The Death of Imagination

It's interesting how much my recent experiences have changed my attitude toward certain situations. It used to be when someone went into the hospital I would be anxiously but guardedly hopeful. "I know this looks bad, but it will probably be alright, won't it?" I'd lived through two miraculous recoveries in my 20s: first my mother flipping her car on the interstate and walking away with more more than some broken bones and then my ex having botched surgery, falling into a coma and spending almost a full year in the hospital, and then making a complete recovery. So it was natural to view the best outcome as a distinct possibility.

Now it's, they're going into the hospital? With those symptoms? Better have POMA, a DNR, and a will all ready and I'll start preparing myself. Once I'd finally pressured Urso into giving me a decent account of his situation I knew how bleak the picture was. I expected we'd have him around for another couple years at best and already started planning my next trip out to see him. In the end, we didn't have two weeks and that trip may still happen but he won't be at the end of it to hug me.

It was a long night. Once it became clear where things were headed (you're not called to a hospital in the middle of a statewide lockdown to visit your friend if the medical team expects you'll soon be taking him home in anything but a box) I swore off sleep because I knew it was going to be a long night. One of Urso's best friends I stayed on a video call with until he told me he was ready to try to sleep. That was 1:30 a.m. I woke up at the regular time and tried to go back to sleep but the messages kept coming in from the group he set up for video chats and then the announcement went public and the posts started to come in and I kept reading them, crying, pausing, and then finding new ones to read.

I was so disoriented by the afternoon I had to ask my flatmate if it was time to feed the cat who was obviously begging to be fed. By four p.m. I was back in bed in a completely dark room. <lj user=clintswan> came in to sit with me. I talked out my grief until it was possible for me to look at photos and feel more consolation than grief. Then he brought me a gift of cookies and edibles from the neighbours which I took upstairs to eat and found them outside under their heater. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out and chatting and it did me a world of good.

I still need to distill my feelings down to fit the more concise demands of FB before I consider posting there. It's hard to explain just why I feel as privileged to know him as I did. It's not just because he was a legend on SF Bear scene (and beyond), it's the reason why he was a legend. Clint and I both joked about being mourned in spite of our abrasive personalities. But I tried to remember ever hearing Urso run anyone down to me and I simply couldn't. I literally could not recall him having a single bad word to say about anyone. In this scene, that is like walking into the bar and finding someone who's never had a drink or smoked a cigarette.

People were drawn to him and he had a knack for drawing those people together. Months ago now, he set up a Messenger group for video chats and invited me to it. Even with him out of the picture for a while ("like the host of the party falling asleep in the back bedroom" as I rather saltily put it) the group kept going. When we got the news early this morning it immediately made the transition from shitpost central to a support group for everyone who needed it. It'll be interesting to see how long this persists; certainly, whatever happens, some of the blossoming friendship there will.

There's a lot more to say but, as my friend Charlie reminds me, no rush to say it. You don't find out what a loss like this means right away. I'm only just beginning to really learn what we lost with the death of Urso.

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.

The weekend was something of a mixed bag. I guess it always is, but a couple of situations brought into focus my dissatisfaction with various things, particularly my friendships.

Friday night I was worn out by poor sleep so I just stayed in and did laundry. When I got a request to chat from Liver Laddoo, I thought he was calling to console me. Several minutes into the call I realised my mistake; he just wanted to talk about his date the following evening. I kept hoping he'd pick up on my disinterest but he never did so I started counting the minutes until I could end the call without hurting his feelings.

Finally, about twenty minutes in, we started talking about funerals and cremations. He told a story from his childhood about witnessing his grandather's traditional Hindu cremation. Finally, I began to get interested in the conversation. When he said he didn't think he wanted the same thing for himself, I told him. "Tell your family and put it in writing." He began to get uncomfortable at where our "banter" had led to and I told him, "If banter is what you want, you should've called one of your other friends." The call ended soon after that and we haven't spoken since.

The experience left me agitated enough to text three other friends looking for someone to vent to. One was a therapist and, in thinking of him, I was forced to remind myself that a therapist is not a psychiatrist and vice versa, so I shouldn't expect a friend who's the latter to be particularly sensitive to my emotional needs. LL is used to prescribing medicines for the violently mentally ill; he's not spending a lot of time drawing them out to learn what emotional support they need--and it shows.

