The Death of Imagination

I hate backsliding. I know it's part of every natural process of weaning yourself off anything but it's annoying and frustrating.

Yeah, this is another post about BB. Friday night he joined the rest of us for a bit on the SoFo patio and was showcasing the bitchier side of his personality, as he tends to do in situations like that. But then at one point he kind of apologising, throwing his arm around me and saying something about how I knew he really appreciated me, right? And instead of leaning into the moment, I did what I always seem to do and teased him about finally showing some genuine affection for a change, at which point he took his arm away and said, "I'll never do that again!" Then it was my turn to apologise but it was too late.

Shortly after, he moved to sit on a bench along the wall and all I wanted to do was sit next to him so I could feel him again me again. But I was trapped in conversation with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and, by the time I could get away, BB had decided he'd had enough of SoFo and was heading out to Cellblock. I felt so downcast I considered just going home but it had been a good evening up until then and I didn't want to end it on that note. So I stuck it out and things got better (then they got very weird, but that's another post).

The next day, I was poorly slept and emotional and grappling with the fact that despite everything I'm still in love with his dumb ass. I mean, not anything like I was before, but the gap between where I want to be with him and where I actually am is very palpable and painful. Nothing to do about it, though, than to keep doing what I'm doing--focusing on other relationships and approaching this one with as few expectations as possible--and keep in mind that it's working, despite moments like these.

Naturally, I didn't end up with my three contenders from a field of three. Here's a sampling of some of the other men I've met who just didn't quite grab me.

We'll start with Courteous Will. I chatted him up at 2Bears the weekend we celebrated BB's birthday and we ended up hooking up a couple times, but--for various reasons--it never progressed beyond that. One reason is, of course, that I was still very much hung up on BB back then and it rather muted my eagerness to start something else, even just a fuckbuddy arrangement. On top of that, I felt like I was chasing him too much. In person, he'd appear interested in getting together, but then he'd never text me to arrange anything. (Hmm...that's sounding familiar...) But, basically, though the sex was good, there just wasn't a spark.

Then there's RG from KC. We met at a street fair back in May and seemed to hit it off. He was interested in having me fist him and I was interested in giving that a go, since I've never done it before--I even cut my nails on one hand to show that I was serious--but somehow it never happened. Getting COVID in early June got in the way, as did the fact that he was trying to quit drinking so I didn't feel right inviting him out to bars or over for cocktails. But in the end, it was just a lack of interest on both our parts that doomed this, I guess.

I met the Cuboricua Furball on the beach along with a passel of cute Latines and, despite having a boyfriend, he started sporadically texting me. It's all very innocuous so I can't quite tell what his angle is--just bored and looking for a little attention but willing to play sometime? Worth cultivating for a bit to see what, if anything, develops.

Who else? Various other randos from bars and parties, most younger than me. I met someone at a party July 4th weekend who seemed really into me, so I spent about two weeks trying to get him to commit to something before I just gave up. Shortly before that, clintswan and I met a cutie at Anvil who seemed down to clown. One night I texted him on a whim and he was very flirty but there's been no follow-up since.

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. 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.

So if you'd told me two years ago that my response to eventually testing positive for COVID-19 would have been a shrug of resignation, I'm not sure how I would have responded. At the time, I was confident that we'd ultimately get the upper hand over the disease but I was still prey to a lot of anxiety over it. Even earlier this year, fully vaxxed and boosted, I had plenty of worry. (I chose not to attend my sister's 50th birthday in no small part due to fear of transmission on airplanes and in airports.)

Thanks to the vaccine, my experience was (like many other's) little worse than a cold. I had one particularly bad day at the onset with a fever close to 103℉ followed by two days of feeling just regular bad and since then it's been pretty much just coasting. I still don't feel 100% but I'm not sure at this point how much of that is a combination of things like allergies, the heat wave we're in, and struggling a bit to get my sleep schedule back after over a week of remote work.

I'm still ambivalent about the CDC's guidelines which basically amount to "if it's been ten days and you're asymptomatic we're just gonna assume you're over it". After months and months of admonitions to do all we could not to spread the virus, this feels a bit like giving in. I'd feel better if I'd tested negative, but now the information I'm getting is that the chance of a false positive is too great to make further testing worthwhile--again, quite the reversal from earlier messaging.

