not only move forward professionally, but also, with the extra fuel (read: slap in the face) from my friend’s reply, move forward personally.

In February, gold: I heard about a new offer. Although I’m still in the process of making an official decision, it looks like when my contract with my current employer is up in July, I’ll be packing my bags, selling my current IKEA furniture, and leaving the Texas heat for the breezy liberal bastion of the San Francisco Bay Area, a new five-year opportunity to work with great leaders in my field, and, hopefully, some sort of reinvigoration to my personal life.

Indeed, my friends wonder if this move will actually revolutionize my dating life. I haven’t been a California resident in years—and never for an extended period in Northern California. Picture it: Gay men everywere. Asians everywhere. Rainbow flags and left-wingers galore. Five years in the homosexual heartland literally would mean fishing in the biggest, gayest sea on this side of the Mississippi. The larger the menu of men, the more likely I’d bite or be bitten. Think of it: The nights! The romance! The fodder for this blog!

Pause. While I’m excited about the possibilities, I really wish I were that enthused about my chances. Instead, I remain hopeful but not completely convinced that my work-centric personality will burst onto the San Fran social scene with a bang; I remain optimistic but not cemented in the idea that, within these next five years, I will meet someone with whom I, by the time I’m thirty, will be in a long-term—if not very long-term—relationship.

I worry that being in a big city means finding the reality of stereotypes. In the Bay Area, this means being engulfed by the Castro and its nightclubs, bars, and bathhouses, none of which are completely up my alley. I may not be “fabulous” enough for the hordes. I may find that the racial boundaries I’ve observed in other gayborhoods will become bolder and more delineated; I almost feel like it’d be easier to be the only minority in a small town rather than being lumped as “one of the minorities” in a huge city. It means being faceless and blurred.

I worry that I’ll be drowned among the masses. The larger overall population will mean a larger population of hotties and a larger population of non-hotties. I foresee less of a premium on being average and rather, a push toward reaching for and mimicking those at the top of the heap. Because there are, in fact, masses, it may be more important to assimilate and fit in than to actually retain individuality.

I worry that this will be exacerbated by the cost of living in the Bay Area. Imagine the standards of class: perfectly-styled hair atop a faux-tanned Adonis robed in an outfit from Rodeo Drive. I like nice things, but that level of high maintenance isn’t going to align with my tastes so well. It’s just not me.

I know, I know—I shouldn’t be doing some much analysis upfront. I haven’t even given the place a chance. And really, come on—I’m currently in Texas. If I had stopped myself from making a move to Texas simply based on my pre/mis-conceptions of the Lone Star State, I never would have realized how fun it actually is down here. My dating scene anxieties are definitely not going to stop me from going after my professional aspirations.

Yet I can’t ignore the fact that I’m from Southern California. And on each return visit to West Hollywood, it hits me how plastic and manufactured things can be—the fashion, the vernacular, the music. I’m not saying there won’t be exceptions, but if the Bay Area is anything at all like that, then I’m going to have to do some digging to find my niche. And I don’t really feel like moving for work, only to find more work on my plate.

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Online Dating: Clutch or Crutch?

My friend Michael first ventured upon online dating more than two years ago. He started with chat rooms on gay.com, and at the time, he deemed this as an acceptable way of growing a circle of potential gay friends as he moved into a new city. Despite gay.com’s reputation as an internet quick stop to hooking a lay, there was no way, he assumed, that every chatter on there was a sex fiend. In an east coast city ripe with young professionals and graduate students, he was bound to find others like him who weren’t necessarily looking for hook-ups, but instead found themselves online in search of friends, conversation, and actual, old-fashioned dating—albeit sparked through a new medium.

From what I know, it worked in spurts. Over the past two years, he’s reported a few dates—even chains of dates—all stemming from his chat room adventures. But unless he’s pushed me out of his Circle of Trust, none of the results I’ve heard from him has extended past four outings. Hook-ups? Yes. Dates that ended in sleepovers? Yes. Pursuits that looked promising until date three? Yes. But friendships or relationships of the long term variety? None of that.

And so the same went with Dlist.com, Adam 4 Adam, and even mixed-audience sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Match.com: his participation in sites aimed at both social networking and sex left him, for the most part, empty-handed. He wondered where he went wrong. After all, he put up his best pictures, carefully worded his profiles, and dutifully depicted himself with the sense of humor, intelligence, and fun that make up a generically attractive and mature gay guy. And though I may be biased as a friend of his, I think he’s a pretty good catch. And yet—nothing.

Last week, Michael decided to reverse years of habit and shut the door cold turkey on this ever-so-emerging pathway in both the gay and straight dating worlds: the internet. Dissatisfied with his lack of a substantial gay social life over the last two years, he concluded that the online dating forum was not as clutch as he initially evaluated it to be in terms of assimilating into a gay community or meeting potential mates; instead, it was a crutch that kept him tied to his computer, where he relied on hope and chance that at least some of the hundreds of people in cyberspace who came across his screen name might contact him, that at least one of those connections might indeed be the connection for which he was waiting. He resolved to erase his tracks, delete his profiles, and ditch the World Wide Web for the real world.

