I am in lust, or longing, or whatever you call it. His name is Craig and we met on Halloween 2008. He's a friend of my friend Kal. He was dressed as a cowboy and I was instantly fascinated, but he was somewhat hung up on Kal, who was newly out and oozing freedom hormones. Kal fortunately didn't feel the same way about Craig, but I figured I had no chance given the circumstances.
I would see Craig sometimes on weekends at the Fountainhead Pub, a frequent hang out of mine. He would come in from New Westminster, where he lives, if Kal would be there, and Kal, a social butterfly, always had a circle of friends around him. Craig, on the other hand, was rather shy by comparison and felt more comfortable speaking only to those he knew so it wasn't easy in all the noise to get to know him. The circle of friends, outside of Kal and Craig, made no effort to include me when I tried to join them so I usually kept my distance.
Times changed. Kal met the love of his life and totally settled down. Craig gave up on winning him over and came in less often, but he kept in touch with Kal and Kal always updated me on what and how Craig was doing. Neither of them really knew how attracted I was to Craig.
A few months ago I saw Craig sitting with his group of drinking friends as I was on my way out, and I stopped to say hello. I placed my arm around his shoulders as I chatted with him. It felt wonderful and he seemed to soak it up, but I left after a few minutes so not to have my affection appear to be a cheap come on. The next day he asked Kal to arrange a time to bring him over to see my art. Kal told about his request but never followed through.
I was amazingly patient and waited for him to call me. Two weeks ago he was on my mind a lot, and the next day Kal told me Craig had called him to ask him again to arrange a visit to come see me. It was terribly old fashioned but totally charming. After prodding Kal a couple times he finally sent me Craig's e-mail and I invited him to come over myself.
That was a week ago. He didn't come over because he was in the last minute rush to get things ready for his trip to the Maritimes where he's presently visiting three elderly aunts on Cape Breton and Newfoundland. Before he left, he did respond to me, saying he's like to be a closer friend, and in a series of messages over the next 3 days we confessed wanting to take it much further than just being friends.
He won't be back in town until August 6th, and we will both be busy much of the rest of the month. He'll be camping and I'll be taking in the Queer Film Festival and going to Breitenbush for 5 days, I hope. In September Brian and Dean are visiting for a week and then Nina Spadtke is returning from Germany at the end of the month. Then I'll have 16 days at the Vancouver International Film Festival. There won't be much time for dating for either of us so nothing is likely to happen too quickly.
But then again, an awful lot happened over a couple days just with e-mails. It felt like a Copernicus shift, when instead of the sun going around the world it's the other way around. I have lost interest in the chat lines and any faint glimmers of hope that were still smoldering (mostly illusions and there haven't been many). Neither of us have dated since the last millennium so it should be interesting. He is well aware of my disability and sees beyond that to something more beautiful, which isn't easy to get to with another gay man. But I still cannot quite believe that anything will ever happen. I am too defensive to go there yet, which is probably the true source of my incredible patience. But wouldn't it be wonderful....
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