Sunday 5 November
Universal Laws.
Okay, so technically it's Sunday 6 November since it's 2:12a as I'm writing this, but I always distinguish days by when I wake up. In my world of screwed up logic, if I stay up all night and go to bed at 6a, it's still not the next day until I get out of bed. It makes more sense.
There I go, arguing with the laws of the universe again.
Speaking of the laws of the universe, there must be one that I'm unaware of that specifically states that Michael J. _________ will henceforth be attracted to only losers, assholes, pricks, putzes and puzzling men from here to eternity. How else can my track record be explained? There has to be some sort of outside force influencing my horrible taste in guys.
Take this evening for instance.
About a month ago Joey and I had a little shop 'n romp in Philly and I happened to (okay, more like set myself up to) run into Ice Cream Ryan. It had been about three months since the night of my mental lapse with no communication coming from either end. Despite my recent lengthy rant about how crushless my life has become lately, I would have to consider Ryan my one exception. After meeting him over a year ago, having the single most wonderful first phone conversation with him and then finding out that he was completely unavailable (at the time involved with an asshole who had no clue how to treat a boy well), I will honestly admit that he never fully escaped my mind. My last surviving crush from my pre-Doni-killing-off-my-interest-in-relationships days. I had kept in loose contact with him after I left for school freshman year last September and never failed to stalk, er, visit him at work whenever I returned home to Philly for a weekend or two. Of course, I had to suffer through his agonizing complaints about his boyfriend: "Chris is never home, always in New York," "Chris is being an asshole," "Chris and I are having a fight..." blah blah blah, but very evident to me (and every one of my friends who I brought along to use as a witness) was that he had a thing for me which was much more intense than whatever he had for his actual boyfriend. He was never less than thrilled to see me when I came to visit while I was home and our phone conversations were consistently over an hour in length each. But I was an hour and a half away at school all year long. Chris was a student at his. I had a major handicap in this game.
By December, the phone calls became less frequent as I realized that I was working (and running up hefty phone bills) for a lost cause. The kid had a boyfriend that lived around the corner from him. Who was I kidding? But then I got a call from Kym halfway through the month telling me rumor had it that Ryan had finally broken up with Chris (how she knew this, I don't know being that she was in school in Ohio at the time but then again I've learned never to question the power of the almighty fag hag). Of course, at that point I was already in full swing with Doni so I figured Ryan just wasn't in my cards.
Until, of course, that fateful evening when my boyfriend had already morphed into a schmuck and I happened to run into the Ice Cream Boy himself. I won't go into detail here, you've read it already (and if you haven't click the link from earlier in this entry). After that night of nights I didn't hear from, speak to or see Ryan for a good three or four months. I couldn't help but feel bad about it. I didn't mean to lose touch with him afterwards anymore than I had meant for it to happen in the first place (although I regret nothing ... he's too damn cute to regret anything). But I didn't have his new phone number (he moved into a new apartment) and had no way to get in touch with him other than stopping by the Ice Cream place - which I did do a few times without any luck in finding him there. Bad timing. As usual.
Anyway, I finally ran into him again last month. He seemed very happy to see me - especially as he wrote down his new number, e-mail and address and stuffed it into my jeans pocket. I was definitely excited about it. Finally both of us single, available and absolutely fabulous. I told Joey that even after a year of our off and on friendship and whatever else had gone down between the two of us, he was still one of the few people who could make my heart beat just a tad bit faster when I see him. We had always seemed to have this rare connection between us. I noticed it right from the get go of our first convo over the phone. Right down to our mutual love of oh-so-bad 80's horror flicks (Sleepaway Camp being number one), Debbie Gibson and a closet love for Britney Spears we were bonded and I felt like I was finally speaking to someone who I could easily fall for wasn't also an asshole. Every time I saw him or spoke to him it reinforced the wonderful first impression I got from him. Sweet, smart and sexy. Alliteration never sounded so good.
So I e-mailed him two days later.
A week later and still no response.
Okay, okay, maybe he's just busy and hasn't gotten around to responding yet since he wants to be able to spend time on writing a very well thought out and clever reply to send back to me.
Two weeks. Three. Zilch.
Okay, maybe I'll just send another quick note just to make sure he wasn't planning on writing back but accidentally deleted the first e-mail and lost my address...
Another week. Nothing. Until tonight. Finally, a response tonight. About fucking time. It started out as an apology note for being so late with the reply and eventually went on to say all those nice things like how good it was to see me, blah blah blah... I was in the middle of deciding just how long I should wait to send my reply (two days? Three?) when the boy in question IMed me. We wasted no time. Within about five IMs, we were already on the topic of each other. It started off well. I joked about stalking him at work and he responded by saying that I could "never stalk him enough" (so cute you could puke, right?) and we went on like that for a few minutes. Then things started to feel a little off. I wasn't sure how to take some of the things he was saying. Then he fucking brings up a mutual friend of ours and starts asking me questions about him. Questions that pretty much eluded to the fact that there may be an interest there from his end.
I was fucking pissed. I mean, holy shit, is he retarded? Do you do that? Do you actually start interrogating about another guy to a guy who very obviously likes you and, dammit, was under the seemingly idiotic impression that you liked him back? I could stand it no longer. A year ago I would have bit my lip and calmed myself but a year of Meinser acting training will beat that shit out of you.
"Excuse me, my darling," I said, "but have I made it so unclear by this point in time that I'm interested in you? That I fucking like you? Apparently, I haven't made it quite glaringly obvious enough since you've just provided me with more ignorance than I've ever been exposed to at once."
He apologized immediately and assured me that everything he said was partly in jest (partly?). He explained that he's afraid of the "nice ones" because they're always who he ends up getting hurt by in the end. That's why he even brought up the other guy who is more or less known to be a bit of a tramp. He told me that I've always struck him as "a sweet, down to Earth guy who doesn't get involved in all that gay bullshit. That's why I've always had a genuine soft spot for you. I like you."
His apology did manage to calm me down a bit but I couldn't help but feel as though a huge hole had been blown in the "nice guy" image of him I had since the day we met. I decided that further investigation would be necessary. Well, I decided so after he asked me if I wanted to come down to see him for a night once my show closes around the 20th.
Ugh, I know what you're thinking. I know, I know. But I can't help it. It's the power of the universe, I swear.