I feel like I’ve been there, done that, and then gone there again. Of the people I’ve dated, I’ve met about half of them online. If I compare guys that I’ve met online versus guys that I’ve met in real life, I can’t detect a pattern that would make real life guys better than internet guys, or vice versa. Each mate had his pros and cons; if there were any real differences, then it may be just this: that with the internet guys, I was able to arrive at those pros and cons of humor, intellect, and interest online; that with real life guys, I was able to arrive at the pros and cons of chemistry more. Behind a computer screen, I could message someone’s profile or screen name with relative ease, whereas the equivalent at a club would involve the risk of approaching someone and being rejected to my face. On the other hand, behind a computer screen, others could also be whomever they wanted to be—hotter than, funnier than, cooler than they may have actually been in real life.

I’ve struggled with accepting online dating. I’ve heard it described as a last resort, the final place to try your luck if real life left much to be desired—or if real life felt you left much to be desired. It connotes desperation, social awkwardness, and abnormality, and the actual act of browsing through profiles and messaging isn’t quite as irksome as having to dealing with those stigmas. To defend myself, I’ve argued that the stigma is anti-progressive: online dating, I’ve said, is not at odds with conventional flirting and dating; rather, it’s the same thing happening in a different place. Either path leads to some sort of live interaction anyway. Yet I’ve gone back and forth with giving it up—like Michael, my luck’s been rare and the implications of being an online dater are heavy. I’ve sworn it off in favor of real life endeavors, only to tip toe back into it half a year later, its conveniences and temptation creating a strong gravitational pull.

Although the traditionalist in me has said that I’ll never meet anyone if I keep “looking,” my inner opportunist has also committed to the belief that I’ll never meet anyone if I let any opportunity pass me by—whether it be cyberspace or the counter-space of a bar. If many of my personal and professional achievements have been founded upon by proactive view of my life, then why make this an exception? Inevitably, what does it hurt that I’ve spent moments of downtime scrolling through potential friends or mates? At its worst, it’s procrastinatory entertainment; at its best, it could be my lucky trigger of fate. Is it the best and fastest road to romance? I don’t think so. But is it keeping me hibernating inside my house? I don’t think so either. So when has keeping my options open and playing all my cards ever been a bad thing? Why close any door that could lead to love, no matter how unusual the journey? At the very least, it’s worth a try.

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Valentine's Day

Last year, for the first time in my life, I had a Valentine. We had begun dating just a few weeks before the Holy Day of Love, and I was excited to section off a piece of my calendar to spend that day with him—really, with anyone at all. So after a long day at work and an evening of rehearsals for a community theater production, I went to his house at 10pm, still garbed in my dress shirt and tie, and we celebrated in the most romantic way possible: by grabbing food at the Jack in the Box drive-thru window, popping in a DVD, and then going to bed. For sleep. To get up early for work. No candles, no roses, no mind-blowing love-making. And it was still something to be remembered.

I took this as a sign that my idea of courtship had evolved; I used to saturate my thoughts of love and dating in unrealistic romantic notions. In my junior year of high school, for example, I had a huge crush on a girl named Anna. She was spunky, smart, had an “in” with the popular crowd, and—the clincher—had great taste in music. That, and she came from the same ethnic background as I did; my parents immediately claimed her as my bride to be, the Filipina who liked Filipino food and had more of a Tagalog vocabulary than I did. She would keep me grounded in my culture, they thought, bring me back to my Asian roots after “straying,” as they might’ve put it, to the Latino and Black friends that largely made up my social circle.

I grew to like Anna. A lot. I had bought into the necessity of dating someone in high school after watching too many TNBC sitcoms and WB dramas. I perceived that that was what it meant to really live your high school experience. Thus, in the most innocent ways that I could have expressed, I pined for her: in my AOL Instant Messenger profile, I inserted lyrics hinting at my interest in an unnamed someone; in my journal, I wrote cheesy entries about how I’d treat her right if she were my girl; and for Christmas, I gave her the most expensive and thought-out gift I had distributed among my friends. At the time, I didn’t see the act of pining even remotely as the needy, embarrassing, and sometimes creepy signal it might represent to adults; it seemed like the appropriate response when you were enamored with someone for whom your fondness hadn’t been reciprocated. It was the physical and emotional manifestation of the butterflies you felt for someone. It was my naïve and superficial proof of being alive inside.

The culmination of my media-fed so-corny-I-want-to-barf enactments of romance: I decided that, after eight months of dropping too-subtle hints, I wanted to tell her how I felt. In my head, I aimed for the perfect moment: we would hang out afterschool, and as we walked out our classroom buildings (at sunset, of course), she’d find petals leading to a grassy hill just off-campus. And there we’d have a talk. (In retrospect, this idea of having that DTR-like situation without actually having a relationship to define seems exceedingly preposterous.)

As delusional as that sounds, that was the plan, and fortunately, I didn’t actually execute it. That vision was much too overwhelming, even for my immature adolescent self. I saw past it. Instead, I went completely in the opposite direction: cowardly, I hid behind a computer screen and screen name and told her everything online. She didn’t believe me at first, but eventually, she realized I was serious. And she broke it to me straight: an “us” wasn’t what she was looking for in our friendship. As she typed the words that broke my inexperienced heart, I did what Dawson or Slater or Topanga would do—I locked my bedroom door, fell onto my bed, boomed O-town’s “All or Nothing at all” (you’re excused if you need to vomit), and bawled.

