Collected and traded

[muckefuck]

Yesterday evening I made my way to A Taste of Heaven in Andersonville. (Yes, that Taste of Heaven.) I took a seat at the window bathed in sunlight and looked out on the people strolling by as I sipped tea, read my books, and devoured a lovely roasted pear salad with juicy tender chicken and rich dollops of cheese. It would've been perfectly delightful if not for one thing[*]: I was only killing time waiting for the summons to join Bumiputeri at Hamburger Mary's.

Initially I was puzzled why she invited me out for drinks with her work friends. What do I have to talk about with a bunch of social workers anyway? Puzzled, that is, until she told me how much she wanted me to meet her co-worker Rick. Even before she spoke the dreaded words "You two have a lot in common," I knew what was up.

She was playing collect and trade.

My first gay mentor warned me about this game way back in high school. "When you're gay, women collect and trade you like baseball cards. 'Oh, you've got a gay friend? I've got a gay friend. Let's get our gay friends together!" But I wasn't out until college, so I was able to dodge being the victim of this game for another four years. I can still hear my college pal Sandra's voice uttering almost exactly the same codephrases. "You have a lot in common." "You'll like him."

Can we all agree right off the bat that "You'll like him" is just an obnoxiously presumptuous thing to say in general, regardless of motives or reasoning? That would raise my hackles even coming from someone who thoroughly understands my taste. Seventeen years I've known Nuphy--one of the most easygoing men I've ever met--and I still can't predict which of my friends he'll hit it off with and which he won't.

The good thing about being un pédé d'un certain age is that you know the drill, you know the other guy does, too, and you can both minimise the awkwardness of the situation. If you choose to, that is.

Thing is, I'm a bad friend. I know that if I agree to certain things, I should have the decency to see them through with good grace. But I combine being too well-intentioned to turn someone down with being too petty to keep my big mouth shut. So there I was in the back bar with Bumiputeri and her friend Jazz, hearing her say once again, "You'll like him." And I was simply too fed up not to ask:

"Why will I like him?"
"Because you two have things in common."
"What do we have in common?"
"Well...he's been to Germany."
"Okay. What else?"
"He likes to drink beer, too."
"Okay, beer and Germany. Is that it?"
"He's Catholic."
"You know that I haven't done anything Catholic for twenty years, don't you?"
"No, I didn't. Maybe he'll make you start going to church again."

So what do you think we talked about when he finally did show up? We actually did discuss Germany. It turns out the reason he's been there is that the programme he administers employs a lot of Germans who are doing their civil service. So that was five minutes of conversation. But mostly we talked about neighbourhoods, street crime, and Off Off Campus.

Yep, he went to UofC, too. The SINGLE STRONGEST INDICATOR of our compatibleness and she never thought to mention it. (Not that I get along with everyone who graduated from there by any means, but it does generally guarantee we'll have at least enough interesting conversation to fill an hour.) Naturally we never brought up being gay at all. Why should we? Would two straight people have talked about being straight?

In the end, it all would've been just fine, a decent way of passing an hour. He was no fool either; like any gay man, he'd been here before and knew how to extract himself tactfully. But Bumiputeri had to hover at my elbow as if making small talk with strangers in bars wasn't something I had a good decade and a half of practice with. She once tried to leave but quickly returned because she felt "bad" about leaving us--which is ironic because it was much easier to chat without her watching while doing nothing to get a conversation going.

So next time a female friend tells me about some guy I've just got to meet because "you'll like him", I won't try to humour her. I'll politely volunteer to take her out to dinner myself instead, then gently explain to her the error of her ways.

Objoebehrsandiego: Has a friend ever tried to bring you together with someone you had little in common with? How did you handle the situation?

Any straights out there want to confess to having played collect and trade before? (Reminder: Anonymous posting is enabled.)


[*] Well, two things, actually; the music was incredibly bad. One Van Halen song, okay, ironic retro kitsch. But two? That should be actionable.

Comments

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Does thinking about getting you together with the bear priest translator count? Though ultimately it never happened ...

