A RANDOM CALL TO ACTION. MEET ME at the pier. A hurried clean-up. A quick teeth brushing. Refreshed moisturizer — face, not elbows. Cooler shirt. Deodorant.A rush out the door.And I’m there.And he… wow, is he ever!
We launch in, talk this and that... high energy, high pitch, high anxiety. Oh, God, am I really here? Is he really talking to me? A gaze from the corner of my eye. Yes, he’s so beautiful! All the nerves, all the anticipation adds up to this moment. When you’re two guys, what you talk about seems less important than how you say it, how you act — straight, careless, like a man, straight. Wish I was a cowboy — they say nothing and people fall at their feet. Well, women do. Wrong movie.
So we talk about life, work, friends, Easter with the family... not much. We say so little, really. We share so little, and yet … I’ve gotta follow the rules. Welcome to dating. But wait. Is this a date? The truth is, I don’t know. All I care about is that he wanted to see me. Again.
After all this time. Follow the rules. Don’t bring up the past. That’s the first. Second, no issues. Be positive — about everything in your life. Exaggerate, go ahead. He’ll never know, until he’s swept back into your arms and he won’t care anymore. But the question is, will that happen and what the Hell am I doing here? Why did he call? All the heartache, all the lies. All the forgiveness. And the growing. Break-ups really stretch you. Really. Like Gumby, I continue day to day. But everything in my life, the reason. It’s all because of him. I am the person I am today because of him. Because he loved me. So here I am. On this non-date date. A reacquaintance. Sounds so formal. After all those nights lying next to each other. The mornings of bad breath, the tragedies of unaccepting families. The fungus I couldn’t get rid of, the shaving nick he had to nurse for a week. His war on acne.
And now, the re-acquaintance. Very polite, very “easy going” in the most un-easy going way possible. Like neither of us really care. Does he? I know my answer. And probably, he knows my answer, too, which truly sucks. I lost ground, lost control, lost my power when he left. Now I want it back. Well … I want him back. Whatever way that means.
We go through life worrying that we’re going to say the wrong thing, look like an ass. Truth is, we are our most beautiful when we are the biggest ass in the room. When we are naked. When we are really there. When the utterance from our lips is nothing more than the first thing that crossed our mind.
Here in this stretched-out town, we’re lost in the shallow graves of our expectations of how we appear. We expect ourselves to be someone we are not, someone beautiful on celluloid, but not in a dark cramped apartment where the one and only thing of honest beauty would have to be us. We’re not that trusting.
If we can’t trust ourselves with that person, we can never expect to trust him — or a future relationship. So try. Do it. Say the first thing that crosses your mind. Go on and try. Try. But not too hard, be careful. Naw. Careful’s overrated. So is love. Wrong. Love, true love is the only underrated emotion in the world.
When you have true love, you’ve truly experienced the best thing you’ll ever experience in life... other than good soup. Can’t beat a bouillon.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 26, 2007. Read the original PDF.