Vital Stats: 6”, 24. He worked in an office but fancied himself a furniture designer and sold blue-green algae on the side. Aesthetic: Fortunately, he had a gay roommate, so he wore respectable 1970s thrift clothing—wide collared shirts and cords. Demeanor: Nice, a little cool, handsome.
First Impression: I thought he was quite good-looking, but he was dating Nancy, a woman that my friend Kim and I thought could have been attractive if it weren’t so clear that she lacked even more confidence than we did.
What Happened: It was late spring of 1996. I had just eased myself out of a nearly four-year relationship and was about to finish grad school. #70 was a college friend of my best gay boyfriend, Will. We all went out on weekends. We'd get fired up, as we liked to call it, at their apartment and then head to the Metro or Spin or Cocktail or any of the other clubs and bars. By this time, #70 had broken up with Nancy and the first hints of summer were in the air.
One night, the four of us—me, #70, Will and Kim—found ourselves on the Northwestern Campus for a Mary Zimmerman show (on a side note, I don’t remember the name of the show, but it later became Metamorphosis). Afterward, we headed to the Lakefill to run around, do cartwheels and generally frolic. At the end, the four of us lay in a circle with our heads together, staring at the stars. As our heads brushed against each other, it felt as though I and #70 might be having a moment.
The next morning, Kim phoned. She’d gotten a call from Will who had talked to #70. “I know someone who has a crush on you,” she said.
Could it be?
It was.
#70 and I spent the next month or two hanging out. He came to my graduation. We’d hang out at bars playing pool. I don’t remember any deep conversations or moments of connection. He was known to make conversations come to a grinding halt with comments such as, “Heh heh. That’s funny” or “Heh heh. That’s stupid.” He may not have sounded like good boyfriend material, but he sure looked like it.
Probably even more bizarre than our deep lack of mental connection was our deep lack of physical connection. Even though I’d stay over at his apartment, we never had sex. There wasn’t even a grope in the night. We never even got naked.
“So, have you guys done it yet?” Will would ask every few days. And the answer was always, “No.”
After a month or two of this, #70 drove with me to a friend’s wedding in Buffalo. We stayed overnight in another friend’s guest room and, instead of squeezing onto the twin bed with me, #70 said he had a cold and slept on the floor.
We returned to Chicago and a week later I flew to Houston to visit my parents. My last night there, he called and broke up with me saying he and Nancy were talking about getting back together.
When I got back from Houston, Will told me the whole truth. “He was supposed to break up with you before you went to the wedding, but he wimped out. He and Nancy actually slept together a while ago.”
Signs of Hope: He was cute and, at the beginning of the summer, anyway, he liked me.
Red Flags: We had no real connection of any kind, no real affection of any kind, no real sex of any kind.
Turning Point: When he dumped me over the phone. Looking back, I find it hard to believe that I didn’t suspect something was up, but maybe I didn’t want to suspect something was up.
Diagnosis: For him: What a coward, although his cowardice was actually pretty impressive. Instead of just breaking up with me, he drove hundreds of miles to and from a wedding and then waited another week when I was thousands of miles away to break up with me by phone. Like I said, impressive.
He also turned out to be a terrible furniture maker; when he flipped over a tiled table he’d made to put it in a moving van, all the little tiles fell out, clattering to the ground.
Oh, and the whole blue-green algae thing was a big old pyramid scheme.
For me: After being in a nearly four-year relationship with a man I wasn’t all that attracted to (#69), I just wanted a boyfriend who looked the part. Intelligence, work choices and deeper connectivity be damned. And yes, he broke up with me in a cowardly way, but I kind of did the same thing to #69…
Epilogue: Later that summer, I was talking to a friend at a party and he said, “You never slept with [#70], right?”
“Nope.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t hear it from me, and I don't know when he got it, but it turns out he has herpes.”
For me: After being in a nearly four-year relationship with a man I wasn’t all that attracted to (#69), I just wanted a boyfriend who looked the part. Intelligence, work choices and deeper connectivity be damned. And yes, he broke up with me in a cowardly way, but I kind of did the same thing to #69…
Epilogue: Later that summer, I was talking to a friend at a party and he said, “You never slept with [#70], right?”
“Nope.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t hear it from me, and I don't know when he got it, but it turns out he has herpes.”
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