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

No, because "ZOMG languages!" is a genuine point of compatibility. Also, the "bear" part already puts you head and shoulders above the pack. As a big bear guy told me last night, "IME it's always some skinny fashionista too and I don't care about that shit". The guy last night was about ten stone and wore supertrendy frames that probably cost more than my ultrathin corrective bifocal lenses.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. Also, I don't really know that he's gay, it now occurs to me.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

See, that's the clincher. The way collect-and-trade typically works, the woman's mind never goes beyond "gay" to find other points of compatibility.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I've seen the same sort of thing with "single" as the determinative factor. (prilicla and I verbally shorthand it to "He breathes oxygen?!? She breathes oxygen!") Being spared that is one of the many reasons I'm grateful for her.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That was the part that was especially bizarre to me. I mean, it's not she doesn't know about monshu. And the impression this guy gives off is not of someone who has trouble making friends, gay or straight. So it wasn't even matchmaking, it was just some urge to put gay people together and...what? Watch us do each other's hair?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Furthermore, wasn't I the one who suggested you introduce the two of us in the first place?

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

I think maybe you were, now that you mention it. At first I just couldn't believe you didn't already know him somehow.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Much as I make it my business to get to know every linguistically-oriented bear gentleman I can find, to my sorrow I do occasionally miss a few.

[(Anonymous)]

I did this with my ex.

Our friend was in town from San Francisco, and I had just made friends with another gay man. We should have them meet up with us for drinks! They were wise to the game, as I sadly was not. I can use the half-assed excuse that I'm just an ignorant straight man, but my ex lived in SF and should have known better.

It could have been more awkward. It was pretty boring and our two gays had not much to say to one another.

[mollyc-q.livejournal.com]

I've never done this to you! Do you know why? I am absolutely terrified of setting up my friends with each other as buddies or romantically... and at Chicago - the personality quirks preclude introducing anyone to anyone outside of a gathering where nobody is there to intentionally meet anyone else [shudder]. I actually do recall you mentioning the baseball card phenomenon, I recall thinking why would you think I would know anyone cool enough to match with you (multiple languages, wit enough to translate the Smiths into German.... )

But I used to get this when I was on campus for grad school, there was another Rothschild Giraffe and everybody thought we belonged together. Bear in mind in terms of personalities it would have been like pairing Martha Stewart with Zonker Harris.

[(Anonymous)]

I have only done the trade&collect thing with trans friends. Is that different at all, I don't know.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I couldn't say either.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I read an interview of a gay man who was born in 1907 and worked with, among other notables, Josephine Baker. She kept trying to match him up with a friend of hers, but the two men had zero chemistry. They hated to disappoint Baker, though, so they always pretended to be a couple around her.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people are still proud to have a gay friend - or two!

This happens a lot to foreigners, too. I've been assumed to "have a lot in common" with random Europeans, Australians and just generally expats. I generally can't get out of there fast enough, except among Brazilians who genuinely do seem to want to herd.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was trying to come up with an analogy that Bumiputeri would understand, but I don't think that one works because she seems thrilled to meet other Malaysians and even Indonesians. On the other hand, perhaps the Muslim thing.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

I find this with Swiss. They are generally pleased to find that it's such a small Swiss world!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I think it tends to be true of most smaller expat groups, whereas many Americans and Britons abroad show exactly the opposite tendency.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

to the unending amusement of my wife. You English people really don't like each other, do you?

...well, I married a Brazilian and left the country with no plans to return...

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

I tried to do that with two Métis people once, and then felt like a total ass when I had some time to think about it. But partly I was responding to the one person giving me shit for wearing a sash, and was kind of trying to deflect her onto the other person.

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

I've been in that situation before; not recently, thankfully.

I try to be civil but also not dilly-dally; I know myself well enough to know that if the time extends too long it'll be obvious that I really, really would rather be somewhere else. Often that has involved a white lie; feeling off, having to be somewhere and alert very early the next morning, etc.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I realised too late that I should've had "a friend I'm meeting for drinks later" waiting in the wings. It also would've given me an excuse to check my phone!