Color Blast

There’s a feeling you get – a feeling that flushes from your heart to your head, and eventually down to your lower body. The feeling overtakes you and makes you want to stomp. Makes you want to look in the mirror and say, “you’re the one.” That’s the feeling you get when you’re about to see that boy.

Boy in Color, as you might recall, is my college crush. A crush that began at a party, like any other party, but it became so much more.

So here you are, getting ready in your room. About to see him one last time before graduation, before life, eventually, gets in the way, in the way of what you feel might be real. You blast on Santigold. A song that you love. A song that you know he loves too. It takes balls to go up to a guy, I admit. But it takes a full-beating heart to go up to the guy that takes your breath away, almost without trying.

He has tried. You’ve noticed, and what at first seemed like a delusion, turns out to be… sparks. He feels it as strongly as you do, you’re sure. How else can you explain this feeling? And so, you’ve resolved that, with this knowledge, you’re going to blast your feelings just as loud as the music in your room – all packed up in boxes containing remnants of a past life, a college boy eager to find his path.

Nothing sets the heart beating faster than a ticking clock. With mere hours left before college comes and goes, it’s either act or let go.

You walk into the dive bar in downtown Chicago. It smells, but it’s what your senior class decided to make the final stop. Immediately – because we all know you’re your confident veneer shields a sensitive and insecure soul inside – you dash to your friends, the girls and boys that you’ve accepted, after many classes and many more drinks, “get you” – as incomprehensible and complex and superficial and extreme and perfectly broken that you are.

And because they get you, they rally you on. They know that you’re ready to talk to Boy in Color. But this talk is unlike any other you’ve had before. This talk is about context and consequence. You want to let him know how you feel.

Boy in Color is hanging on to his friends, the girls and boys that “get him.” So after taking a big gulp of your well drink, gin and tonic perhaps, you walk over by the jukebox to try to infiltrate his group, so that maybe you can be one of the boys that “gets him” too. You sense the air between the two of you thickens as you walk closer, as if a barrier you must break before finally getting to him. But you don’t stop. You keep walking.

In the midst of drunken bodies, you see him notice you. Flashing a quick smile that brightens up his face, Boy in Color puts down his drink and dashes to meet you. He’s excited to see you, and you break the barrier with a wholehearted hug.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” he says loudly over the music.

“Yeah, I had lots of packing to do, but I couldn’t miss this,” you reply signaling to the sea of familiar faces flooding the bar, ordering drinks, laughing in

unison, former roommates and former flings, classmates and best friends, excited to be finally done with college and scared that it’s all over.

“So when are you leaving?” You ask to keep the conversation going.

“Well, I finished moving out of my apartment earlier this week. Right now, I’m staying with a friend downtown for a few days.”

“Do you have any plans for what you’re doing after that?”

“I’m going home for, like, a month. Then it’s off to Buenos Aires for who-knows-how-long. That’s as much of a plan as I’ve got,” Boy in Color says with a smirk. “How about you? Back to New York City?”

“No… not yet. I think I’m moving to San Francisco. I mean, it’s not like I have a job there, or anywhere for that matter.”

“Man, I’d love to move to San Francisco.”

You take a sip from your gin and tonic and a picture flashes in your head of you and him living in San Francisco, together. You turn around and take another look at the crowd. A face splashes to the surface, one that you don’t recognize. This glowing face belongs to a tall guy with spiky, almost plastic, dark blond hair. He spots Boy in Color, and smiles with his crooked teeth. As he approaches, Boy in Color puts his arm around your shoulder and leans in to whisper, “Oh, there’s the friend I’m staying with.”

“Did he go to school with us?”

“No. He’s older; lives around here. I met him a couple of months ago.” Then he stalls, not sure if he wants to share this last part: “I guess he thinks we’re seeing each other.”

“What makes him think that?”

But before Boy in Color can answer, Crooked Smile shoves himself onto him to give him a hug. He stands back and looks at you as if you were some alien from outer space. Right after Boy in Color introduces you, you make an excuse and head towards the restroom. Never a good idea to come clean to your crush while his part-time lover imposes in with his harsh hugs, infiltrating your sparks with his stinging cologne.