I had a similar though less explosive experience with Pepperoni. I couldn't figure out if he hadn't offered condolences because he just didn't know my father was dead (because Facebook's algorithm is capricious and you just can't assume anyone has seen anything you've posted, no matter how many "reactions" it's netted) or because he couldn't be arsed. Turns out it's the latter. Not surprising, given his callow age, but a bit disappointing all the same.

And then there was the wine-tasting on Saturday afternoon. Again, I didn't assume most of the people there had heard about my dad. Our hosts, for instance (one of whom has given up FB completely), were a bit shocked when I casually mentioned it after everyone else had left. But I knew some of them did and I expected some acknowledgment--a longer hug, a word of sympathy, a vague invitation.

It was a sobering reminder of where I stand with that particular group of friends. Unsurprisingly, when I tried asking around about what people were doing later (having made the effort to leave home I wasn't in a hurry to head right back), I got put off. So I ended up accepting my straight neighbours' invitation to dinner and promising myself I'd go out afterwards.

We met the new neighbour last night and I am smitten. Monshu jokingly named "football player gone to seed" as his ex G's type and I told him that's mine as well. Well, your man used to play in college, thirty years ago. But I like him smart and sensitive as well, and he went back to school to become a licenced social worker in clinical psychology so be still my heart.

He seemed very open as we chatted across the gaps between the decks but I do have to wonder if there's a little something more to his situation. The condo seller told us the buyers were a married couple, but he's the only one who's moved in. He said that his wife didn't want to leave her job in Cincy so they're "trying something new for a year". Kinda sounds to me like a trial separation after the kids have finally left home, but I could be reading too much into it.

Afterwards I had a good chat with Mom. I tried to feel her out about any trips she wants to take and she surprised me by saying she's never done Canada and wouldn't mind visiting Toronto. nitouche is trying to get me up there for a visit anyway so that might all work out. For her part, she tried to feel me out about where I am with Dad dying. (He had a series of unexplained falls that saw him hospitalised with a possible stroke.)

I'm sure I write more about this, but the upshot is that I don't really feel I have any unfinished business with him. It'll be shocking and awful when he finally goes and I don't think there's any real way to prepare for that. But with his memory so shot, it's not like we could do much to resolve old hurts anyhow. He's the person he is--loving and generous, but also insecure and self-centred--and that's okay. I've been thinking a lot lately about giving him a call, but there's a reason why I haven't.

Speaking of resolution, I felt good the other day about helping to heal two minor rifts. A friend mentioned in passing that a mutual had blocked him on social media. It seemed odd to me so I asked about it; apparently it was all a misunderstanding and they've reconnected. I also finally heard back from an old friend I'd messaged out of the blue on FB, which she never checks. We talked about how much we missed each other and would like to get together again, and she asked about my brother. She wants to send him a letter of apology for losing touch, which gave me an excuse to ask him for his new address.

It's the season for reconnecting: Everyone in Chicago is finally out of their caves and ready to see and be seen. I sometimes worry that I'm accepting too many invites, potentially leaving myself too frazzled, but it beats the alternative.

I briefly considered going out tonight. About an hour ago, I found out that an artist I know is having an opening and I'd like to support him, but not as much as I'd like to curl up at home and watch it snow. Fortunately he's got a solo show opening in a little over a month so I'll just have to commit to making that.

We haven't spoken in years anyhow. I'm still not sure how that happened but I've learned not to keep obsessing about these things. I figure I'll come to the gallery and he'll be happy to see me or he won't and, if not, I go somewhere else. With a little lead time, I can probably line up a date to take the curse off.

Someone else I haven't heard from in too long is Nuphy. I meant to call him on Christmas but time got away from me and I didn't. So I figured I'd text him at New Year's and I forgot to do that, too. I felt bad, but then I realised he hadn't contacted me either and felt more resigned. I thought about inviting him to the Field with us last weekend, but I didn't. Now that we no longer share an opera subscription there's no regular expectation of contact, but his birthday is in April so I won't let it go longer than that.

I had a dream last night that it was Christmas and I was at my sister's. For once, I didn't have my typical anxiety about not having gifts for anyone. Instead, I was stunned that a year had passed so quickly and I could recall so little of it. It didn't linger because, soon after waking, I recalled that I hadn't been at my sister's last year.

