WHEN HE WON’T TAKE OBLIVIOUS FOR AN ANSWER

I’d recently written here and here about my puzzlement over a budding friendship with a guy who lives in my building whom I run into often at the gym on the first floor. He’s married to a woman whom he introduced me to a few months ago when we ran into each other on the street, an odd moment seeing each other out of the regular setting, maskless even. A quick hello, a hasty getaway on my part. Chitchat is not my strength. 

 

Damien is a likable guy and we’ve got some things in common so I always said “sure” when he suggested we go for a walk sometime. Still, I’d had some weird vibes, as though Damien might be interested in me. Silly thinking, I kept telling myself. I’m that sort of Guy Next Door who oozes niceness, albeit awkwardly, but doesn’t register to people in a possibly sexualized, I’m-Into-You way. In the past, I’ve wished otherwise, but I have to assume some kids keep fishing out my tossed fountain coins before the aqua-genies can make things happen. (It’s only one of the reasons I’ve gone cashless.) When we finally set up a time to go on that walk, I thought, whew, he’s not gay. After all, most gays I’ve known don’t follow through. At the very least, they’re never on time. He showed up on the dot. 

 

So, it was clear. Not gay. Proceed to possible friendship…with caution, of course, as my chitchat challenges could flub it up. And yet, throughout the walk, he kept dropping gay-leaning hints…a guy’s abs, his love of musical theater, comments over my fitness.

 

Okay, then maybe Damien’s bisexual. I don’t have any bisexual friends. It’s very possible that a bisexual man and a gay man can be just friends, especially when the bi guy is married, right? Even if there was any other sort of interest, I doused them when I explained that my fitness was rooted in an eating disorder. Not sexy. 

 

I know how to repel men; I just don’t know how to attract them. 

 

Since then, I’ve put off Damien’s suggestions we go for another walk or grab coffee. A month has passed. I’ve seen him in the gym a couple of times, but he can’t talk much on the StairMaster and I do my best to look especially focused on chest presses. I maintain that grunting is uncouth, but I can conjure one up the equivalent in one of those cartoon thought bubbles above my head. Damien texts now and then. I never initiate, but I was raised with enough social skills to know that a reply is in order. Keep things cool. Let that bi-gay friendship emerge slowly. 

 

Our second walk is on Friday and I’m concerned based on Damien’s recent texts. I keep telling myself it’s nothing, that I have no grounds for intuiting anything suggestive, but Damien seems intent on breaking down my act at being oblivious. 

 

FIRST RED FLAG: "Hey there. How’s life? We will find some time for that coffee. Gabi goes to Toronto on September 2 for a week."

 

Okay, nothing, right? Coffee when the wife is out of town is just because the guy’s got more free time. Nothing else at play. It’s fine.

 

SECOND RED FLAG: "Hey sweet friend. I have Friday off. You free for some coffee and conversation?"

 

No doubt, guys say “sweet friend” all the time to other guys. Good riddance, “Bro” and “dude.” The only reason I’m not familiar with it as a regular practice is because I’m not up on regular social exchanges between platonic male relationships, especially in platonic bi-gay friendships. It’s just Damien’s way of saying, Thank god we can drop that machismo shit. Should I be flattered (and perplexed) that he thought I had any machismo to drop in the first place? Maybe it’s from not shaving as much during COVID.

 

He’d suggested meeting for coffee and I replied my schedule was open.

 

THIRD RED FLAG: "Looking forward always. I am wide open too. Sans spouse."

 

Um, still okay. I guess. Must not read anything into the “wide open” remark or the reminder that his coffee will be away. Happy couples often look forward to a bit of space. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.

 

I ran into Damien in the gym yesterday. It wasn’t my regular time, but I had to fit in a workout before some dental surgery. 

 

FOURTH RED FLAG: "Happy thoughts with your laughing gas. Let me know if you need anything at all. Heal fast. Bjs."

 

Um…

 

What do I make of the last three letters? Did his phone fail to autocorrect “bye”? The j and y keys are awfully close together. Same for s and e.

 

I Googled “what does bjs mean,” and it turns out there are other possibilities. Sure, I had to scroll down quite a bit, but I found them. Could be the Bureau of Justice Statistics which is the primary source of criminal justice stats in the U.S. Hmm, possible. Could be Beaux Jardins du Soleil, located in what Wikipedia says is a commune in southwestern France, admittedly a random reference, but perhaps Damien was watching a documentary on YouTube. Other plausible options: basic job skills, British Journal of Surgery, a videogame called Battle Just Started, the Beloit Janesville Symphony (established 1954) or the code for an airport in Beijing.

 

Okay then, Damien likes a symphony in Wisconsin. There is so much to learn in the early stages of a friendship.  

 

If “Bjs” meant something sexual, it would have fit better before “Heal fast,” right? Maybe “bjs” means something else. Maybe Damien’s into K-pop and mistyped BTS, even if I can’t figure out why he’d end a text with an announcement about musical fandom. I replied with, “Everything went well, thanks. Glad it’s over.” Should I have tacked on “abba”? Maybe “sarabareilles”?

 

Good god, life taunts me. Social situations with people I don’t know well are awkward enough. I don’t need them spiked with additionally awkward elements. I’m bracing for a possible Friday morning text in which he says, “Hey, I just brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Come on down.”

 

No, no. I’m way past the days of someone saying, “Wanna come in for a drink?” Okay, the only time I ever heard that was while watching TV but, jeez, I’ve spent my entire life being cast as the harmless Guy Next Door with the genitalia of a department store mannequin. For once, let me land the role when I actually want it. This is one week when I don’t think I’ll be saying TGIF. 