When I told folks I'd been with over Memorial Day weekend, the most common response was "Furball, right?" Of course it's impossible to say with any certainty. From the Welcome Party that Thursday to Sidetrack on Mem Day itself, I was at a lot of large gatherings with minimal masking this weekend so there was no shortage of opportunities. Moreover, it's moot at this point; I knew from the onset that going out during a time of high community transmission was risky and I don't know that I would have stayed in even if I'd known with certainty that I'd catch the virus. So no regrets.

Was I bummed to have to cancel so many events (including a concert I'd been given free tickets for, my cocktail night, and a friend's birthday)? Of course. It felt especially frustrating that just as the social season was really picking up and I was getting the nourishment my extrovert spirit needs we had to suddenly slam on the brakes. But--as BB pointed out--it's still early summer, there's lots more to come that I will be able to participate in.

Speaking of BB, I was at first very disappointed by the prospect of not seeing him before he left town. Then I began to think that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing, as it would give us a longer break. Now it looks like I'll be able to see him after all (he and our mutual buddy invited me to dinner with them tomorrow) and I feel fairly neutral about it. The important thing to me was that after initially being kind of shitty about me getting sick he eventually came around.

Crucially, though, I wasn't focussed on that because I had enough other friends get in touch, many of whom with very generous with their offers. At least a half dozen offered to do errands for me (I let one pair bring me back dinner from H Mart and another friend get my prescriptions for me) and others kept in touch to check on my progress. And all that's without making any sort of public announcement, just mentioning my status in passing.

Who I feel worse for is poor clintswan, who most definitely got the virus from me and is now stuck in isolation through the end of the week. He started isolating right after I tested positive so in total that'll make at least two weeks for him. And though he never felt as punk as I did at the beginning, he's suffering loss of taste, and I'd take a day or two of fever over that any day of the week. He's not resentful toward me (I asked if he wanted me to go into strict isolation and he said no), which is good, but I think that may get tested if I start going out and having fun tomorrow without him.

Well, I'm back again which can pretty much only mean one thing. I'll try to follow this post up with one about all the truly positive things from IML Weekend, but I just need to process the stinky parts and this seems to be where I do that these days.

So the big dance party was Furball at the Metro. I was last there three years ago and I remember it being pretty amazing. It also struck me as something BB would enjoy, so before I ordered my ticket I suggested he get one too. He took a little bit of convincing, but I promised that we would "drink, dance, and have a good time" and so he agreed to come.

A couple hours before doors opened, I began to realise just what he had to overcome to do that. His therapist has been urging him to accept all the invitations he can in an effort to have him confront his social anxiety and this was kicking into high gear as he contemplated being surrounded with buff bodies at a monster event someplace he'd never been. So I did my best to reassure him while preparing myself, traveling to Metro, and then waiting in the hour-long queue outside. Fortunately I had company for that, as a guy I know and his best friend hopped into line right behind me.

BB showed up maybe five minutes before they starting letting people in. At my urging, he'd worn his harness under his t-shirt but he was worried he hadn't put it on properly. We eventually ended up going to the vestibule by the upper balcony exit doors so I could adjust it for him. For the first hour, he never left my side while I showed him around and introduced him to what friends I knew were there.

I was pleasantly surprised when he finally relaxed enough to remove his shirt. There was a moment in particular when we were standing at the base of the stairs with my pals from the queue. He was in front of me looking away and I contemplated for a moment draping my arms around him but I didn't want to make him uncomfortable so I held back. A short while later, I was standing on the other side of my pals from him, chatting, and I glanced over and realised he wasn't there. I just figured he'd gone to get another drink. Finally, after maybe 20-30 minutes I texted him and he replied "I'm getting laid! Hahah"

I want to say I was happy for him. I want to actually be happy for him. This was, after all, an expected outcome of this kind of event, a vindication of my efforts to get him to come. But in the moment I felt wretched. I know we weren't going as a couple but, I confess, on some level I was enjoying the fantasy that we were. I also realised that I'd somewhat unconsciously made the focus of my evening making sure that BB had a good time, so without him there, I was suddenly at something of a loss.