Thank fucking goodness that I have grown up since then. My first relationships and sexual experiences have helped to de-mystify and de-romanticize the hype surrounding love. I came to understand the differences between a honeymoon period and the lazy motions of the day-to-day routine of seeing a significant other. Maturing past my stereotypes of what liking someone looked like helped me to ground and re-envision love not as fuzzy feelings stickered with hearts and arrows, but as simple and unquestionable comfort—a situation where a pairing only seems right and normal. I think this is different from being cynical about romance; indeed, I still appreciate roses and slow dances, flickering flames lighting a fancy dinner for two. The difference is that I now don’t see those signifiers as proof of chemistry; they’re more like its accessories—unnecessary but nice.

So this year, I’m making myself believe that having a Valentine on February 14^th, a day that supposedly celebrates the idea of love, is sort of like that: unnecessary, but nice. I’ve heard it said before that everyday should be Valentine’s Day. Wouldn’t it be nice, people have asked, if everyone demonstrated his or her love as expressively as he or she does on Valentine’s Day? But now I want to understand that suggestion a little bit differently: maybe we shouldn’t take that to mean that everyday should be fluffy and commercial and conventional; instead, maybe everyday—the normal, the routine, and perhaps even the boring—maybe that should be the type of love we find worthy of celebration and value. Maybe everyday already is Valentine’s Day.

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Flirting 101

In 2008, I resolve to hit the bar scene and get my flirt on. I know it’s unlikely that I will find the man of my dreams. I know it’s improbable that I will even find someone to date. But I want to prove to myself—someone whose previous best pick-up move was dancing yards away and giving the desired subject occasional glances, wishing and hoping and telepathically-directing oh-so-hard that he’d turn in my direction—that I can actually do it.

I began the year’s challenge in perhaps the most difficult of places to start: South Beach. In Miami, the club scene pulses, but it’s the men within them that make the heart twitter: Tanned, muscled arms, squeezing out of fitted designer t-shirts, worn by naturally-olive-skinned gods who sport sunglasses atop their perfectly-molded hairdos. Every romantic accent spews from all directions: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese… even Jude Law British. Walking into a Miami Beach club is like strutting onto a runway where good-looking wannabes distinguish themselves from the real models by gawking at them. For the actual hotties, this crowd is the standard. It’s perfectly normal. Everyone else is just a tourist.

I was, of course, a tourist. And as I sat in an artsy hotel restaurant, wearing my not-good-enough-anymore Banana Republic blazer and DKNY white button-down (both purchased on clearance), I attempted to polish my flirting methods with my friends.

“It’s a crowded club,” I pitched to them, “and I have to get someone’s attention. What do I do?”

My friend Ashley looked to my eyebrows. “Can you raise them?” she asked.

I raised them.

“Not as surprised-looking,” Jen, another friend, directed.

I raised my left eyebrow, slightly and quickly. I met a chorus of oohs and aahs.

Ashley continued: “Now before you do that, give me a look—down and then up my body, like you’re checking me out.”

I glanced at her down, and then up, as told.

“Too quick,” she denounced. “You look like you’re about to fight me.”

I tried it more slowly. I scanned her body more smoothly, past her neck, breasts, and abdomen, down to the zipper of her pants, where I paused before trailing my eyes back up her stomach, chest, chin—and then her eyes. I capped the advance with my previous move: the lift of my left eyebrow.

“Yes, that’s good!” they cheered.

Excited by my progress in Flirting 101, I asked them for my next steps. “So then what?” I pushed, “Do I just wait until they approach me? Do I approach them? Do I smile?”

“No,” Ashley interrupted, “Don’t smile.”

“Why not?” I had always been told that people in clubs want to see others having a good time. (Thus the attraction, I’ve been told, behind the lone clubber, breaking into his solitary groove on the dance floor. “It’s mysterious,” others are supposed to think. “How can he be having so much fun alone? I guess I should find out…”)

“It can look sketchy. It’s… it’s… not seductive.”

Seductive? In my head, I had always thought of flirting in two ways: there’s making yourself seem so interesting that the other person demands to find out more about you, and there’s oozing sexuality with every look, step, and gesture you make (so much so that you could make a man follow you out a club without even trading words). One of them makes you a whore. A lucky one, but a whore nonetheless. I wasn’t going for whore.

Indeed, why would I be trying to be anyone else but myself? Why wouldn’t my music-loving, lights-entranced, alcohol-induced ass not be smiling and having a good time at a club? I’m a generally serious person when it comes to getting work done, but who wants to dance with an office drone? If I tried looking seductive, I’d be misperceived as being downtrodden and blue. Maybe drunkenly so. I had to let my lighter side show: A smile, a sparkle in the eyes, the Cabbage Patch on the dance floor. I decided to set aside my down-up-eyebrow move for the night and be—well—me.

Being me, apparently, does not cut it on South Beach. Three hours later, inside a club near Lincoln Road, I was dancing the night away with my girls, each of whom—surprise, surprise—had already paired up with an unassuming straight foreigner who had somehow found himself at Gay Night. I, on the other hand, had paired up with an ottoman atop which I decided to stand and dance. (I’ve danced atop chairs, tables, and counters in eight states and two countries.) And while I had my drink in my hand, a smile on my face, and my groove to boot, any visual or physical contact I attempted to make seemed to fall short of whatever it is that people wanted instead. A guy looked at me and turned away. A guy looked at me and then turned to my girls. I thought that the one guy who I had the courage to speak to was straight. It turned out he wasn’t. “I’m not straight,” he uttered in the most straightforward assertion I’ve heard in a while. He gave me the down-up look—the awkward, challenging one—and continued dancing elsewhere. Oops.

