A Real Boy

After one too many times riding the roller coaster that is dating boys who think they’re the biggest thrill you’ll ever find, I was ready to leave the amusement park. For a couple of weeks, I was on a self-imposed boycott so I could straighten out my life. Three months short of graduation, I still had yet to find a stable entry-level slave camp that would take me solely on the fact that I’d overpaid for my education.

The last thing I needed was the twists, turns and inevitable bumps of a new guy, especially since I’ve noticed recently I tend to attract men who rely on me to carry on a big chunk of their baggage. Eccentric like from another planet, if not completely psychotic, my previous paramours had the tendency to drown me in drama when all I wanted was to stay afloat.

I’ve often wondered what it is about my personality that makes me a magnet for extremity. Perhaps, I’m too accommodating to their demands, or maybe a more suitable explanation is that I’m the one drawn towards them. I do admit: I’m like a month flying mindlessly towards the flickering light in the dark until it gets burnt. I find something oddly alluring about a boy engulfed in his own flame.

So if it’s me, then it’s a behavior I can change, I thought. No more game-playing, ego boost-craving, manipulative boys. When everything is covered in starry facades, a down-to-earth attitude is what really shines. And so I made it my mission to look for that, a real boy.

It was this ongoing quest that convinced me to make one exception to my boycott and head down to the Gold Coast to meet my latest fling, a guy I had met two weeks before at a clothing boutique in Lincoln Park while looking to purchase a new pair of jeans.

“Hi, do you work here?” I asked pretty sure that he worked there.

“No, but I’m sure I can help you,” he said self-assured that he could work there.

“Ah, I don’t know about that. I’m pretty picky when it comes to jeans.”

“Everyone should be; it’s hard to find the right pair.” And with that he walked over to the wall where all the jeans were hanging and offered his advice on several styles. As it turns out, he’s somewhat of a denim connoisseur who hunts down rare denim through thrift shops and on eBay.

We exchanged numbers that afternoon and had been texting incessantly ever since. I’m weary of sparks that stem from impersonal communication like texts or online, but when I started getting all giddy whenever my phone vibrated, I knew it wasn’t forged.

I perceived this guy to be somewhat of a different breed from the self-aware, superficial fireflies I had encountered in the past. In the many conversations he initiated, he illustrated an aversion to the Boystown merry-go-round: mind fucking, disposable eye candy and all things crafted to impress. He was just comfortable staying in his apartment, cooking dinner for his friends and watching a Tim Burton flick. Which is what he had planned for me that night. A date at his place, exactly the type of real boy behavior I longed for.

I arrive at his Gold Coast apartment building, and I’m initially taken aback by the high-priced décor of the building. I wonder how a junior in college has the resources to indulge in such a lavish living arrangement. After signing in as a guest, the doorman calls him up, says my name, and after a subtle nod lets me through to the elevators.

Denim Boy opens the door to his pad and gives me a hug. He had gotten a hair cut since we had last seen each other, his curly black hair is now more rectangular in shape, but his light blue eyes had stayed just the same. He is delighted to see me carrying a brown bag with not one but two bottles of red wine to complement the penne pasta with vodka sauce he has prepared especially for the occasion.

After dinner, we sit on his black leather couch perusing though old issues of fashion magazines while Batman Returns blares on his television screen. Our favorite Batman movie, we concur. After the scene where Michelle Pfeiffer trashes her modest secretary apartment and turns it into a twisted Hello Kitty fetish bordello, I grab his attention and point out the new Louis Vuitton ad with a very naked Marc Jacobs decorated in bright neon pink lettering.

“You know I’m really good friends with his ex-boyfriend,” he says assuming I had no idea about Marc Jacobs’s personal love life.

“Jason Preston?!” I ask knowing every detail.

“Yeah, that’s who I stay with whenever I’m in New York.”

Real boys don’t associate with Marc Jacobs’s ex-boyfriends, I thought. So then I have to ask, “How do you know him?”

“Well, for a while… I was seeing this guy… who… you know… used to model for Diesel,” he says quite aware of how ridiculous that statement is on a first date. How ridiculous this whole conversation is in general.

I make a face to indicate to him my utter lack of words. Like there’s no way I’m going to compete with a Diesel model. But I’m partly just playing up to the ridiculous scenario. It doesn’t really get to me. What I do ponder is whether Denim Boy has any other secrets that propel him further out into the stratosphere, where fashion models, reality TV stars and lunatics reside.

So maybe he isn’t as ordinary and uncomplicated and real as I had hoped, but we’ve been having a great time and social circles don’t necessarily dictate the true nature underneath. Besides, if I ran away from every guy with connections to the glossy glossy lifestyle, I would be stuck somewhere between Nebraska and my own private Idaho, and I can’t even tell you where those states are on a map. My only concern now that I had learned of my predecessors is to… work it. Better than a model.

Which to me, at that time, drunk on red wine, means to start making out hard core on the couch to the very loud sounds of Danny Elfman.

The Last Move

It’s a well-known rule in my code of conduct that I will never make the first move. Not because I’m afraid of rejection; not because I don’t have anything to say; not because I get easily intimidated.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that, believe it or not, I’m a pretty shy guy, especially around a very particular breed of guys, whom I refer to as “beat skippers.”

Yes, I can usually muster up enough bravado to strike up a lively conversation with a bunch of strangers. But with those certain boys that make my heart skip a beat, it’s a completely different story. When it comes to interacting with potential bedmates, I tend to freeze rather than flirt.