Still it seems like too much time has gone by without any significant changes. Not only has almost nothing in my house been removed, remodeled, or replaced, but just the thought of doing so gives me chills. The electric kettle Monshu gave me for my birthday threatened to break down so I was looking for replacements but despite finding one I liked at a reasonable price with next-day delivery, I baulked at getting it and just fiddled with the old one instead until it started working again.

I know something's gotta change but nothing will until a powerful outside source operates on me. Probably a new relationship. Maybe a new tragedy.

New Year's morning I was presented with the choice of bros vs hoes and made the right one.

At some point in the evening, the Street (someone Liver Laddoo introduced me to and subsequently fell out with) texted me and offered me a ride to NYD's brunch at Big Red's. We've fooled around a couple times but the last time we got together, he made some...interesting choices which have left me thinking of him as something of a flakeburger. In any case, I said "Sure"...and then heard nothing until ten minutes before the event was scheduled to start; I don't know if he forgot when it started or what, but it was going to be at least a half hour before he'd be ready to come by. I told him I'd simply meet him there, knowing that this would most likely sink my chances of hooking up with him (which they did). It was another hour or two before he made it to brunch.

But wait, there's more! I always keep a ho in reserve, so I texted this new man who was slated to be my first ever hookup from the monthly bear coffees. He'd offered me a scent diffuser--which I'm genuinely interested in--but any illusions that this was other than a pretext for him were shattered when he responded to one of my texts with "hey sexy". We were supposed to get together on Sunday, but he pleaded illness. Once I knew the Street was a dead end, I texted to see how he was doing and went right back into the sweet talk.

He lives around the corner from Big Red, so I considered stopping by for a quickie. It was a surer thing than calling on him afterwards, but it would also make me later and I was determined not to saunter in hours after the start time like last year. So I went right to the brunch. After being there about three hours, I texted to see if he still wanted to get together; no answer. I hung around another hour-an-a-half waiting for a reply before setting out for home. (A five-word reply finally arrived around 10 p.m., long after I'd written him off for good.)

I'm also embracing my role as the "Party Introvert Whisperer". I owe Lily-of-the-Valley for making me conscious of this. He mentioned some weeks back that he gloms onto me at parties because I'm someone he knows he can have a low-key chat with. I used to value those interactions less because I'd see them as distracting me from the real purpose of a party, i.e. maximising the number of interactions, but now I see myself as providing a valuable service.

This came home to me on NYE, at a party hosted by a Neapolitan friend and his husband. At first I felt like I shouldn't be monopolising one of the hosts and tried to circulate. But I ended up with the Italian again, we started talking books, and he invited me to see his library upstairs. We ended up going through them exhaustively as it occurred to me that he'd much rather be here than checking in with his guests. Less than thirty minutes to midnight, his husband (an electrical engineer who hasn't cracked a book since college) appeared in the door way asking, "Where have you been?" and we reluctantly rejoined the modest throng. (Later, me and the husband would sneak down to the basement to play pinball on his restored machines.)

Keeping myself busy over the holiday weekend worked maybe a little too well. I never got the sleep I wanted, nor did I catch up on anything at home--not anything fun, like reading and movies, nor anything useful, like cleaning and paperwork.

The one exception was cooking. I made braised root vegetables for Thanksgiving, failed corn muffins for Friendsgiving, and vegetable chowder for myself. Of course I needed broth for the chowder so I made up some concentrate. And as long as I was spending all that time in the kitchen, I also decided to make myself some proper Käsespätzle with plenty of union and some mushrooms I needed to use up.

It took forever to find the braised vegetable recipe and I ended up going through the whole stack of Cooks Illustrated back issues, which inevitably meant finding more recipes to try. That's how the chowder happened: I cracked open their vegetarian cookbook hoping to find the recipe from the magazine and found that one instead. It's a real keeper, combining two of my favourite things (fennel and celeriac) the Devon Market always has in stock.

Emotionally, I was all over the map: crying myself to sleep on Wednesday, having a glorious time on Thursday (and then crying again when exhaustion finally overtook euphoria), dragging myself through Friday, feeling sorry for myself on Saturday, dealing with an emotional hangover on Sunday that finally gave way to a sense of equanimity and well-being. I'm not as steered by other's reactions as I used to be, but I still have some way to go in keeping myself centred.