So what is it? Do people really want to be seduced? Or do they want to see you having fun? Should I even think about flirting from this perspective—that is, from thinking about what others want? Or should I forego the personal manipulations and be, plainly, me? Ideally, that’d be the easy answer. In reality, I may have to play the game.

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The Pressure to Mate

Every week, I look forward to Fridays for one reason and one reason only: happy hour. It’s an opportunity to apply much-needed social lubricant, strip the stress of work away and blab about more pressing, inevitably more memorable things in life: What are we doing tonight? What should I wear? What new procrastination methods will we explore this weekend? It’s an ideal time for twenty-something bachelors like me to forget the pressures of the world and highlight their youth through inebriation, frivolous gossip, and raucous humor; it’s easy and dependable—a guaranteed way to relive the no-strings-attached days of college.

A few weeks ago, though, I looked around and realized that my routine happy hour haven was morphing into something different… and more adult. We still had our beer. We still had our appetizers. We still had the 90s rock soundtracks. But in front of me sat Nia and her boyfriend Stephen; to my right, Ada rested her head on Emil’s shoulder; and at the end of the table, Lauren held hands with her beau, Matthew. Meanwhile, I renewed my vows with a pint of Shiner Bock and a platter of fried bar food. Refreshments aside, this happy hour was not quite the bachelor’s paradise I intended.

In the last half month, I’ve accumulated a list of about nine or ten friends and acquaintances that have gotten engaged; three of my closest friends began dating someone seriously; and when I came home to visit my parents for the holidays, they were in the midst of celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. No matter how busy I’ve been or even where I’ve found myself, I haven’t been able to escape the reminders: I am unattached. And I wonder if it’s this pressure—not anything more natural or innate—that urges us to mate for reasons other than, well, mating.

In kindergarten, I remember being obsessed with Kids Incorporated on the Disney Channel. They were the cool kids that I wanted to be: singing and dancing guys who always got the singing and dancing girls. I wanted to be cool too, but I didn’t really have the training to be a singer or dancer, so I settled for the next best thing: getting girls. Although I was only five, I remember slipping Vanessa—a Filipino girl who lived two blocks down—a note during class that said, “Want to go on a date? I want to take you to Mann’s Chinese Theater.” According to my vast catalog of facts from afternoon television shows, Mann’s Chinese Theater was where only the most glamorous celebrities went to see their movies; it made sense that we kindergarteners followed suit. After all, these things were all the rage on TV: girls and movie premieres. I had to do them both.

In junior year of high school, all the cool kids had significant others. The president and vice president of our school KEY Club were both coupled, smothering their boyfriends with shoutouts in our monthly newsletters and lavish gifts for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and any other holiday for which demonstrating materialism would be a key ritual. Popular students asked each other to the winter ball; seniors invited socially-keen underclassmen to their otherwise exclusive prom events. To be privileged in high school was not necessarily to have high grades or even nice clothes; it was to have crushes and have those crushes realized into hand-holding, balloon-carrying boyfriends and girlfriends.

I had to be involved, and it was only a matter of time before coveting my classmates’ relationships transitioned into crushing on a specific girl to occupy my time and wallet. For eight months, I pined for yet another Filipino girl named Anna—feeling alive and moved and like a real high school student. So this was what it feels like, I thought, to be head over heels. I bought into the romance of the unrequited. I thrilled myself with the chase. I tasted life in the shoes of every cool teenager I saw on screens small and large. All of this—this eruption of feeling and want for a girl—this all made me seem, somehow, normal.

Eventually, I told her I liked her, and as things to tend to go for me, she just wanted to be friends. In retrospect, I’m glad nothing ever happened; at 16, I didn’t really know I was gay, and I wouldn’t have wanted to come out and make her think that she somehow was responsible for any perceived shift in my sexuality. But at the time I was devastated. With her rejection came the demise of my dream prom, the flowers and balloons I would’ve given her gladly in February, and the potential for the movie in my mind to play out in real life.

Since then, and with the added injection of critical analysis skills that comes with a college education, I’ve learned to closely scrutinize my motivations for crushing, dating, and—eventually—having sex. Because the world has so much influence on the make-up of our thoughts and actions, I’ve come to be skeptical of my own feelings: do I actually want to go on a date with this person, or do I just want the possibility that, later, his warm body might end up next to mine—because that’s what should occupy my nights as a twenty-something? Do I like this person, or do I just need someone other than my platonic friends with whom to spend my time? Do I have feelings for this guy, or do I just want to verify the fact that I can deeply feel?

As 2007 gives way to 2008, I know that a few things will rise with the number of the year. With every new happy hour that passes, I know that I will increase the number of friends who will be in serious relationships. I will lengthen my list of people engaged or already married, and I will receive more pressure from family and friends to join that particularly privileged list. I will see more romantic comedies telling me what my life as a young professional should look like, more one-hour dramedies to demonstrate what sex in the city should feel like, will live through more holidays meant for spending time with someone I don’t have. And as much as I can challenge these forces and their impact on that which I truly intend and feel, I can’t help but notice that at the next happy hour, more and more of the people I surround myself with will have succumbed to acting their age—that is, to being with someone else. In real time, not in the world of film and TV, my happy hour partners in crime will dwindle, making way for the next generation of college grads to transform from bachelors and bachelorettes to boyfriends, girlfriends, and fiancés. Normal or not, then, I will be left behind if I don’t catch up to where I am expected to be.

