Something a little different
Yesterday I had a good laugh at one of those odd coincidences that define gay social life in Chicago. So, remember how the weekend before I ran into a friend of this guy I attempted to date three years ago? Well, Saturday I saw one of the guys I met as a result of that failed date at a housewarming and told the whole story again. Sunday I went to Pride North and ran into the friend of the guy--and this time he was there too! I looked at him and casually said, "Hi, Fernando." He said nothing and walked away with a tall red-beared man in tow (presumably his new beau). I LOLed and then turned back to exchange a wry look with his friend.
My favourite interaction of the afternoon involved chatting up a handsome guy who was palling around with someone who kind of used me for sex last year. I noticed a tattoo in Syriac script on his arm and impressed the hell out of him by reading it. (It said "Samuel" but he introduced himself as "Hugh" so there must be some story there.) Later the User informed me via messenger that he was sweet on the Assyrian and eating his heart out watching him flirt with other men. My reaction was a mix of empathy ("been there, it sucks") and pettiness ("now you know how I felt, you bastard").
Bringing a sort of closure to things, I ended the evening with what may have been a date. A guy I met a month ago at a street fair and hadn't seen again due to COVID came up to Pride North to hang with me and I took him to dinner at a pan-Latin restaurant around the corner. At one point I described him as "interesting" and he said, "Why do you think I'm interesting?" I replied, "Because you don't look or sound like anyone else I know."
And it made me realise that's something I value in the people I know.![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladytiamat once told me that what destroyed her solipsism was meeting someone at high school who made her think, "Hmm, maybe I didn't make you up." I've taken stabs before at fictionalising my life and it's made me appreciate how difficult it would be to make characters out of some of my friends because I really can't reproduce either the cadence or the content of their speech. In a world where 90% of what people say to you can be safely predicted from context, those folks who seldom, if ever, say what's expected really stand out.
My favourite interaction of the afternoon involved chatting up a handsome guy who was palling around with someone who kind of used me for sex last year. I noticed a tattoo in Syriac script on his arm and impressed the hell out of him by reading it. (It said "Samuel" but he introduced himself as "Hugh" so there must be some story there.) Later the User informed me via messenger that he was sweet on the Assyrian and eating his heart out watching him flirt with other men. My reaction was a mix of empathy ("been there, it sucks") and pettiness ("now you know how I felt, you bastard").
Bringing a sort of closure to things, I ended the evening with what may have been a date. A guy I met a month ago at a street fair and hadn't seen again due to COVID came up to Pride North to hang with me and I took him to dinner at a pan-Latin restaurant around the corner. At one point I described him as "interesting" and he said, "Why do you think I'm interesting?" I replied, "Because you don't look or sound like anyone else I know."
And it made me realise that's something I value in the people I know.
ladytiamat once told me that what destroyed her solipsism was meeting someone at high school who made her think, "Hmm, maybe I didn't make you up." I've taken stabs before at fictionalising my life and it's made me appreciate how difficult it would be to make characters out of some of my friends because I really can't reproduce either the cadence or the content of their speech. In a world where 90% of what people say to you can be safely predicted from context, those folks who seldom, if ever, say what's expected really stand out.
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