another dating disaster

I am to dating what Mary Tyler Moore was to dinner parties. Something always goes terribly wrong, so much so that I avoid dating whenever I can. The lure is still there though, the chance to spend an evening sharing a meal and cuddling on the couch, but to most of the meat-market gay world I might as well be a leper with my disability.

Three weeks ago I was messaged in the gay.com chat line by a young man of 27, a Fijian immigrant of Indian descent, who said he has seen me walking around my neighbourhood a couple of times and had thought I was so hot. OK, I said to myself, trying unsuccessfully to imagine myself as hot. In spite of his young age, I thought I should keep an open mind and give him a shot. He was cute too, and opportunities like this don’t come along very often. At least he had seen me walking, when my disability is most obvious, and had not been turned off by that. At least that was one anxious hurdle already crossed.

His name was Josh and over the next three weeks we kept in regular touch by phone and email without meeting. We both had lots going on, but especially him. He was moving into a new place, fixing it up and moving things out of storage, and he needed to focus on that. The fellow he had been sharing with had got him a job where he worked at a Health Canada call centre, and is presently his immediate supervisor. That fellow had become resentful that Josh was moving out, although he had asked Josh to move, and was making trouble for Josh at work, threatening his livelihood as well as his friendship. A couple times Josh wept on my virtual shoulder over the telephone, seeks advice and reassurance.

Finally his place was together and we made plans to meet on the next Saturday. At his suggestion, we would have our first date at my place: I would cook dinner and he’d bring the wine. Later, we’d cuddle and watch a movie I had rented and he’s spend the night together.

Thursday night he calls to tell me he wanted to invite me to a play Saturday afternoon in our neighbourhood, a play about gay immigrants and their experiences is Canada, before returning to my place for dinner. That meant doing my shopping, cleaning and cooking earlier and making some menu changes so not so much last minute attention would be needed. I agreed.

Saturday my handyman Andre arrived at 10 to install track lighting in my bedroom. He had postponed his visit when he couldn’t make it on Wednesday. I worked around him making my chicken cacciatore and doing my laundry and other cleaning. About 12:20 Josh called and says he will be by at 1:15 and he asked me to please be ready to go right away. But he himself wasn’t ready then. He didn’t arrive at my place until 1:52, and he didn’t want to come up to see my place. Later, after the play, he said. The play was not in our neighbourhood but in Mount Pleasant, two bus trips away. We needed to catch a taxi to make it on time.

It turned out not to be a play, but just gay five immigrants sitting in front of us and telling their stories in broken English, ranting, whining and dramatizing in their various styles. They were all members of the Rainbow Refugee Society, and Josh knew all of them. He has been a member since 2004. I learned that originally he had agreed to be one of the presenters but had backed out. He knew all the organizers and wandered off to chat with them without inviting me or introducing me when we were together. After the event he stood chatting with them for half an hour and ignoring me.

It was 5:30 before he came looking for me. The presenters and organizers of his group had asked him to come with them to a nearby restaurant and he had accepted, throwing our date to the wind. “I’ll just hang out with them for about an hour and then I’ll be over,” he told me, so I caught a taxi home without him.

Of course, it was no surprise that when it came time for him to leave his friends he took a cab to his home, not mine. He called me from there, apologizing that he was now too drunk and tired to come to my place. He asked if I was OK about doing it some other night. I said, sure, why not, and wished him a good night without chatting any further, while under my breath muttering “over my dead body”.

The chicken cacciatore was delicious, and I lay on my bed afterwards, staring with delight at my new track lighting and thanking my lucky stars that Josh was out of my life for good — well, certainly for better. Something inside clicked. He had forgotten his commitment to help with the event until late in the week and he knew, even before he left his place, that he wouldn’t be coming back to my place. That is why he didn’t bring the wine.

Pet peeve

I prefer the days when I could walk to and from work, when there were sidewalk ramps all the way so I could cross every street. (sigh) Riding the bus is convenient if you don't mind the crowding and clobbering received from shopping bags and unconscious riders.

Today, a young woman gets on wearing ear phones for her iPod while texting on her cell. She asks the driver of the Davie bus if the bus turns onto Davie. Yes, he says. How far is that, she asks. Three stops, he replies. Could you let me know when we get there, she asks. He just looks at her disbelievingly.

Really Babe, if you are so into your cell phone and iPod that you can't tell when the bus turns a corner you won't hear his announcement either. Why can't people cross a street without simultaneously checking their messages? They think they are multi-tasking when all they are not watching what they are doing. If we just stopped taking care of people who feel it's not their responsibility to watch where they are going, they would soon either wake up or be eliminated through the Darwin Principle.