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The Complete Package

Is romance a lie if you have to get past physical attraction first?

On Friday night, I avoided a mounting bout of holiday loneliness by going out. (Okay, so I went out alone—again—but in the company of great music and eye candy, I had fun.) The next day, my friend asked me if I had met anyone new, as if having done so would have had anything to do with my having had fun.

“Of course not,” I answered. Of course: my two-word explanation for stubbornly sticking with the expectation that other men should come to me instead of me going to them.

With that, my friend revisited last week’s homily about my lack of aggression when it comes to meeting men. If I don’t approach anyone, then how do I expect to meet anyone new? she would argue.

This week, I retorted.

“But you don’t always enjoy it when other guys come to you at straight clubs. I mean—you all ask to be saved all the time.”

“But I still dance with assholes if they’re hot.”

“And if they’re not? Then you ask to be saved.” I introduced to them my hypothesis: that everything in the world of pick-up comes back to physical attraction. If you don’t have that, then you don’t stand a chance, even in a dimly-lit bar filled with horny, incoherent people.

“That’s not true,” another friend chimed. “I’ll dance with an ugly guy if he can start good, genuine conversation.”

I disagreed. “If an ugly guy came to you, he might be able to start a ‘genuine conversation,’ but as soon as he gets your attention and you take one look at him, you would make a split second decision as to whether or not you wanted anything to do with this character, regardless of what he said.”

“Not,” my first friend said, “if they had an incredible sense of humor.”

“So basically,” I continued, “they have to make up—in some sort of large way—for their lack of physical attraction?”

She hesitated and then nodded, accepting the implications of what that meant as far as physical attraction: an end all-be all wall that must be hurdled before personality, character, values—before anything else can be evaluated about a person.

I hate this conclusion, for both ethical and personal reasons. It means that if you have a look that may not be largely perceived to be attractive, then your chances for any sort of success in a club, bar, or any setting where first impressions are key are slim. It means that you have to work twice, thrice, or even more times as hard if you want any success with flirting—or maybe you can have enough trust in pure luck to bring someone who defies the judgmental norm to you.

For me, it means that I’m screwed if I perceive personality or intellectual traits to be my strong suit. It means that my achievements in the work world will mean nothing to my personal life if my appearance isn’t what’s date-ably marketable. It means that I can be on top of the world with success—but always falter in the department of romance. Because if I can’t get past the first hurdle without running into any issues or having to “make up” for something that I don’t have perfect and can’t quite change without reversing the impenetrable decisions of genetics, then I’ve got to somehow adapt my endearing (but perhaps naïve) idea of love for someone else into a notion of love for someone else on the initial basis for how they look. How shallow it sounds, but how real it is!

If I’m going to undo my seemingly perpetual pattern of singleness, then what actions can I take to off-set the role of physical attraction in how others will receive me? And even then, if flirtation and dating are two-way streets, how rare will it be for me to find someone receptive to that different mode of attraction, to the idea that physical attraction can be “made up for” or even overcome? Or maybe, with my ridiculously youthful belief in fairy tale true romance, there’s someone out there who might actually like me for I am—the complete package, the inner highlighting the outer, the outside providing the perfect complimentary shell foreshadowing the gifts within, but remember over and over again that it’s the thought that counts—not the object itself.

This holiday season, I don’t think I’m going to discover that rare find at a club or bar. Heck, to be perfectly honest, heading home to spend time with a family that knows nothing about my love life isn’t really going to help my cause either. I suppose, though, that in a season founded upon faith, hope, and magic, anything is possible. Scientists have recently discovered that it’s mathematically possible for Santa Claus to make it around the world (as long as he’s based in Kyrgyzstan); if they can find a plausible home for a crazy international trespasser, then I can certainly find at least one person who believes that physical attraction isn’t the primary ingredient for chemistry.

And if I can't, well then... at least I can add it to my wish list for Santa.

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I Keep This Column Because I'm Still Single

Last night, late for my usual posting time and attempting to break towering walls of Writer’s Block, I stared at a blank Word document (Blog18.doc) and complained to my friends: Why do I keep this column if I’m one of the most single people I know?

I guess I asked for it: a less-than-comforting discussion of why I, despite learning from my trials and errors, am single. My friends spoke with passion. In bursts of arguments, they agreed with each other’s rationales, citing situations and experiences that illuminated my inability to couple successfully, as if they had mentally isolated actions of mine that have led to my singleness and compiled a series of five lessons of what-not-to-do-if-you’re-a-gay-man-trying-to-get-laid that they only decided to share with me now.

Problem #1: My closest friends are straight women who work the same occupation.

(Pause-- Isn’t it ironic that the folks reasoning my own doomed relationship status are the ones perpetuating it?)

Beyond our friendships, we spend hours slaving over professional endeavors, typing away at coffee shops and brainstorming ideas to implement in our individual work. When we’re not stressing out, we’re wasting time at each other’s apartments, watching movies or plays, or, my personal favorite, eating. On a rare night out, we’ll taxi to a bar or club throbbing with lights, music, fog, and—a key ingredient—straight men. My friends become the women upon which these men prey, the same women who I must inevitably save when the men are no longer of interest. At the end of evening, we have ourselves only, a cab stewing with estrogen-injected memories of the phone number they got, the sketchy guy who wanted to dance, or the make-out session on the dance floor. For a change of pace, I am the new male necessity on the return ride: a pre-approved splash of testosterone, uninterested yet equally welcome and wanted—the bodyguard-confidant-token gay all rolled into one.