I wasn't really getting any play, so I reminded myself that what I'd enjoyed most about this events in the past was dancing with my friends so I started looking for friends to dance with. But the old crowd wasn't there and the new crowds were small and scattered. I bounced from one side of the main floor to the other trying to find them and when I did it was underwhelming. When I managed to locate someone in particular I knew--someone who I'd danced with there before, who had told me just two nights before he was looking forward to dancing with me at Furball--he ignored me. I just couldn't figure out what was going on and realised I didn't want to. I made one last desperate circuit (my pals who had been stationed at the bottom of the stairs for at least an hour were suddenly nowhere to be found) and decided to go.

As a saving grace, on my way out, I ran into an opera singer from New York who I know and like and caught up a bit. He was similarly unenamoured of the music and preparing to leave as well. I ran into him on the street maybe ten minutes later with his best buddy; they were heading to Touché and graciously offered me a ride. I won't say it turned my night around, because my night was effectively over at that point, but it at least arrested my downward emotional slide. At least someone was showing some concern for my well-being.

I literally cried myself to sleep. I lay in bed, played some sad music (drawing the line at "How Soon Is Now" though!), and felt myself tear up before I drifted off. It was fitful sleep. At quarter to 7, I glanced at my phone and saw that BB had finally responded to my request that he text me when he was safely home about half an hour before. (I confess that the first place my stupid mind went to was that when he hooked up with me, it was also around 2 a.m. and he left after three hours, not four.)

Without trying to be too nosy, I asked some questions and found out some basic details. He had only a first name and no picture, so I don't know if this is someone I know or not. I also don't know if that would matter. In any case, we left it that we would chat more later. (I thought we'd have that opportunity Monday, when we had tentative plans to go to the vendor mart together, but he ended up bagging.)

The whole rest of the morning I spent lying in bed trying to sleep and being foiled by my anxiety. It took me a while to sort out what the source of that was. Jealousy, yes (I always thought I'd be the one to fuck BB in that harness, ever since he first sent me a picture of him wearing it the day after we met), but also fear. Fear that he was being taken away from me, that this new guy would become a regular thing and instead of jumping at my invites BB would soon be begging off to spend time with him instead.

I'm well aware that none of this is a healthy reaction to a good thing happening to a friend. It's humiliating to realise I'm not as over him as I thought or want to be and I don't really have a good solution. I talked at length with a couple friends that day and the next and--though they had good advice--they didn't have any remedy for the way I feel now. Not only will BB never love me romantically, this is further evidence that he'll never give me all that I expect from a good friend. (He did at least ask "did you get lucky?" but that was all and there's been no follow-up since.) And at some point, I need to accept that and reduce my investment or I'm just going to grow resentful.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if that isn't the solution. I think about how I overcame some of my bad crushes in the past and often it was the eventual realisation that I was making someone a priority who had no intention of prioritising me and I deserved better. But this is a worse crush than those were and I'm kind of afraid of the level of anger it might take to reach that point. I honestly don't know where things go from here, but I know I need to step back and see what he's willing to do while I work on shifting my focus to all the better friends I've been neglecting for too long.

It's really kind of incredible what difference good sleep makes when it comes to my entire physical and emotional state. Friday night I feel asleep about an hour later than I should have (12:30 as opposed to 11:30); as a result, Saturday I was a complete wreck: my bowels were in an uproar, I was eating badly, I was crying at songs that normally don't even make me choke up, I was obsessing about BB like I hadn't in a couple weeks, etc. Sunday night, however, I turned the light off at 11:15 and slept through until 5:20 or so and I woke up today emotionally balanced and full of energy.

So let's give that proposed post another go, shall we?

A week ago Sunday, I got a random friend request on FB, so I did what I usually do when I get those and I sent the guy a DM. He replied, we chatted in Spanish, and it soon became evident that he had confused FB with Growlr. But he was hot and local so I went with it. He quizzed me about my deets and we exchanged naughty pics. I was horny enough that I almost asked him to come over that afternoon, but he didn't have a car so I suggested that we try to meet up the next weekend, when <clintswan> and I were intending to go out. He seemed amenable so I said we'd chat later and wished him well.

