Undergrads

Tonight I got to travel into the past. My old college a cappella group, the Academical Village People (AVP), was in town for Fall Break. They performed tonight at the Virginia Club, which is housed in the Yale Club, near Grand Central Station.

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for these guys. Recently I wrote about that night, long ago, when I got into the group. The last time I saw them was way back in April 2000, so this was going to be a treat. I figured I’d probably see a few of my fellow NYC-area alums, too.

The night began with some weirdness, though.

I walked from my apartment to the PATH station, and when I got to the platform, I saw Wes, who was also waiting for the train. It was the first time I’d seen him in more than five weeks — that rotten night at the Phoenix — and it was the first interaction I’d had with him since our phone conversation last week.

I went up to him and said hi.

He was on his way into Manhattan to return an item of clothing to Brooks Brothers.

He looked so good. Blue-gray eyes, blond hair, completely clear skin, shiny teeth… nice neck, nice broad shoulders…

Suddenly I just wanted to get away from him. It felt mildly painful to see him. And I felt totally awkward. I had no idea what to talk about. I think he felt the same way.

But we made small talk.

Fortunately we didn’t have to wait very long for the train.

We continued to make small talk throughout most of the 15-minute trip. There were a couple of awkward silences, each of them ended by a conversational nugget that popped mercifully into one of our heads and then thankfully out of one of our mouths.

When we finally got to 33rd Street, we both got off, said goodbye, and parted ways.

And that was that.

Hm.

Anyway, I soon got to the Yale/UVA Club, where I ran into three of my fellow AVP alumni. We took seats in the front row — there were probably about 60-70 people in the audience in total.

There were actually three a cappella groups performing in this show: in addition to AVP, the UVA Hullabahoos (a men’s group, also in town for Fall Break) and the Columbia University Metrotones (a women’s group) performed.

I hadn’t seen a college a cappella group perform in a year and a half. It was so nice to sit back, watch them sing, and let the mellifluous music and funky vocal percussion wash over me. It had been ages. Wow, I used to do that, I thought.

It was particularly nice to watch the two men’s groups perform. Particularly the Hullabahoos. My gosh… seventeen college guys, all between the ages of 18 to 21, and almost all of them were gorgeous. I mean, Christ, look at them!

The guys in AVP weren’t half bad either, and I suppose I should have been more partial to them, since I used to be in the group. But in the category of looks, the B’hoos had them beat.

You know how you can see a bunch of guys (or a bunch of women, depending on your predilection) who are all attractive? But they’re each attractive in a different way? But they’re still all attractive? You’ve got yourself a cornucopia of gorgeousness. Well, some of them are gorgeous, while some are cute and some are adorable and some are hot, but really, it’s all the same thing. For instance, you’ve got the short cute dark-haired guy. You’ve got the tall, gorgeous, slightly grunge-looking blond guy. You’ve got the guy with perfect teeth. You’ve got the other guy with perfect teeth. Whether with blond hair or brown hair, wavy hair or crew cut, tall or short or medium in height, whether ethnically Scandinavian or ethnically Italian or descended from an FFV (a First Family of Virginia, i.e. WASPy old money), whether clean-cut or slightly edgy-looking — they were all just so frickin’ wonderful to look at.

Or maybe it had just been a long time since I’d been around so many younger guys. So fresh-faced, so energetic, so wholesome-looking… my god, have I become old? I’m only 27. I’m not old, am I? No. But I sure feel old around college students.

I turned out I knew one of the Hullabahoos, actually. He was the roommate of a guy I’d dated for two months back in the spring of my last year of law school. I’d been 25, and my boyfriend had been 18. (We’d decided that we were boyfriends — yeah, it only lasted for two months, but I’d been out for less than a year at that point, and what did I know?). He’d been a first-year college student — quite a drastic age difference, at that age at least. I always felt like I was robbing the cradle. In fact, between the two of us, I was the only one who was worried about the age difference; he didn’t care at all.

Anyway, the roommate — the one who was there tonight — had also been gay. They’d been randomly placed together as first-year roommates, and they’d both turned out to be gay. It was nice, because when the boyfriend and I were dating, the three of us used to hang out together a lot.

After the show tonight, I went over to him and we gave each other a big hug. He was happy to see me. It had been more than two years. He’s in his last year of college now. He rarely sees my ex anymore — they were roommates for two years and then wound up moving in separate directions. So I didn’t get much of an update on the ex. But it was still nice to see this guy.

Later on, we four old and decrepit AVP alumni were standing around outside talking when the current AVP guys showed up. I was talking with one of them — a guy with whom I’d sung in the Glee Club back when I was in law school — when another of them came up to us. It turned out he knew my name. He’s currently singing in the Glee Club as well as in AVP, and apparently, he’d heard stories about me.

You mean there are stories about me that are running around the Glee Club?? Oh my god. I started wondering what kind of stories there could be. Perhaps there was a story about my incessantly long farewell speech to the group before my last Finals Concert, the last concert of the year, the night before graduation. Perhaps it had to do with my being gay — I had been very out during my last year at UVA. Perhaps it had to do with living in the Glee Club house — I’d lived there during that final year. Or perhaps people just remembered me more because I was one of the few graduate students in the group or because I’d been a member for so long (five years in total). I really have no idea.

But since I’m a gay male, and sice I was standing here confronted by a relatively attractive 21-year-old guy, wishful thinking set in immediately. Okay, so let’s see. Maybe he’s gay and he’s heard stories about me, since I was one of the few openly gay people in the Glee Club, and so he’s intrigued about me. Maybe that’s what it is. Hmm… is he gay? I can’t tell. He doesn’t *seem* gay. But then again, neither do I. Well, maybe he’s just one of those enthusiastic Virginia Glee Club overachievers who’s enthralled at the idea of meeting any past Glee Club members. There sure were some people like that when *I* was in the group.

Then he told me that he thought he’d called me last year during the Glee Club Phone-a-Thon. And I realized that he had indeed called me. Every year the Glee Club members call all their alumni to try and raise money. I recognized his name, and I realized that he’d been the one who’d called me. That was an entire year ago. And he still remembered me?

Well, I guess if you’re in two different singing groups, and you realize that there’s a guy who’s an alumnus of both of those groups, you’re bound to remember his name. It probably has nothing to do with being gay at all. He probably doesn’t even know I’m gay.

You know, sometimes wishful thinking can really fuck with your gaydar.

Afterward, on my way home, I tried to imagine how he saw me — how any of the current AVP guys saw me. When I was an undergrad at UVA, I would have thought that any alumnus in his mid-to-late-20s was living a foreign lifestyle. Working a full-time job? Living in a big city? Wearing the modern professional outfit, a nice button-down shirt and nice pants? And with a bag slung across his chest? And carrying around a cellphone?

And now I’m that guy. Wow.

How did I get here? Just yesterday I was thinking to myself that even though it’s been more than two years since I left Charlottesville, it still feels like yesterday. In the back of my mind I feel like I’m still living a post-UVA life — sort of like how after the Cold War ended, we still referred to the world as “post-Cold-War” until the mid-1990s. Life was lived in reference to a previous event, not in reference to itself. It took a while for the new era to gain definition on its own terms.

Now, I don’t totally live in reference to the past. For the most part I’ve been living in the present (and sometimes in the worrisome future). But every so often I think back to UVA, and it really does feel like I’ve just left. And yet, in other ways, I’ve moved so far away from there in only 26 months.

Occasionally it would be really nice to go back and live that kind of life again, though.

Ahh… life in school.

Life among the fresh — and young — and exciting — and, especially, cute — undergrads.

Sigh.