In case you’re wondering, they do, on occasion, humor my desire to dance among men who like men. But it is then that problem #2 arises:

Problem #2: I may be perceived as straight.

If you know me, then you’ll think that’s funny. My friends, however, highlight an example from a Vegas vacation: We stumbled into the only gay club on the Strip at 4am. Although the city has a reputation as a sleepless adult playground, this particular dance floor had already emptied to reveal a handful of older, not-so-appealing gentlemen, wriggling to an endless string of unidentifiable (and seemingly generic) techno beats. It wasn’t exactly our idea of a party. Disappointed at my options, I shoved my energy into reserve and plopped into a booth (which they reference as Problem #3—I can look unhappy at clubs when I’m not having fun.) Yet there we were, four girls and a guy wanting to squeeze the most out of our crazy weekend. They paraded onto the dance floor while I sulked on the side. A man approached them (a common occurrence for me at gay bars—men approaching everyone in my company but me) and began dancing. He saw me in the booth, hesitated for a moment, and then motioned towards me. I shook my head, uneager to make do with my option of dancing with a forty-something as opposed to my more attractive third Corona. Regardless, he didn’t take the hint. He came to me and whispered words I will never forget:

Listen, I know you’re straight, but your friends want to have fun. You should dance with them anyway.

I told him I’d finish my Corona and then consider his idea. Meanwhile, in my head, I contemplated my newly-found aura of apparent heterosexuality. Not that I especially wanted to grind with the gray-haired fellow, but what about me would I need to change in order to confirm my gayness? Was that the problem? Do men not flock to me because they don’t know that I might be attracted to them? Isn’t my excessive amount of chill time with a gaggle of friendly girls enough to project my inner rainbow to the world? What do I need: a gang of gays? Sorry! No can do because…

Problem #4: I don’t have any gay friends in my area.

If I did, maybe I’d have a completely different social network and agenda, one that would expose me to men who would (*wink*) expose themselves to me. It is said that 95% of employment opportunities surface from personal connections; is the same true of potential mates? Should I turn to friends to, literally and metaphorically, hook me up? Assuming, of course, that they’d do that kind of work for me, as I apparently don’t do the work myself because…

Problem #5: I’m not aggressive enough.

According to my friends, I don’t put myself out there. (What? You mean going out alone to a gay club isn’t going to suffice when I’m not at work or at a straight club?) I may go out, they argue, but I don’t approach the guys that I think are cute; I assume that they need to come to me. Is that a problem? Maybe. While I have my reasons for not making the first move (a long explanation in short: I don’t like acting on physical attraction alone), this is a definite impediment to my entrance into the dating world.

+++

With these five issues in mind, my first instinct: get defensive. But I like my friends. But I shouldn’t need to change. But I don’t want to pretend. But this… but that… but I…

In the end, though, I stumble upon the same, stale realization: But I’m still single.

Excuses aside, I have to face it: while others are fashionably solitary, personifying Sex and the City as perpetual bachelors or bachelorettes, I’m—well—I’m just single. And I can either hope or pray for someone to dodge the landmines above or—gulp—I can disarm those landmines myself.

(To be continued)

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Anti-Climax

It was 1:30am when I hugged Brent goodbye on the corner of Atlantic and Stanford. The night began with a spontaneous trip to BJ’s Bar and Grill and the hope of a second hook-up in a week; it was now ending quietly, with a literal anti-climax—a dreaded embrace to seal the night closed.

Last week, following a similar night out, Brent and I did not take two different paths. We walked down the same dimly-lit street, into my Toyota Camry, and drove back to his place, where we hooked up for the first time since October 2006. More than a year ago, I considered him potential dating material. After a few dinners and sexual overtures, though, we gave up the chase and kept in touch only through random AIM messages and the occasional Facebook update. Recently, for reasons inexplicable to me, we’ve resurrected patterns of more frequent communication, and ta-da: last week’s hook-up.

This week, bored at 11pm on Saturday night, I sent him a message asking what his plans were for the rest of the evening. He said that after a quick bite, he would be returning to BJ’s. He asked me what my plans were. I replied that I had none… until now.

Dejavu: A gin and tonic, whiskey sour, and two Jack and Cokes after we met up, we were gabbing about the usual: the past week’s work and the current night’s eye candy. A flirtatious touch here, an “accidental” rub of legs there… it was only a matter of time before we repeated last week’s blast from the past.

At 1:20am, the crowd began to dissipate, and we headed toward our respective cars. I had expected Brent—always the more assertive one between the two of us—to ask about his/my/our plans for the rest of the evening.

He didn’t. At 1:30am, on the corner of Atlantic and Stanford, he delivered the anti-climactic hug.

Disappointment happens, I told myself. Last week was just a hook-up. There were no expectations about future hookups. Just drive home and go to sleep. At 1:30am. When I’m not tired. And I have nothing else to do.

My car was about two blocks down the road when it hit me: Fuck it. Why was I waiting for him to make a move? I picked up my cell phone, dialed his number, and rattled off the official twenty-something code for “I want to hook-up with you”: Hey, did you want to hang out for a bit before you go home?