The next evening, I went to send him a message and found that he had unfriended and blocked me. Since I couldn't think of any cause I'd given him to do so, I shook my head and shrugged it off.

Then Wednesday, almost the exact same thing happened again: random request, chatting in Spanish, deets and pics. He even asked some of the exact same slightly odd questions. Now I've been approached like this before over the years, but twice in the same week is surprising. Moreover, despite the fact that Wednesday's cub had a completely different name, he looked so strikingly like the guy from Sunday that I actually put their photos side-by-side to compare just to make sure this wasn't a lunatic's sockpuppet account.

Soon we proceeded to videochatting. Since then, he's been messaging me every day. By Friday I could tell that--despite my attempts not to make my flirting too encouraging--he was developing a crush on me and decided I needed to splash some cold water. When he asked, "Do you think you could date someone long-distance?" I said, "I honestly don't know", which was clearly not what he wanted to hear. Saturday I hardly heard from him, but by Sunday he had bounced back and it was more dirty talk, sharing banalities, and so forth.

Two men with similar backgrounds in similar circumstances, two vastly different outcomes. I ended the week with gay whiplash.

Fortunately, I did eventually pull my sad self together on Saturday and went out with my bestie to Touché. Sad Cub was looking for something to do, so he joined us there. It was slow though, so to make things interesting I hailed a cutie over and struck up a conversation. He introduced us to the guys he'd been hanging with, acquaintances from the day before. One of them was entering the sashless leather contest that night, which gave me someone to root for, and by midnight I was in a completely different headspace than twelve hours earlier.

It never got packed (which, honestly, I'm grateful for) but it did get busy and I ran into a few bar buddies, but nothing like I would on a regular Bear Night. Clint was long gone and at some point I lost track of Sad Cub, but I found my new buddy in the back bar and engaged him on the topic of BDSM.

That's about the point where BB walked in.

[to be cont.]

tl;dr: I did learn from my past mistakes and I did not let some dumb boy ruin my holidays. In fact, I managed to pitch my expectations low enough that our one date was actually delightful. If that's all you were tuning in to find out about, congrats! Now you can go catch up on Hawkeey or whatever it is the kids are bingeing on these days. Or, if you'd like more detail, read on.

What did ruin my holidays was the same thing that ruined everyone's, namely Lockdown II: Omicron Boogaloo. Well, "ruin" is too strong, but it certainly took the stuffing out of them. The staff party still happened at work (though we had to bug out early in order to grab a tree from Gethsemane before they all vanished) but after that the writing on the wall was so easily legible that I knew events were cancelled even before the organisers contacted me.

I was particularly annoyed by losing the Christmas Eve dinner, which BB had agreed to come to, and the New Year's Day party, which I'd planned to talk him into. clintswan and I were a bit ambivalent about the Yahoo Twins' get-together anyway, so that wasn't much of a loss. In fact, I turned it into an unexpected gain. Half an hour after pulling the plug, Madame Prez brought over a cookie tray, which I snapped a pic of and sent to BB in order to spark his envy. It worked. I offered to share my bounty and he said "maybe tomorrow night".

That's all I needed to hear. I packed up the fudgier treats into a box and convinced my loyal wingman to take the wheel and drive me to his place. He was waiting out front on the kerb, having taken my call after only a moment's hesitation once we were already underway. "He didn't sound pleased," clintswan said after I'd rung off and I steeled myself to simply present the goods and go. But it didn't go down like that. Instead, we chatted for forty minutes on the pavement while my getaway driver studiously focussed on his phone. At one point, I ventured a kiss and he said, "We'll get to that." "Will we?" I asked, surprised by my bluntness, "Will we really?"

I got an answer a few days later.

Earlier we'd discussed "maybe lunch" the week after Christmas. I nailed him down for Holy Innocents, craftily picking a restaurant around the corner from his place. The pizzeria was mostly empty and it was clear to me that he was in no hurry to end the conversation. So it didn't come as a surprise afterward that when he asked, "What's the plan now?" and I said, "I'm walking you to the door," he immediately began making excuses about the state of his place as if inviting me up was a foregone conclusion.

