OH, AND DID I MENTION...?

I have done it again. I have scared away someone who seemed so funny, so nice, so right -- and then suddenly developed the nastiest case of cold feet right before we were to actually talk in person [OK, on the phone] rather than e-mail. Now, I know I have absurd expectations of other men, and it's clear that meeting men on-line is a dicy way to make friends, and I am a pretty complete freak for meeting them under the guise of making friends and not doing the deed just yet -- I do know all of that.

But what I don't get is how I can get it so wrong over and over again. OK, the Professor was my fault. I didn't cross all the t's and dot all the i's and he wound up with the wrong idea. I had said what I meant; he didn't believe that I meant what I said. Case closed. The Troll goes back in and writes "IN PURDAH JUST NOW" in big letters all over his profile, and then finds profiles coming in that seem vaguely attractive. And the real craziness is that if you respond to one of them, they send you a dozen more "just like him." So before you know it, you are sending billets-doux to half of New England. And further afield...

One of these casual floaters responded to a foreign-language e-mail. [I'll call him "Jaime," though in this world everyone seems to become "Joe" as soon as they adopt an alias -- hey, guys! we're gay! what about Armand, or Nico, or Maximus? or Francois Sagat? No, it's always "Joe". If we decorated as badly as we name ourselves on-line, we'd be widely mistaken for straight in no time at all.] So Jaime and I go back and forth, having a grand ol' time, some innuendo but basically a perfectly pleasant series of getting-to-know-you exchanges. Now, maybe I just attract guys with no patience, or my sarcasm is a powerful aphrodisiac to some -- but here again, in spite of practically tattooing on my electronic forehead my intent to take a serious Time Out to sort out my conflicted feelings, we were eventually in this weird place where he seemed to be hustling us off to the bedroom and I was trying to keep us in the parlor for maybe the first and second date. [OK, it might have taken less than six months to get two dates in, but who's counting months here besides me?]

Now, when I let my guard down, I am afraid, I LET MY GUARD DOWN. And that generally means that I stop paying attention to whether or not a remark might be misconstrued or misunderstood -- and eventually I know that it's time to apologize again. Oh God, not again. I have even posted about this too often by now. I know, I know. But here's the rub:

I am once again well and truly at Sea.

Did Jaime turn tail because I had offended him? Maybe. Did Jaime turn tail because I had just repeated the "not now, darling" speech once too often? Possibly. Or did Jaime finally figure out that I meant it, and he couldn't be bothered to wait?

Not that again! What does that tell me?

It makes a difference. Because if I only offended the guy somehow, I could try apologizing. If I repeated myself to the point of nausea [the "anti-professorial" response], I could try groveling to see if that helped to counterbalance the off-putting sentiment. But if it's really just that he couldn't see the point of meeting me unless there was a chance of doing the deed, what the @#$%&* can I do?

It's not just a question of not kissing on the first date, though I can't help feeling that's a perfectly reasonable stance for a young girl or an elderly guy to take. I mean, if I slept with every guy I asked to meet me for a cup of coffee, I would have nobody to drink coffee with here in no time at all. For all the fabled closeness of a "big" city like Boston [OK, have your laugh, guys], this is a fairly small pond. A guy has to worry about his reputation. I've heard too many gay acquaintances go down a list with friends: "Had him, had him, had him," and don't really want to get on too many of those lists. [I know straight guys swap lists of women, this is Guy Behavior we're talking about, I've just never been around them doing it.]

So another one bites the dust. I did my usual farewell scene but then ruined the effect by sending another e-mail that basically asked for twenty-five words or less on what I did wrong. I guess I do understand that nobody is going to issue a report card, but some kind of feed-back would be useful. Maybe I could have the Honda garage call these guys up; they certainly pester people after an oil change...

In February, I came out to a Dutch friend and said I was thinking of telling my children. He advised me against it until I could do it with my wife [which seemed like such excellent advice that I couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to me; unfortunately, when the time came six months later, she refused to have anything to do with it.] He recently got one of the many updates and change-of-address messages I have been slowly handing around, and his response was to advise against my Decent Interval Scheme [this is a former minister talking -- it sometimes seems that everyone I know was a theology student at some time...]. I responded that I wasn't making a straitjacket out of it -- if the right guy came along, I would bend the rules until they broke, but it still seemed like a good idea to me. I wasn't being too particular about when the clock started, though:

July 20th,
when I left home? that seems a rather bleak prospect, as I am only three months into the six-month "minimum." But three months means that I might survive six, and I am already thinking about other people's feelings as much as I am about my own, which is progress of a sort...

March 25th,
when I first started blogging? That would give me more than six already...

February 25th,
when I came out to him and ruined his weekend?

Oh, to hell with it. I'm going to wait a while.

I just want to find some friends in the meantime, and still have the possibility of meeting someone semi-sensible "afterwards."

And I do have another coffee appointment...

[Hope springs eternal in the Inner Girl.]
God, I hope I survive her until the Decent Interval comes to a close.

Hang in there.
And if you pray, consider praying for me.
Healing is happening; I think prayers for guidance might be a good idea, though.