About an hour later, you notice that Crooked Smile has not left his side. And all you want is a minute alone, a minute to clear the air so that you can go to San Francisco and he can go to Buenos Aires and nothing was left unsaid. So you resort to your old trusted pal – your pack of Parliaments. You walk back to Boy in Color and nudge his arm.

“Smoke?” You ask inviting him out with you in the most friendly of forms.

“I quit smoking.”

“Oh, come on! One cigarette?” You are tempted to add a “For old time’s sake,” but stop yourself out of fear of sounding like a total sap.

Boy in Color takes a second and then smiles and walks towards you, grabbing your pack and taking a cigarette. The patio is mostly empty, and you can’t picture a better opportunity. Enough small talk, you take the plunge.

“So why are you staying with that guy?”

“You think he sucks?”

“You don’t?”

“You’re right. He does suck. But I invited him here, I have to stay with him.”

“You don’t have stay with him,” you say, almost imploring. You look directly into his eyes and repeat it. “Don’t stay with him,” you go on, “stay with me. Tonight.” And you don’t have to say anything else. Whatever he might have suspected of a mutual attraction, his eyes and your words have made it apparent. He keeps looking at you, taking his time before saying another word. And at this point, his response is almost inconsequential. It feels so good to let the air between you dissolve so smoothly. Tonight was about you letting him know and letting him go.

Several people stumble out and join you on the patio. Friends of friends surround you and you lose the intimacy. But after such a loaded conversation, you appreciate the frivolity. Boy in Color turns to them and shushes them down. Apparently, he has something to declare to the group. You’re smiling and smoking and happy.

“I just want to say… what a great guy Oscar is.” Yep, he’s talking about you. “I hate that college is over, if only because I won’t get to hang out with you more often.” You start to blush. “And I want you to know,” now he’s looking at you, “that no matter how far away I am, you can always count on me for anything. And I mean that… anything.”

Your drunken friends cheer him on, and the outdoor party moves back in to order another round of drinks.

Now the night is coming to a close. You grab your jacket from the pile that’s accumulated on one of the tables and make your way to say your goodbyes. Boy in Color notices that you’re getting ready to go. He closes his left eye and points at you as if aiming a gun. You walk over and give him a hug, gentler than when you first saw him earlier that night but just as warm.

“I’ll see you again?” you ask in a soft whisper while he’s still holding on to you.

And with his signature smirk, he replies: “In living color.”

Light My Fire

I have to tell him how I feel. And tonight is my last chance.

It’s gotten to the point where I don’t care whether he likes me back or if rejection is the only thing coming my way. We are moving out. Come tomorrow we won’t be living next door to each other anymore. It’s too late for serious us. I just need to know if what I have been sensing this whole time is real.

All of these feelings flushed in right from the very beginning. The week before senior year, I was walking around my front lawn after I’d just finished unpacking. I kicked off my flimsy flip-flops and began pacing barefoot on the cool grass wearing only a loose white v-neck and faded Levi’s. I wiped the few drops of sweat from my brow and took out my pack of Parliaments. I needed a cigarette to help me relax after my grueling moving-in. But September in Chicago is notoriously windy, and my lighter, like most things I owned at the time, was cheap and unreliable. I kept flicking it, cupped my hands around the flame and tried to keep it going long enough to cause some serious damage to my unlit Parliament, much to no avail.

I was starting to get frustrated when I noticed a boy plopping down the steps of the porch next door and slowly heading towards my direction. He was wearing a pair of forest green shorts and a white t-shirt similar to mine except wrinkled and with grass stains, as if he’d been doing cartwheels or wrestling on the grass. His dark brown wavy hair swayed in the wind and from his dry pink lips dangled a lit Parliament. It took me a second to recognize him.

“Hey there, I’m Boy in Color, your neighbor apparently,” he said looking at me and then glancing at my house. I shared a front lawn with the boy who had taken my breath away the minute I had first laid eyes on him at that party not so long ago. And exactly like before, the world went grey as he glowed in multicolor. Being next to me got me in some sort of visual trance.