So I finally landed where I'd been angling to be for six weeks. In the bedroom, he was surprisingly shy--to the point where I wasn't sure he wanted to do anything. But the intensity with which he kissed me back and seized my head banished my doubts. Whatever we are (and that's still not clear), we are not "just friends". I tried to wheedle my way back in later in the week but after initially proposing a return visit the first Sunday of the New Year, he took it away at the last minute. Fortunately, I was prepared and didn't end up on my back like Charlie Brown. Instead, I used my renewed confidence to getting him to acknowledge my disappointment and voice his appreciation of me. (These sound like bare minimum things, I know, but believe me, they don't come natural to him.)

So where are we now? walkthelight and I had a good clarifying conversation yesterday. He warned me, "Just don't conflate the feeling with the individual until you can more properly connect it to him." This is exactly what I've been on guard against and why I'm so eager to spend more time with him. I had a melancholy moment yesterday where I realised that I was over my big work crush. Here was someone I'd pined for for almost two years before we got to spend any significant time together and three or four encountres were all it took to bring home the mismatch between who I wanted him to be and who he really is (which is a very nice guy, but probably not someone I'll ever date seriously). BB and I have seen each other only six times altogether. ("Six times in two months doesn't sound like that few", walkthelight reminded me.) It would probably only take six more at most to give me a sense of what there is of substance undergirding this mad obsession.

At this rate, that'll probably take at least another two months. (Maybe tack on an extra couple weeks because Omicron.) And it's gonna be a tough couple months, too, because winter has finally arrived in Chicago. Hopefully there'll soon be more social stuff to distract me. (It broke my heart to tell a friend who called yesterday that maybe a trip to King Spa was simply not wise at this particular juncture.) More immediately, there's work stuff, maybe house stuff, too. But if I can (and did) put in the two years required to land Monshu, two months to find out what I'm willing to do for this guy should be a cakewalk.

Well, any hopes I had that yesterday's post would prove cathartic enough to help me move past where I'm currently stuck were sent packing at about 1:30 a.m. this morning when I woke from a brief fitful sleep and returned to obsessively churning the contents of my mind. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell myself "You can't brain yourself out of a fundamentally emotional crisis". Braining is what I know how to do best so it's the hammer I keep reaching for.

The frustrating thing is that it did seemed to work at first. I was kind of mopey through lunchtime, but after that I began to perk up at the prospect of the holiday party at work. If clintswan and I hadn't already made plans to go get our tabletop Christmas tree, I probably would've stayed till the end boozing and shmoozing.

My evening might still have ended up the same way regardless, because I'm seeing an emerging pattern and it ain't pretty: I find myself in a good mood and missing BB, so I text. He texts back and I try to extend the chat. I give him opportunities to affirm me (by flirting, by being vulnerable in the hopes of eliciting a sympathetic response, by suggesting getting together) and he doesn't take them. I finally abandon the chat feeling like I've only annoyed him. Lather, rinse, repeat. As I told a good friend later that night, that does not bode well.

But it's not really any fault of his. That's not part of how he views our relationship or part of how he interacts via text (he's much better in person). In terms of what's going on beneath the surface, I'm leaning toward the second explanation in yesterday's second post: I'm having an emotional crisis of confidence and my inability to get BB to respond emotionally how I'd like him to is a big fat finger that keeps poking it.

I got some confirmation of that this morning when I had another crying jag. I started repeating things to myself that I feared were true and the ones which got the strongest response were: I miss Monshu. No one is ever going to love me again like he loved me. I'm going to be alone forever. These fears have been there for a long time (even before he died) but I've done a good job of pushing them away, asking myself things like: Do I even want someone to love me again like loved me? Is it worth doing all that hard work again? Am I really ready to date in any case?

I guess the answer to that last one is "No" if a fairly simple flirtation can unravel me this much. Looking back over the last five years, I note with a bit of bitterness that my two most successful sexual relationships (measured by intensity and longevity) are with two married men. My attempts to date anyone nominally available have mostly come to nothing. (Trust me, I had plenty of time to review the track record while lying there last night not sleeping.) Frustratingly, there's no clear pattern to the failures (beyond the fact that, in each case, communication was a real issue, but that's like saying that the ultimate cause of death was lack of blood to the brain; the story of all good communication is the same).

