Mr. Unavailable #73: Summer of Love, Part 1

This is a Mr. Unavailable flashback circa 1999, Chicago.

Vital Stats: 27. 6'0". Thin and lanky. Artist and gallery owner. Divorced from a woman he'd married to help her out with a green card, although it ended up becoming a real--though tumultuous--marriage, he said. Aesthetic: Long-haired artsy leather-jacketed bad boy. Demeanor: But he was so not a bad boy.

First Impression: It was the spring of '99 and I and my gay boyfriends were gallery-hopping around Wicker Park. At one gallery, we spied #73. Clad in black leather, he was svelte, with long brown hair held back in a ponytail and a soul patch on his angular chin.

I walked up to the painting he was looking at, a sizeable canvas with gray and black streaks, and he turned to me and said, "I don't even know what to do with this."

"Me either," I said. We walked down the row of paintings, critiquing them as we went.

It turned out he knew one of the people in our group, so we hit a few more galleries together, he got my number and then called for a date a day or so later.

First Date: Dinner at an Italian restaurant on Clark Street. We sat down and he told me he had some bad news. "I'm moving to California in a month," he said. It had just come up. A friend of his had opened an art school, needed a curator for the school's gallery and offered #73 the job. We could still see each other if I wanted to, he said, it was up to me. "Sure, why not?" I was game. But, at that moment, a part of me turned off. The date ended when the bill came and he said, "I'll get this one if you get the next one." I was OK with conditional dinners back then.

Second Date: Dinner at Jane, a restaurant in Wicker Park. I vaguely remember the date being filled with all kinds of sexual innuendo from his side of the table because I recall a feeling of flattered discomfort. I paid for dinner, as previously agreed, and he drove me home, parking and opening the door for me. Making out against the side of his truck, he told me he thought he'd been a perfect gentleman on our first date and had earned a trip upstairs. I invited him upstairs. Apparently, I was OK with guilt-induced seduction back then, too.

Signs of Hope: For the next month, we saw each other. I'd stay over his place or he'd stay over mine. Sometimes he'd sit me down in his gallery, stare into my eyes and repeat over and over, "Pretty, pretty, pretty." Other times he'd surprise me and pick me up on his motorcycle. We even had a running joke about a custody battle over a stuffed animal I had--a bear in a duck costume I'd named Duck-Bear. I was even at his place the morning of Columbine...

Red Flags: ...But I don't even recall the events of that morning bringing us together. It also happened that a few times he had to cancel at the last minute because he "had to help mom with [painting, fixing things, etc.] around the house," he always said. That could have been a red flag, but maybe it was more of a red flag that I didn't really care. I never got attached, never complained, never told him what I was unhappy about (the sex). There was no need. On the day he packed his U-Haul, I went over and put Duck-Bear in his truck. I was just looking for an excuse to go to San Francisco.

A Month Later: On a mission to retrieve Duck-Bear, I visited him in the Oakland Hills--incidentally, it was the weekend JFK Jr. went missing. He took me around and showed me the gallery he was curating. It was a nice time considering I was checked out. We even had what could have been a bonding moment after a minor motorcycle accident where we hit a deer. We were OK, although I was never truly sure about the deer. Or the bonding moment.

After that trip, we kept in touch and, in early 2000, I had to suddenly fly out to California for a funeral. I arranged to spend my last night in San Francisco and told him I was coming out. He picked me up in the redwood forest, where my family was doing some post-funeral sightseeing, and he drove me back to San Francisco. He told me about a woman he'd met, so I assumed we were just friends now. He said he'd picked out a fabulous restaurant that he wanted to take me to.

Turning Point: Assuming we were just friends, I didn't expect much to happen. But then, over dinner, he told me that if he'd stayed in Chicago, he would have fallen in love with me. I wasn't really sure what to do with the information and it actually made me a little mad--although I didn't tell him that. Maybe he was expecting a similar response in return, but I couldn't give it. And then, when the bill came, he didn't have enough money to cover even half of it. That made me madder--although I didn't tell him that either. And then I brought him back to my hotel room with me, where, even though I was still mad, he still stayed over. I flew home the next day and, except for a drunken, late-night email where I finally decided to tell him how mad I was, we never spoke again.

Diagnosis: Aside from the fact that our relationship was strangely surrounded by tragedy (Columbine, JFK Jr., the California funeral)...
For him: ...Poor guy. He was doing his best--even though he did have poor dating skills. He really liked me but had no idea he was dealing with an unavailable heart. Was he emotionally unavailable? I wouldn't know. But moving clear across the country didn't help.
For me: His confession, instead of opening my heart, closed it even more.
Plus, the message I got from the whole experience was that if I never complained and never expressed how I felt about anything, men would fall in love with me.

Check out Summer of Love, Part 2 and Part 3.