At 1:45am, we pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex… and so did my roommate. My roommate had never seen me bring home anyone unless I was officially dating them, but hey, he knew that I was making efforts to go out a little more—and get a little more. It’d be fine.

Inside, Brent and I moved onto my tiny apartment loveseat, immediately across from a single chair that my ever-so-gregarious roommate quickly occupied. After a while, it became clear that everything was going to be a little too fine with my talkative and friendly roommate. He veered from the usual Ladies Man expert advice he’d give others and cock-blocked with conversation about The Game, fifth grade education, and Miami tourism—all things that had nothing to do with Brent and I getting it on.

Finally, at 2:30am, he grew tired—or took my hints. He drifted into his bedroom, closing his French doors and leaving Brent and I in the living room, on the love seat, alone. Thank goodness. My bed was waiting.

Brent yawned.

Damn it.

So, what are you doing tomorrow morning? I stammered as I tried to restore any energy he had left. A hook-up is never completely prepped without discussing the next morning’s responsibilities.

Coincidentally, his Dim Sum plans mirrored the ones I also made with my friends, down to the same restaurant. I laughed nervously at the thought of a morning-after with us sitting at different tables with two sets of clueless friends. It sounded almost like college.

Brent yawned again. This time, instead of dismissing his sleepiness, I acknowledged it.

Okay, it’s time for you to hit the sack. Are you heading back to your place to crash, or did you want to crash here? Subtextual wink.

I think I’m going to head back to my place, he said.

Damn it.

To my surprise, he counter-offered: How about you?

I gave a quick, split-second thought to the opportunity of a second hookup at his place. It would be nice to wake up next to a warm body again, to make out, and physically vent the week’s stress in an exercise of bedroom wrestling.

Nah, I said, I think I’ll crash here.

Before he left, I leaned toward him for a hug; he apparently thought it was going to be a kiss. His lips met my cheek.

I locked the door as he drove away. When I flipped the living room lights off, the rays of his headlights grew larger—and then faded—on my apartment blinds. I stripped off my clothes, crawled into my double bed, and when I curled my arms around my pillow, I began to wonder what I would tell my roommate the next morning.

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Fall Back

The first of four times that I have ever ventured to a club alone was when I was in high school. My family took a cruise from Los Angeles to Baja California, and, one night, my parents and younger sister wanted to sleep in our cabin early. Still awake, I somehow convinced my parents to let me roam the vessel; what kind of trouble could an underage minor get into anyway when confined by the rails and walls of a boat?

I don’t know what I was looking for when I wandered into the ship’s (straight) dance club. I had never touched alcohol, nor had I ever rocked a dance floor without a chaperone hovering a dozen yards away. I believed, at the time, that listening to music in a dark room might have been entertaining enough for me. I sat at a table and bounced my head to beats for a few hours. Although I worried about being carded, no one approached; I wore my most adult-looking clothes and passed as a young, bored college student. Not drinking, dancing, or socializing, I’m sure I looked the part.

Three years later, I was an intern in Sacramento. At nineteen, I found myself as the youngest summer employee at my company. Although I imagined myself to be mature for my age, I still couldn’t assimilate into the social circles of the other drinking-age workers. The only source of night life for me was the local 18-and-up gay club. Just on the verge of coming out, though, it was an experience I kept putting off.

I don’t know what I was looking for when I finally—and nervously—drove to the gayborhood, parked my car, and meandered my way to the club. As I stood at the entrance, I desperately avoided eye contact with anyone who might have identified me as an inexperienced homosexual virgin (exactly what I was). In line, I pretended to talk to someone on my phone to keep myself busy and deter any scary gay strangers from starting a conversation. Inside, again, I kept to myself. I sat alone at a high round table near the dance floor. As on the cruise ship, I bounced my head more than I shook my body on the dance floor.

Halfway through the evening, another young guy came to me and asked me why I wasn’t dancing. I shrugged, and not knowing what to do with a flirtatious man, I lied that I didn’t really want to dance. He smiled, nodded, and left to talk with his own friends. I continued with my night, still alone.

It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been approached by another man at a gay club.

The third outing was on an unlikely night to be by myself: my twenty-first birthday. My family allowed me to celebrate in Las Vegas, which I had always thought would be a fabulous idea. Their permission, however, also came with their presence. Furthermore, the date of my birthday also collided with the start of the several college semesters, leaving my friends unavailable to help me escape from my parents.

I don’t know what I was looking for when I decided to stay out after my family returned to the hotel room for the night. I rambled from hotel to hotel, spent about $20 worth of nickels and quarters at various slot machines, and found the only gay club on the Strip, Krave. I found my way to a counter stool, bought a Corona, and then did something that I thought might make a good twenty-first birthday story: I danced on a pole in Las Vegas. Had I friends surrounding me, it might have been funny; because I was alone, however, I think I gave off a pretentious asshole vibe—what kind of chutzpah did I have, after all, to dance on a pole in Vegas? No sooner had I gotten off the pole did a six-pack-bearing stud rise to my perceived challenge, flipping and sliding the hell out of the pole and making my moves look like a Chuck E. Cheese mascot playing on a stage. I was defeated; I bought another Corona, sat down, and bounced my head to the club’s beats.