But I'm tired of this. I'm tired of showing up stag to every gathering. I'm tired of feeling like I constantly have to be the best version of myself or risk alienating someone I want to be with. I'm tired of feeling like I'm begging for sex when all I really want is to be held. I'm so very tired. And I see men my age or older who are also tired, so tired they've given up completely, and that terrifies me. I don't want to be one of those men. I don't want to think the chapter of my memoirs concerning my love life (as opposed to just my sex life) has been closed forever.

And I don't see any alternative to doing what I've already been doing: Putting myself out there, being open to the possibility of a relationship without trying to force it, and not getting too invested in any one prospect. But it goes against my grain. By nature, I'm an obsessive romantic and I doubt I can change that about myself. All I can do is try to practice mindfulness and set myself on the path of no-desire and hope that helps.

And be gentle with myself. I have to say, that's somewhere where clintswan has been a great help. Yesterday evening, as we were driving to the tree lot, I outlined some of what I've just described at length here and he said, "If it helps at all, it's not really 'five years'. Two year of that is pandemic, so it's really three years." We also reaffirmed that, whatever lies ahead in our lives, we'll continue to be there to support each other. ("PLiPs, Platonic Life Partners," as he puts it.) And that is nothing at all to sneeze at.

When I first met Chest Rockwell (I believe the year was 1995 or 1996), we had both just recently joined the Great Lakes Bears. I'd only recently learned they existe and he'd only recently relocated here from the Northeast. The organisation had been growing explosively and their annual event, Bear Pride, was starting to become the tail that wagged the dog. The officers realised that the bylaws--written for a smaller and looser organisation--had become outdated and asked for volunteers to form a committee to revise them.

I joined because I thought it would be a good way to meet folks. I imagine he thought the same thing. I don't recall who else was on it except that ubiquitous Bob Singer, who I recall functioning as committee chair (whether officially or otherwise). We met maybe a half-dozen times at Reza's in the evenings to hash out the document, which was approved with minimal discussion.

I liked Chest from the start. He was only a year or two younger than me and already seemed more confident. We had a lot of interests in common, not least among them daddy bears. Chasers were a small contingent in those days and it felt like most of the members were bears-seeking-bears, so it felt good to have an ally. I suppose we could've seen each other as competition instead, but that was so contrary to the Bear ethos that it never occurred to us. Those were the heydays of GLB and Bear Pride and we soon became "Bauchbrüder". He became someone I would seek out at every gathering. We developed a greeting ritual consisting of running at each other dramatically and falling into furious feigned snogging. We traded intelligence about the Bears we had had or wanted to have or who we wished wanted to have us.

And this was how I came to glimpse the first hints of the bitterness that would later consume him. I remember the disastrous Bear Pride of '99, the first of three at the Mistake on the Lake. Monshu had just broken up with his boyfriend--three short months after dumping me to reconcile with him--and I was furious. I went to the Welcome Party, only to find his ex there, so I sought out Chest. But he was equally upset, ranting about being ignored by the older daddies whose attentions we were unsuccessfully angling for, who he venomously called "paedophiles". (Like me, he was rapidly closing in on 30.)

Shortly after that, our paths began to diverge. Monshu and I got back together and decided to close our relationship. His ex requested that I keep my distance from the Great Lakes Bears--never mind that I'd joined it years earlier, I had Monshu now, so what did I need it for? I didn't need the aggro (and I did have Monshu), so I stayed away. (There were also rumours that Chest's boyfriend had spread gossip about me, hoping to break them up so he could sleep with Monshu's ex, but I never knew whether or not to give those any credence.) The death of a popular president of the organisation robbed it off some of its soul and Bear Pride crested, its attendance dropping annually until it ceasing to exist entirely a few years back. Chest had a partner and they moved out of Rogers Park to a cheaper apartment that no one wanted to go visit.

A few years later, LiveJournal became a new haven for Bears. I'd joined it in ordered to see locked posts from a RPG pal but soon stumbled across acquaintances from the GLB and began reconstructing something of my social circle online. Chest was soon part of it and began sharing his work woes with us. He'd graduated from law school with crushing debt and the need to pay it down in order to keep from losing his licence led him to work for some dodgy firms. I began to see much less of his carefree side and more of unease and resentment.

