Weekend Musings
So, I’ve decided I may as well have dinner with the guy.
My biggest concern was that I’d be too angry to do it. But the anger seems to have subsided. Some of you commenters were right — I’ve only met the guy once, and I don’t really have standing to be mad at him. He didn’t know that I was totally bedazzled by him — for all he knew, I was just a nice guy he’d met and hadn’t gotten around to calling. Yeah, it’s still kinda stinky of him, but I’ve really got nothing to lose by having dinner with him. So I will.
It’s interesting to see how almost evenly divided the comments were, though!
Last night was pretty low-key. I’d slept for only four hours on Thursday night, so I was pretty dead to the world yesterday. I came home from work last night and wound up napping for two and a half hours. Then I had some dinner, and I didn’t really feel like going out. But I did anyway. It’s hard — a weekend has only two nights, so if you don’t go out on Friday, you’ve only got Saturday left. You have to take ’em when you can.
So instead of taking the PATH into Manhattan, I just went to the local gay-ish bar, Uncle Joe’s, which is about a 10-minute walk from my place. It was actually gay bar until recently, but it’s under new management now, and the owners seem to want to take it out of the gay bar business. That’s really aggravating, because downtown Jersey City has a burgeoning gay population, and we now have no exclusively gay bar to go to. This place really needs one — it’s an untapped market. Sure, Manhattan’s just across the water, but sometimes people don’t want to schlep across the water, ya know?
Anyway, I went last night. I’d only been there once before — a few weeks ago with Wes — so I figured I may as well go back. Last night it was crowded, but only about half the people were gay.
I ran into a friend of mine. Well, okay — he was someone I hooked up with once. He was with another guy, and I recognized him, as well: I’d seen him online a few times before. He lives several blocks away from me, but whenever I’ve tried to chat with him, he’s been cold, blowing me off and disappearing without responding to my casual attempts at conversation. I recognized him last night from his photos.
I think he remembered me last night. He was nice enough in person. But that’s got to be kind of awkward, running into someone in person whom you’ve treated rudely online. Just goes to show: you should treat people online with the same amount of respect and politeness with which you’d treat them in person.
Lots of people seem to have a problem with that concept.
Eventually, they both left, and I stood around for another 40 minutes, holding my empty beer bottle and looking around. Unexciting. Came home, saw both of them online. This time, I didn’t bother trying to chat with the rude-ish one. But he didn’t try chatting with me, either. Hmmph. I did chat with the other guy, though. But I wasn’t really up for meeting someone last night.
I had a really nice phone conversation with my mom today, though.
“Can I ask you a very personal question?” she asked.
Uh-oh. “Sure.”
“How’s your love life?”
Oh. “I don’t have one.”
This was a turning point, because she’s never asked me about my love life before. In August 1999, when I came out to my parents for the second and final time, my mom said that my love life was something she didn’t want to know anything about.
But today:
“I remember what I said to you two years ago, about not wanting to know anything about your love life, and about not wanting you ever to bring anybody home.
“And I just want you to know that I don’t feel that way anymore. And Dad doesn’t, either.”
She went on to tell me that she worries about me being lonely.
It was such a release to be able to tell my mom that I want someone, and to tell her that I’m picky. These are things I’ve never shared with her before.
Sometimes I’ve felt like the odd man out (so to speak) in my family. My brother’s almost constantly had a girlfriend for the past several years, so whenever we’ve had a family get-together, it’s been my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, and me. I’ve been the odd alone person. I haven’t felt equal to everybody else.
But now I know that when I do find someone, he’ll be welcome in my parents’ house.
I already loved my parents, but now I love them even more.
Sure, goto the dinner, but bring some poison just incase you change your mind.
.rob
Your parents sound wonderful. You are very blessed.
As usual, very engaging observations. One particular point I found especially interesting:
You say that one should treat people as well online as offline. Fair enough–some of the time. But not always.
I’m not saying the guy was right to be rude to you online. However, as someone who is quite impatient with the whole idea of virtual friends and online chats generally (unless I know the person well in real life), I sort of understand what’s going on here.
I think in a chat room setting, it’s more understandable–if not acceptable–to decline engaging someone you already know. Especially in a chat room where people are looking to meet new people (for whatever immediate or long term purpose).
If he chats online with you but does not want to do anything with you, then you have imposed an opportunity cost on him. (This assumes no simultaneous multiple chats, which would make me dizzy.) At a bar, on the other hand, he can be friendly to you while still checking out what’s going on. IMO what happens at the bar is a better reflection of someone’s personality than what happens in a chat room.
I am sure people out there think I am mean. I blow people off all the time on the net–because I’ve determined that for whatever reason, I’m not interested. So, I totally agree that people should be nice online and offline. But the contexts of online chats and in-person bar meetings are totally different. I’m friendly in bars even to people with whom I want nothing to do (anymore, if applicable). Hopefully that is what counts the most.