Two nights ago, after my tired friends fell asleep early at their respective apartments, I went to a club alone: Houston’s hot spot for gay night life, South Beach. Unlike the other clubs to which I’ve made independent field trips, I had visited this one twice before. It wasn’t a new place, I remembered when cover would be free, and I expected to park in my same curbside spot. I was bored, I had energy to spare—so why not?

I knew exactly what would have been ideal: I would start with a drink, bounce my head to the beat while sitting at a counter, but this time, I would get my ass off the stool, hit the dance floor, and move. I would find a young guy who, like me, was dancing alone. I would step closer to him. I would not hesitate to make eye contact as he approached and we started to dance. And it would not matter to me if that was it—if it was a fleeting moment on the floor, if he left with his friends without me or my number, or if he decided to dance with someone else afterward. Because it would’ve been enough to prove to me that I can make it on my own.

That night, I had two drinks. I bounced my head. And for an hour and a half, I grooved on the dance floor. In the fog, in the flashing reds, yellows, and blues sweeping the floor, I inched toward a few cute guys and good dancers. Nothing. I traveled across the floor. No approaches. No eye contact. There might have been a friend who tried nudging his friend into me; aside from that—nothing.

Last night, a friend messaged me, wanting to make the most of the Fall Back time change and head out to a bar. In the mood to procrastinate, I agreed. We went out, had a few drinks, talked about life, and ended up going back to his place for my first anything in six months. And while it wasn’t the best night ever, it was a little more fruitful than my generally-disappointing nights out alone. Despite that, and as shallow as this sounds, I get the feeling that any sort of success I can earn on my own as an object on the dance floor might mean so much more than a pre-established cuddle and make-out buddy. While I’ve always held it ideal to fall in love with personalities and histories, there is a certain sense of pride and glory that comes from being wanted without spilling a single seed of personal information. It means that no matter how much of a success or failure you are in life, you will always have something to hold onto or to fall back on: your looks. Ironically, this is an ugly truth: that the appeal of his physical attraction is something that a person can prove, in which he can take comfort, all by himself; it is something that I, unfortunately, have yet to prove to myself. How many more outings will it take?

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To Bed

I’m pretty sure that the inventor of the bed intended it to fit two people at all times.

I’ve thought about it: isn’t it interesting that the smallest size bed—a single—has also been dubbed a twin? After that comes a double bed, and only then is the bed called full. At their largest dimensions, beds even become gendered—a Queen, followed by a King—as if beds were meant to serve couples.

Obviously, Mr. or Ms. Bed Inventor had more than just sleep on his or her mind. I’m realizing that, when I’m in bed, whether I share it or not, I have the same thoughts too.

Last night, as I began my nightly five-hour nap (alone), I rolled onto my left side and wrapped my arms around one of my four pillows. I know: it sounds a bit crowded, but, as far as my memory can reach, I’ve slept with two or more pillows. It’s my routine; it’s comfort.

I began my multi-pillow habits when I was four: for my head, I had a pillow encased in Teddy Ruxpin covers; as an extra companion, I kept another checkered in baby blue penguins. Yes, I had stuffed animals to boot, but I opted to embrace my largest, roundest bed partner of all: pillow #2. Although the soft fur of Brownie (my favorite) had its appeal as a plaything to be tossed about, I needed something that mirrored the size of my own human form, a closer match for my growing kindergartner figure. Did I, with my childish wants, express an inherent urge to share my bed with someone more like me? Sheltered by my parents and unexposed to any idea of sensuality or sexuality, how could I have created such a craving on my own?

I couldn’t have. Until I turned 18 years old, I lived with my parents. Our established sleep norms included wearing a shirt and shorts to bed—not boxers or pajama pants as one might expect from movie depictions of sleepovers, but actual shorts with pockets and Nike or Reebok emblems embroidered on the bottom of the right leg. (It’s as if I had jogged from a workout, into my bedroom, and then hopped directly into bed—minus the perspiration.) The notion that the world clothed itself to sleep sucked all sexuality out of my childhood bedroom. If the bed wasn’t made for sleeping, it only, at most, accommodated the occasional reading or journaling session. It was no longer a crib, but it may as well have been a teenage equivalent.

It wasn’t until college that I remember shedding those ideas about bed and replacing them with a more adult skin. After growing up attired in bed, it came as a surprise that many of the guys on my first-year dormitory hall slept in their underwear. How homoerotic, I thought: straight men stripping to their skivvies and then bidding each other good night across a 12 x 14 room. Not what I expected from a single-sex residence hall at a college steeped in split-sex tradition. It seemed to me that being almost-naked, a notch below being totally-naked, was within an arm’s length of doing things naked. I wonder if there is a correlation between kids who grow up sleeping almost- or totally-naked and their sexual activity as adults.

The first time I slept with anyone (for purposes other than to share a bed) was during my sophomore year—in a tiny twin bed. After a night of partying with his friends, Ken and I made a 4:30am decision to stumble into his off-campus house. We rehydrated on his couch, made small talk on some chairs in his room, and then, after cautious move after cautious move, went for it. It was the first time either of us did anything homosexual. Furniture that seemed fit for one caved into the warmth of a heavy make-out session. That night, I completely bought into chemistry; we forewent the discomfort of his cramped space and came to understand that heat really does expand space. Twin bed or not, there was going to be room for two.

I never understood the allure of cuddling until that point. I thou