Besides, I’m not the type of guy who walks up to you at the club with the sole intention of taking you home. Transparent is the one color that you won’t find in my stylebook. If anything, for me, the giant dance dens of New York are platonic spaces where most of the time is spent bumping into old friends and making new ones, with a few scattered breaks to savor the eye candy, of course. Not to mention that nothing screams desperate like scanning the floor for unsuspecting victims, and nothing whispers great catch like dancing like you just don’t care.

So here I am, at Sugarland in Brooklyn, on a Saturday night, standing by the bar, swirling the ice in my drink with my straw and looking at this guy that just walked by. Dark complexion, scruffy beard, a hard jaw, and my heart just skipped a beat. He seems like a cocky fellow, someone difficult to impress. I know that if I go up to him now, like a missile zooming in straight towards its target, the only thing that will go up in flames will be my ego. So I consider taking a more subtle approach.

He’s talking to some friends by the stage, so I grab a few of mine and suggest we relocate from the bar to the dancefloor, not far from Skipper. I don’t subscribe to the whole fixating-gaze-leads-to-sex mating ritual, mostly because I feel like it’s fucking creepy and would be just as subtle as shooting a wide-eyed Bambi with a rifle and carrying the body back to my lair. I know that place has a reputation for being kind of lax when it comes to getting crazy, but I’m pretty sure that the Sugarland management and staff would not stand for that shit.

“Do you guys want a shot for a dollar? It’s bright, bright purple and comes in a test tube—OH MY GOD, YOU’VE KILLED BAMBI!”

So just think about it: every time you give the stare down treatment to an innocent cutie at the club… it’s like you’re shooting Bambi all over again. Most importantly, the cutie immediately files you in the Dahmer/Dead Disney/Date Rape drawer. A very difficult drawer to get out of, I’d say.

What is this post even about? Oh yeah… so the Ting Tings come on, and I’m dancing in front of Skipper, trying to get him to notice me. We’re so close, I could take a step back and we’d be grinding. Once in a while, I make sure to unceremoniously brush my arm up against his torso. Did he? Didn’t he? Yes, I did. I get pure satisfaction out of causing a commotion and drawing the attention of the crowd, so this doesn’t seem particularly shameless.

What comes next does. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Skipper head upstairs to the outdoor patio to smoke a cigarette. Of course! I have been trying to quit smoking but… fuck it! I follow him by myself this time, and realize that, no I have not quit smoking cigarettes; I’ve just quit buying them.

I linger on the outskirts of Skipper’s conversation for a minute and then randomly bust in to the half circle of friends to ask if anyone’s got an extra cigarette. Their apologetic expressions break the bad news. It’s ok; I wouldn’t give me a cigarette either. Besides, I’m not really out there for a smoke break. I figure that if I’m not going to make the first move, my best bet is to carefully situate myself within Skipper’s frame at various moments throughout the night, and making it seem like I’m not stalking him by playing it all up to be just mere coincidence. Like it’s meant to happen, caught in each other’s radars.

All right… yeah, basically, I’m throwing myself at him.

Out on the Sugarland patio, he looks at me, and I’m not sure if he’s intrigued or disgusted. Either way, I feel unbearably transparent. Then he reaches deep inside his messenger bag, probably trying to dig up the last remains of my dignity? No… a pack of Parliaments!

“Oh, do you have a light too?” I say delighted but interrupting the conversation yet again.

“What? Do you want me to smoke it for you too?” He says with a childish sneer and reaching into his pocket for a lighter. The teasing gives my hopes one last thrust. But right after I finish lighting the cigarette, I notice that their smoke break is over and he’s making his way back inside.

“We’ll be down by the dancefloor,” he says, taking my hand in his when taking back his lighter. I stay out there and finish the entire cigarette, giving him just enough time to take my file out of the stalker drawer.

After I’m finally done, I step back inside still adamant about not breaking the first move rule, but at this point, I’m more than ready to make the second, third, fourth and fifth.

Skipper is standing by the door with his friends, looking around. Is he looking for me? I look around. Where did my friends go? Is he going to make a move? Or is he just going to go?

As I walk down the stairs back to the foggy dancefloor, I start to think: What if Skipper has a first move rule too? What if he’s just waiting for that great guy to notice him on the dancefloor and come say hello? What if we’re all like that? Waiting for that touch, that gaze, that cigarette that will break the silence and form a lasting bridge.

It’s last call. I shouldn’t keep focusing on who approaches whom, who is the predator and who is the prey, who is worthy of the attention and who deserves better. There’s something surprisingly empowering about wearing our hearts on our sleeves and hoping for safe landing.

Maybe I should just start walking in his direction. Not think about what I’m going to say. Not worry about coming off transparent, silly, desperate or drunk (or all of the above). Because I can assume all night long, but I’ll never really know his side unless I ask.

Sometimes, we forget that going out should be about having a good time, not about proving you can find a tipsy guy that will let you shove your tongue down his throat—making the first move as meaningless as casting a net and settling for whatever you catch.

But if we genuinely feel the sparks and believe that the scruffy guy to our right is right, right now, then what’s stopping us from going for it, not like a mindless missile but like on a mission? The worse that can happen is old and rusted rejection. But we’re all big boys here. We can deal.

Any given code of conduct is pointless if it’s rigid, final and fixed, without exceptions and footnotes, especially if sticking by the rules leaves us standing alone, in a closing club, frozen yet reluctant to make a move.

Right after last call, if you still can’t come up with the clever words that will impress… then just kiss him. Anything’s better than watching a guy that makes your heart skip a beat walk out at the end of the night, leaving you regurgitating empty “what if’s” and regretting all your subtle, indirect, absurd moves and thinking: “I should’ve said hello.”

Every first move we make might very well be our last.