“Hi,” I said staring straight into his juvenile eyes as he continued to approach me cutting through the grass. “You got a lighter? Mine’s a piece of shit.”

“Here, let me show you a trick,” he said taking my lighter from my hands. “Put the cigarette in your mouth, and pull your collar over it to block it from the wind.” I was skeptical and pictured my white shirt engulfing in flames, but I followed his instructions. “And now light it from underneath,” he said and reached under my shirt, gently gracing my happy trail as he made his way upwards with my lighter in his hand. It tickled, and the sensation stretched from my belly to my back and down my spine.

He got the lighter up to my chest and lit my heart on the very first try.

And in the nine months that followed, our entire senior year, the flame between us continued to flicker in the wind, never dying down. During our late night conversations sitting on the rackety bench on his porch, our knees touching while we waited for the sun to come up, I’d lean on him slightly and feel him applying pressure back on me; while watching cheesy scary movies on rainy Sunday afternoons, he’d turn to me with and flash me a soft smile whenever I made a clever comment no one else understood; or after the brief, silly friend fights we’d get into for pretending not to care, we’d hug as a sign of peacemaking, but our hugs always lingered as a sign of something else.

During all of this, I made sure to guard our flame while he kept fanning it. Because whenever we’d undergo a cold front, it’d only take a longing look, a tender touch or a few words to bring us right back to the warm sentiment I felt we shared.

And now on the last night I’ll be seeing him before we both jet off into opposite sides of the country, and I can’t believe I never got close enough to confess how I feel. I have been so afraid of getting burned, thinking that in this fire, a friend is the worse thing to lose.

But I have to know if this is real. Because I feel like I’m burning, and if Boy in Color can’t save me, he has to let me cool.

I have to tell him how I feel. And tonight is my last chance. I think again as I walk out my front door, light a Parliament under my collar and make my

way to the sports bar our entire senior class will be at on our last night of college.

[To be continued…]

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.

Where There’s Smoke… (Part II)

I wake up next to Mr. Danger and quickly climb off his bed without making much noise. I go to the restroom, splash cold water on my face and look at the mirror as I mouth the word, “Fuck!” I keep running all the details from last night over and over in my head but yet cannot come to any form of clear conclusion.

I sit on his bed and put on my sneakers. He is still fast asleep, breathing softly and grabbing on to his large pillow by his head. I consider waking him up and letting him know I’m leaving. But, really, what am I supposed to say?

“Oh, thanks for smoking me up, I can’t believe we smoked two bowls. I really liked hanging out with you and watching Cruel Intentions, while we talked nuzzled underneath your sheets. Sarah Michelle Gellar is such a psycho princess in that movie, right? Oh and thanks for suggesting that I should spend the night, even though I was kind of thinking that I should just be heading home when it started getting late and you hinted that you were ready to go to sleep. Oh wait, you didn’t say you were ready to go to sleep, you said you were ready to do something else. What did you have in mind exactly?

Then you turned the lights off and turned your back on me, but a few seconds later began rubbing your butt up against my thigh and caressing my lower leg with your feet. And when I rolled over and started spooning you and running my cold hands up and down your torso, you didn’t flinch away. Instead, you exhaled heavily. And then I started fingering the elastic on your boxer briefs and getting so close down to your crotch. But then I stopped. You noticed I stopped. And I turned over and closed my tired, drunk, stoned, delirious, horny eyes. But then, you rolled over and got so close to me that I could feel your breath on my cheek. And you began poking my hips with your knees. And when I turned my head to look at you, you didn’t look away. So I kissed you, and you kissed me back briefly, softly, before you closed your mouth, recoiled back gently and said, ‘We shouldn’t do this.’

Right, I shouldn’t have kissed you. And you shouldn’t have lied to me about lying to my best friend, you shouldn’t have had invited me over, asked me to spend the night, put your body so close to mine, teasing me to make a move. And I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

No, I don’t say anything. I just grab my phone and put on my jacket and leave, slamming his apartment door as I exit. If I can’t sleep in, neither should he.