This reached an apotheosis on a disastrous trip to the southwest. Their car broke down in the desert and he went to LJ to beg for help, but none was forthcoming. In response, he soured not just on his acquaintances in the vicinity but all of beardom. It became an event that he regularly referred back to during his frequent rants about the lack of community in our community.

Our friendship didn't survive the transition to Facebook. He posted screeds, I attempted to engage, he got annoyed and eventually unfriended and then blocked me. I didn't take it personally because he wasn't the only one and he was still cordial on the very rare occasions when we still saw each other. At HiBearNation, we even greeted each other in our old flamboyant style. But when I ran into him this spring at C2E2, just before the pandemic nuked all social intercourse in Chicago, he was distant, chatting briefly for form's sake but not intending to rekindle anything. I, buddied with an exciting new friend, shrugged it off and moved on.

So he was just about the last person I expected to hear about this past Saturday when I went over to friends' apartment for a socially-distant chat. He'd come to their attention in just about the worse way possible: by retweeting white supremacists. I wish I could say I felt more shocked, but it seemed like a logical endpoint for his trajectory. He'd always felt entitled to more professional success than he achieved, so there must be some explanation for his failure to achieve it that put the blame on others.

I feel sorry for his remaining friends. Reportedly, some were sticking with him and trying to talk him back off the ledge. (My friends didn't stick around to see how this turned out and don't hold out much hope; one didn't seem to think he was long for this world.) I wonder if what pushed him there was more bad news at home, since his husband's health problems were another frequent theme in his litany of complaints. It's a sad ending to a relationship I once really treasured, but some things just can't be helped.

So a funny thing happened at work this week.

One of my colleagues hired a new student worker to work on an ongoing project and asked me to provide some training, as I've done for previous hires in that position. It's not complicated work and he's reasonably bright so he picked it up quickly. To help while away the time as I was sitting in and staying alert for teaching moments, I started chatting with him.

When I started out, I tried very hard not to get too familiar with my students. But over time, the University has encouraged us to take more of an interest in their lives so that we can help intervene if they start to run into problems. The Library too has stressed the educational aspects of our role, as this is often the first paid work for many of them. We're supposed to be teaching them about the world of work in addition to getting them to do some.

Furthermore, he's not actually my employee, he reports to someone else in a different workgroup in a different department. I won't be evaluating him and no one's scrutinising my behaviour for signs of favoritism. Plus he's a grad student, and even if the age difference isn't that great between them and undergrads, there feels like a big gap in terms of maturity.

There's also the fact that he's gay. He never said this, but it was obvious enough even before I asked him his area of study and he told me it was music performance. Baby gays bring out a protective instinct in me that must be a dim echo of what foster parents feel. I try not to prefer them in hiring, but if I do have a queer student, I'll be more likely to drop hints about my personal life. Partly it's modelling ("You can have a fabulous gay life, too!") and partly it's signalling I'm someone they can talk to about issues specific to that experience.

In any case, this is how I ended up asking him about what music he listens to and then sending him links to a few favourite videos. And how I casually mentioned that Oliver Sacks was gay when mentioning that I'm reading his memoirs. It may be what prompted him to ask about my weekend plans. (I mentioned Sunday's wine tasting but not Saturday's Bear Night.)

After work, I went to Sea Ranch for dinner. Waiting for my food (and it did take a while--I don't know what's up with them lately) I opened up Facebook and found I had a new friend request. I expected either another Russian fembot or serial thirst-adder (part of how I prepare myself for disappointment), but it was neither.

I hesitated before adding him. I typically don't even add my colleagues on Facebook. But I searched my memory banks and found a precedent, another grad student in this position who I used to enjoy chatting with and eventually accepted a request from. Plus we do actually have mutual friends from the Chicago bear world, so it's possible I'd be running into him in social situations anyhow.

I did not expect him to begin messaging me immediately after the ad and I certainly didn't expect him to start flirting. Perhaps sensing my reticence, he asked, "Is flirty okay?" I told him it was fine outside of work hours but I'm still not 100% okay with it. He's cute enough that I can see making out with him if we were drunk at a party but not worth complicating my work life for. Hopefully I'm only a passing fancy for him and we'll settle down to being just buds, the way me and Burly Bear are.