The best part of the time I spent was the conversations, especially with Big Red and clintswan. Friday afternoon, after giving up on sleeping or scoring, I washed up at Big Red's ex' for a gameday. I was not at all into at first and only gradually warmed to the group. Afterwards, I went for Vietnamese with him and his current beau and we chatted for a couple hours--until the employees kicked us out, in fact--about the challenges and rewards of interacting with others.

And finding the time and energy to build and maintain relationships is a huge challenge, and the rewards are so uncertain. They can be extraordinary in the moment only to run dry unexpectedly. I've definitely done my fair share of complaining about that in this journal. Am I better at judging character now than I was ten years ago? I hope so, but I really don't know.

Thursday morning I did the last of the gardening for the season--and by that I mean I took last-minute measures to spare a couple plants from the impending hard freeze. The geraniums came in and the perennial mums went in the soil, in the same spot where mums have died two previous years. (A gardener pal says those might not have been perennial but I'm not expecting these to live in any case.)

And the freeze did come, accompanied by some surprisingly rich and persistent lake-effect snow. I expected a dusting; I came home to an inch over most of the lawns. There were still patches in shady areas as I went into work today, despite the fact that it was above freezing much of the weekend and even rained overnight.

The reason I had the morning off on Thursday was that someone I know in the neighbourhood, ChiBareBear, was having a colonoscopy and needed someone to pick him up. I agreed before I realised it was at Weiss, the hospital I learned to hate over the past couple years. At the same time, I do miss some of the folks. I decided not to visit Millie at Radiology (partly because I was running late, partly because I couldn't bear it) but I ran into one of my favourite transporters in the hallway, who recognised me immediately even without my hair. "How's my friend?" he asked and when I told him, he said, "Come here, I'm going to give you a hug."

Getting into the elevator, I saw one of the nurses from the 8th floor who didn't recognise me. But I knew they'd all been told, so I could just exchange pleasantries with him. It was a different story with the attendant in the surgical waiting room, who was solicitous almost to a fault. Fortunately CBB was all ready to go, so I was able to get out of there with nothing worse than a brief flashback to that awful hour in the consultation room with Witch Hands. (As I was psyching myself up to come, I actually told myself, "At least Witch Hands won't be there.")

I'm not really sure why I agreed to pick him up, really, except that he asked. It was a general call and he didn't have to choose me. If he hadn't made an overture recently by inviting me to a get-together at his place the same weekend as HiBearNation I probably would have ignored it. But I keep thinking about all of us growing old alone in our individual apartments and think we have to do more to be there for each other.

So I think I'm ready to call it quits with Lakshmi.

Our relationship has always been characterised by me listening to her complain. She's basically a sweet person with a difficult row to hoe, so this hasn't been too onerous. She's been very thoughtful and generous over the years and I have good memories of laughing and sharing food with her. But lately it feels like the balance has shifted permanently. If you'd asked me before this year, I'd have put the ratio at like 70/30 bitching/niceness. Today it felt like 99/1.

What happened was this: I had a bad night and overslept, and then struggled to make it into work. My hope had been to slip in quietly. But that was dashed when I arrived at the door of the workspace and saw Lakshmi there with one of my direct reports. She's dropped by completely unannounced and then tried to see me, thus drawing attention to my absence. She was just leaving; another minute and I'd've dodged her completely.

I had to approve timesheets before the deadline so I begged her indulgence for a moment. She stood over me while I sent the approvals. I asked if she'd like to sit, but she begged off, saying she was "in a hurry". Not so much of a hurry, however, that she couldn't bend my ear for fifteen minutes out in the hallway while I hardly got a word in edgewise.

The last time I heard from her was two months ago when she lost her job. She called me at work to complain and ask for my help finding a new position. The time before that was when she declined the invitation to Monshu's memorial back in March. And before that...I couldn't tell you. The most recent e-mail I have is from three years ago when she was moving back to town and wanted my help finding an apartment in Rogers Park.

Generally, if I run into someone who knew Monshu and who I haven't seen since his death, the very first thing they do is offer condolences. It doesn't matter if they've conveyed them already via phone, letter, or e-mail. She didn't even mention him. She just started in recounting her woes. After a few minutes, I fell completely silent. Several minutes more, and I stopped even trying to look sympathetic; I just stared at her stony-faced. She was not deterred. Finally I couldn't wait for her to stop talking and leave.

