JUST LUNCH...AND MORE THAN LUNCH...

Tuesday was the day I finally had lunch with my predecessor, the friend of a friend who left his wife sixteen years ago on finally realizing that he was gay... It was a nice lunch. It might have been crucial six months to a year ago, and now it was just nice. [With one exception, but more of that later.] We met at a college dive but one that had outside tables, and we landed one in the shade. I had walked two-and-a-half miles in the blazing sun to be there, and my biggest worry was getting my hands on a napkin soon enough to get rid of some of the sweat pouring off me before shaking his hand... so shade was good.

I told him a little of my story, he told me a little of his story, and some things really did line up. Other things we could not connect on, and the more I think about it, the more I believe that it is because his point of view, after fifteen years with another man, and mine, so newly alone and not really completely believing that I will ever find anyone, made it difficult to find common ground. He sang the song of how wonderful friendships among gay men are; I have to say that I am leery of cheer-leading in general, but in particular of the "gay is better" school. I suppose what he says is true on one level, I have seen plenty of circumstances where solidarity came up pretty short. He found his partner a year and a half after he left his wife, but we are about the same age now, so he was about 40 when he bailed out. I am pretty close to 55, and thereby hangs a tale. My tale.

I do not in any way regret having lived out my life with my family over the last ten or fifteen years; for all the madness, they were good years. I just wish I weren't so old and fat now, that's all; it makes one worry about the eventual outcomes. [Paging Dr. Isay, paging Dr. Richard Isay...]

When we got up to leave, he hugged me. And he was so fit that it felt like more than a hug -- it seemed to hold the promise of another world. But the thing that was more than "nice" was the simple fact, which of course I had known going in, that he had in fact found someone, and that they had made a life together. That was like a breath of fresh air, even with all the perfectly nice summer air circulating around us on the deck...

An interesting footnote: I said that I was trying to hold to some kind of mourning period, in hopes that I could avoid the so-called "slut phase" which figures so prominently in most coming-out stories. He countered with the fact that he had promised his wife six months of no involvements, but after that had been with many men for many reasons. And the more I thought about it, the more the "phase" began to look different to me. After thirty years of no men, there are a lot of questions I need answered, and it might be a lot to ask of one poor innocent by-stander, or even one not-so-poor, not-so-innocent bystander, to sort them out. And I really don't see how many of them can be answered without a certain amount of exploration that would most easily come under the heading of, well, "slut".

So I'm still chewing on that one. So to speak.

Anyone who has followed this journey from the beginning knows that my story started with a quest for self-knowledge, with the mantra: "no more fool's paradise". So, I know a bit about myself that I did not several years ago, but have no idea how much of that I could live out and still live with myself. And then there are the conflicts between what one finds sexy and what one finds loveable. It has recently occurred to me that the fitness-mad person necessary to match much of my fantasy life would probably not be spending much time doing anything else, and might not have much else to talk about.

Here we have a dilemma.

Augusten Burroughs has written wonderful things about posting personals featuring the craziest combinations he could think of, just to see what kind of responses his creations would get. But the more I tried to think of what I could possibly say, even were I to be honest and reasonable, the more dishonest and unreasonable, not to say ridiculous, the whole enterprise seemed to become:

Hesitant dominant pedant top, graying crewcut, bald below, seeks eager USMC or Navy SEAL bottom, preferably large, dark and hairy, for discussions of philosophy and religion, possible LTR.

Not very versatile, somewhat sagging, average guy seeks hot Asian muscle bottom [preferably Chinese gymnast or diver with brush-cut] with predilection for modern history, ready for total commitment.

Self-conscious blogger seeks Gengoroh Tagame, or maybe his muse. But please do not bring knives.

Troll seeks Francois Sagat [please lose asphalt topping].

Beast [54] seeks beauty [35-65].

Suddenly submissive sometime straight guy seeks leather daddy with very gentle touch.

Ditto, but maybe NOT so gentle a touch after all.
Just easy to live with...

Wanted: hunky homo to help me make up my mind. Must be as gorgeous as I am not. Go figure.

Three-in-one little pig seeks one big, bad wolf.

There's the rub. You can't always get what you want, we all know that. But you don't have a prayer even of getting what you need unless you know what you want. And I seem to be sitting on more than one fence at one and the same time, if such a thing is possible. Talk about a bad investment. Maybe that's what I should be building my marketing campaign on...

Emotional minefield seeks intrepid explorer; come prepared for mayhem. Hmmm. Maybe I'll stick with Three-in-one little pig seeks one big, bad wolf.

The thing is, now I do begin to believe that there might be the possibility of a happy ending... Or is that too dangerous -- should I just accept that it might have happened, had I left fifteen years ago? Well, that way madness lies.

One step at a time. One step at a time.