 

 

 

WHEN HARRY MET SOLLY

Even though it’s my all-time favorite movie, I still have a quibble with “When Harry Met Sally”. When the movie premiered thirty-one years ago, it got a lot of buzz, not just for a certain diner scene but for it’s central question: Can men and women just be friends? (Hang on, I’ll give it a gay context soon enough.)

As a still mostly closeted gay man in 1989, I’d felt the query clouding many of my friendships. Yes, I had lots of girl friends but definitely no girlfriends. Maybe I passed for straight—it took deep concentration for me to get my pinky finger to cling to my coffee mug instead of dangling outward. Maybe, instead, people were subtly taunting me and trying to coax me to come out when they’d ask, “Did you and Ally/Sue/Rowena/Cynthia/Carrie ever date?” Texans were too bound by social niceties to just blurt, “Did you two have sex?”

No. And, as to what you’re implying, no. Not Ally. Not Sue. Not Rowena. Not Cynthia. Not Carrie. Clear enough for you?

“Told y’all,” Carole Lee no doubt said behind my back. “He’s gay.”

Back then, I wasn’t just in the closet (even if the door had come off its hinges). I was conservative and repressed. I should have lived in Victorian times. Why did everything come down to sex?

As I sat in a Santa Monica movie theater with my friend—yes, friend—Sue, after having just moved to Malibu—yes, Malibu!—I was loving the movie. Nora Ephron’s script sang, Meg Ryan looked and acted absolutely adorable and Billy Crystal locked in on likable schmuckiness. Still, when Harry authoritatively said to Sally, “Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way,” I was one hundred percent TeamSally as she argued the point. So, later in the movie, when Harry and Sally were walking in a park and he stopped and asked, “Are we becoming friends now?” I wanted to stand and cheer...something celebratory but not as euphoric as the classic diner scene.

Just friends! Yes! Yes! Forever and always! Oh, yeah!

It happens.

Okay, so all my personal cases in point with all my close girl friends were marred by that bubbling gay thing. I was—and am—still a big fan of platonic friendship.

That’s why I was startled when my current boyfriend, Daniel, asked me not once but twice if my closest gay friend in Vancouver, someone I’ve known for twenty-five years, ever dated or had sex or if, at the very least, either or both of us ever liked one or the other in that way.

What? Ron?! Ew.

Sorry,...no offense, Ron.

The query felt as icky as if Daniel was asking about my brother or cousin or uncle. Just no. Whether it’s blood or a clear friendship track, there are lines you never ever cross.

Gay men can just be friends with gay men. Can’t they?

It’s true that the friend I’ve known the longest in Vancouver—twenty-eight years—is a guy I met in a club during my first visit to the city and we fooled around that one night. I’d like to think we long ago blocked that experience from memory. It’s so insignificant compared to the friendship that developed.

I’m confident I can rebut the gay version of Harry’s claim wherein he says, “No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.”

Sally replies, “So you’re saying a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive.”

“No, you pretty much want to nail them, too.”

Yes, there are guys I’ve dated and it wasn’t the right fit but we became friends. Not best buds but something at least slightly more enhanced than Facebook friends. Initially, at least. People move. Really, I don’t see myself ever visiting Palm Springs. Sorry, Jim. I wilt in anything over 75 degrees.

And it’s true that there are gay men I’ve never dated that I felt might like me. I’ve been known to be oblivious and sometimes, yes, it’s a bit of an act. Let’s not ruin a possibly perfectly good friendship. Generally, it only takes a few occasions together before they come to their senses and realize I’m not all that (or even half that) and they dismiss any other kind of interest in me. Friendship is fine.

I’ve only had to spell it out once. Jay was my first friend I ever met in a gay bar after moving to California. He came on really strong—heavy flirting, maybe a grope (that wasn’t uncommon in dark gay clubs thirty years ago)—and I held up my hand to mime a strong STOP sign. “I just want us to be platonic.” From then on, he made a point as always introducing me as “my platonic friend, James.” Whatever. It worked. We became really good friends. (Until he moved to Bakersfield. I tried to be his Facebook friend fifteen years later and never heard anything back. Denied?! I have a hard time letting things go.)

I’m trying to think of examples where it worked the other way where I crushed on a guy and he wasn’t interested but we became friends, if only temporarily. Cue spinning rainbow. Thinking…thinking...Now cue Yukon Cornelius from my all-time favorite TV show, “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer”:

“Nothin’.”

My crushes never ever became dating experiences or consolation prize friendships because I’ve never ever figured out how to establish any sort of communication with them. My attempts at eye contact had me staring at my shoelaces. A simple “hello” was always nixed by a sudden tsunami of armpit sweat that caused me to flee for the nearest exit, even if it meant sounding an alarm. If I held it together enough to stick around, I feigned absolute disinterest. Right now, you’re everything but I’ll act like you’re nothing. Man, I was hopeless. I crushed every crush all by myself.

But, yes, gay men can just be friends, with no dating, sex or inkling of oogly, googly liking ever preceding a permanent state of platonic interaction.

“Are you sure Ron never liked you?” Daniel asked yet again.

“Certain.”

But then Ron hasn’t dated anyone at all in the last twenty years. Occasionally, just to be polite, I ask, “So,...are you seeing anyone?”

He scrunches up his nose as if I just offered him fried liver and a glass of milk that expired three weeks ago. “Are you kidding?” These days, Ron’s all about watching mushroom videos on YouTube. And, no, I kid you not. Little clusters of chanterelles in the forest. “There are thousands of videos!” he says.

Okay, so Ron is awfully quirky. Still, he’s my example and not just an exception (even if I can’t name anyone else).

Gay men can just be friends. Take that, Harry. I rest my case.