Yes, looking for work sucks. Yes, it's particularly difficult when you're middle-aged and female. But this was a degree of self-centredness I just wasn't prepared for. Plus I was in a shitty mood to start with from the lack of sleep and something else that happened as I was struggling to get ready this morning.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of Monshu's aborted homecoming. I say "aborted" because while it started well, things got progressively worse until he was readmitted with an infection. My mother told me later that he'd started to go septic and could easily have died then rather than three months later. Serendipitously, friends invited me to join them at King Spa and I spent most of the day there. But I needed a little bag to carry some necessities and the only halfway-decent one left the cat hasn't pissed on is one Monshu used to use. I dumped out the contents on the coffee table and told myself I'd deal with them later.

This morning, alongside the gloves, sunglasses, and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, I noticed a couple of printed sheets of paper. One was a list of bp readings. The other was a detailed fourteen-day summary of the Old Man's diet and ailments. I looked at the dates and they were for the two weeks before his doctor's appointment in March of the last year. Yes, that appointment: the one that resulted in him being admitted and scheduled for an operation two weeks later.

Maybe if I weren't feeling so fragile, I'd be more inclined toward forgiveness. But this is still my Year of Being Selfish and if there are people who can't or won't understand that, then I simply don't need them in my life. As she was leaving, Lakshmi vowed to keep me posted on her job search. She needn't have bothered.

So now that the initial excitement has worn off on all my new flings, the flaws of each are coming into view. None are insuperable, but they're enough to dampen my enthusiasm to the point where it can't overcome my general level of sloth and irritation with humanity.

I should just give up on Eyefield. There were hints before that his situation was a little too fucked-up at the moment to make him a compatible choice, but he stored up some good will by being genuinely considerate on a number of occasions. I also may have some lingering guilt feelings for blowing him off during Bearfest. Unfortunately I'm learning what a really terrible communicator he is in general and I'm not sure I'm willing to keep taking up the slack.

I've already been forced to accept that he'll show up anywhere from 30 minutes late to an hour-an-a-half and he won't do much to keep me apprised of his progress. The final straw came the weekend before last. We'd arranged to go shopping, but he'd set up an appointment for the morning which he missed because he'd misplaced his passport. Long story short, he left me hanging for four hours and was then like, "Oh, I forgot we were doing something. Make other plans." Sounds like a generally-applicable admonishment.

I'll put up with an unreasonable amount of nonsense from someone I want to bone badly enough, but it's not even clear he's still interested in having sex with me. I came close to telling him off but I decided just to let things die a drama-free death instead. And now here he is again today texting me about going out to a bear night somewhere. Well, that might work as a way to get myself out on a evening when I'd just as soon stay in as long as I'm resigned to the fact that he'll show up late if he shows up at all.

El Reconquistador could give him a run for his money in the poor communication and not coming through competition. Months ago he'd proposed taking a trip together for his birthday in June, but June came and went without me hearing from him. Then the Sunday after Eyefield's fiasco (nearly two months later), he texts me about getting dinner that evening and then gets annoyed when I don't reply immediately. We did meet up and it was fine but, again, he doesn't seem that interested in sex and I'm not sure how much bullshit I want to deal with just to socialise.

And what of Uncle Betty? His problem seems to be he just doesn't propose plans. Like, at all. I realised a couple weeks ago that he hadn't invited me to do anything with him all year, something I'd normally take as indicating a lack of interest. But he's always into me when we get together and receptive to seeing me (as long as he doesn't have other plans), so I finally texted his ex Diego and was like, "Is this just him?" and the answer I got was "Yes". And that just doesn't work for me--not in general, and certainly not when so much of my energy is tied up just battling depression.

So I'm taking this as a sign that I need to focus less on fuck buddies and more on genuine friends--like Fig, who sent me a lovely text Saturday night encouraging me to go out and get groped instead of moping around the house or my college pals, who have arranged two successful get-togethers in the time that none of these dumb boys has managed more than one. Then there's the gaming group and the German-speaking bears and other little promising knots of acquaintances who may be good for more, not to mention my fellow widow(er)s who know how to be there for me on a level everyone else can only approximate.

Still, much as I'd rather have sex with friends than sex with strangers, I'd rather have sex than not. Maybe it's finally time to get on Growlr?