It’s a beautiful day in Lakeview, I ponder as I dash to catch the train back to campus. The entire morning, I expect the worse from Mr. Danger, calling Captain Spirit and telling him his side of the story. “And then he tried to kiss me!” he’d say after manipulating the facts, just like he manipulated me, just like he manipulated Captain Spirit.

And it really gets to me. My entire young adult life, when it comes to friends, the one rule I’ve declared rigid solid, unforgivable if broken, is “bros before hos.” Silly as it sounds, it can shred. And after everything I knew and stood by, to throw it all away for a 2-minute kiss? I feel like I’ve cheated myself.

The only legitimate reason I can come up with to justify Mr. Danger’s actions is that he was using me maybe to end things with his boyfriend, inconsiderate of the possibility that his actions might also ends things for me and my best friend. No, not his actions. Mine too. Fuck. But surely, there are easier ways to break off a relationship that do not involve setting up a trap. And in between all these rundowns of possible scenarios, my mind keeps lingering on what a great time I had hanging out with Mr. Danger, talking, smoking and watching the movie, before things got sticky.

I get back to my apartment and check my e-mail. And there it is. A notification from Facebook. Mr. Danger had written on my wall just mere minutes ago.

“Why the escape? Did an alarm go off?”

I’m positive that there’s some part of Mr. Danger that wants to get caught. That night at Sonotheque, I expect a hell blaze. An impending confrontation with Mr. Danger and with Captain Spirit, I’m ready to defend my loyalty, wavering as it might seem. I put on my second favorite pair of jeans, just in case drinks come flying at me during the course of the night.

Captain Spirit shows up alone. I’m relieved that I won’t have to deal with Mr. Danger just yet, but worried that his absence might suggest build up for a looming resolution even more explosive than I had planned for.

“Where is Mr. Danger? I thought you said he was coming with you tonight?” I ask even though I had told myself not to ask.

“He’s staying in tonight,” Captain Spirit answers without even a hint of suspicion. “I think we wore him out last night!”

Maybe not…

But as the night progresses, I realize that Captain Spirit is clueless as to my whereabouts the night before and not a bit curious either. He would have mentioned something, if he thought something was off. Thankfully, I regain some emotional stability to enjoy the last hours at the club. Captain Spirit and I are standing by the bar, waiting for another round when he says, “I think I’m going to try to be single for a while.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m serious. All these guys, even when I know it’s not going anywhere, I keep investing so much. It’s so draining.”

“Oh come on! You always get the most devoted, reliable puppy dogs going crazy over you! All of your past boyfriends were upfront about how they felt, never played games. What more do you want?”

“I don’t know, I feel like something has been missing. And I keep buckling down each time a decent guy comes around. I don’t even know if they’re right. Or what I want, what I’m missing.”

“You’re happiest in a committed relationship. It’s in your DNA. You’re the boyfriend type and I’m the type who…” I stop and I can’t say it. It suddenly comes pouring over me—a drunken retrospective of my dating life so drenched in disaster.

“You’re the type who never settles,” finishes Captain Spirit with an emotional tissue to wipe away my self-pity like only a best friend could. “That’s what I’m missing, the one thing you always go for: sparks.”

“Sparks tend to combust,” I reply.

“Sometimes, but it’s better than faking interest in someone out of fear of being alone.”

“Yeah, but aren’t we alone now?” I ask raising an eyebrow and looking around the crowded club.

“No way!” Captain Spirit responds immediately. He’s still a little frightened of being alone. “We are… in transition,” he says after careful deliberation.

“In transition,” I repeat with emphasis. I’m liking the term. “And all we need is sparks to launch the rocket.”

“All we need is sparks,” he repeats.

As we make for the exit right before closing time, I turn to Captain Spirit and thank him for coming out. I had never felt the need to do that before, but for some reason, tonight, it feels like I should.

“Of course,” he says a little thrown off by my formal regards. “You planned this whole thing, you know I wouldn’t miss it.”

Captain Spirit was right that night. We weren’t alone.

The thing about sparks is that sometimes they’re actually an alarm signaling for you to run in the opposite direction. And sometimes, they can be going off right in front of you without you even realizing they’re real.

[Where There's Smoke... (Part I)]

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.