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| Mike |
His profile picture was a mirror selfie. A bad one. It was crooked. I couldn’t really see his face very well. He wore a bulky black T-shirt in it. It said his name was Mike, age 35. There was no other info. It didn’t look like a profile that would be particularly popular.
I tapped the photo and zoomed in. He looked cute. Also, the T-shirt was doing him no favors. I was pretty sure he was actually quite a muscular dude. But it was his only photo. Nothing shirtless or implied nude even though he had the conventionally attractive body. The profile was odd, but that’s why it intrigued me. He’d sent me a second message.
‘My name is Mike. I am 35 years old. I am a construction foreman and I live in Granville, Vermont.’
I chuckled. This was far from the usual opening I usually got on Grindr. It usually was way too forward, or just an exchange of ‘Hey’, before the conversation immediately died down. That is if someone messaged me first. Whenever I was shooting my shot, I was often ignored.
Granville was a very small town, less than an hour Southwest of where I lived. About 300 people. I regularly got frustrated with how small my city was, especially for gay dating, and it has about 8,000 people. There was another 8,000 nearby in Montpelier, which is where I worked. But still, the number of available gay men was low. I couldn’t even imagine how tough it must be on Mike.
I also noticed he was ending every sentence with a period. I wasn’t sure yet what that meant, but it wasn’t something that I usually saw on a hook-up app. But I kind of liked it. Also, I use Grindr regularly and this was clearly a new profile. It felt like an opportunity to meet someone. After all, he approached me.
Either that or the profile was fake. But if it was, would someone really use that photo?
‘Hey Mike’, I replied. ‘I’m Ben, 26, and I’m in Barre City’
All of this info was in my profile already. But it seemed like he wanted to chat a little first before doing anything.
‘Could I invite you to go out to get a drink?’
I was surprised. I had misjudged his vibe. Also, this guy wanted an actual date. Not a hook-up. Or at least, not yet. I was still intrigued. Maybe he just preferred to talk in person first.
‘Sure! That sounds fun!’
‘There is a gay establishment near me called the Pickle Barrel. It’s in Killington. I can meet you there tonight?’
A gay establishment. Who is this guy? I’d heard of Pickle Barrel, it was quite far away from me, but I had wanted to go there some time. From what I recalled, it was a dance club, which maybe wasn’t the perfect venue for a first date. But at this point, I was just following Mike to see where it would lead me. I agreed to see him at Pickle Barrel in Killington.
That night, I was going South on the I-89. More than an hour drive away, I was wondering if this was a bit much to meet someone I had only exchanged a few words with. But not a lot had happened in my dating life since college, so I was just happy to have peaked someone’s interest on one of the apps.
Although I thought I wasn’t an unattractive guy, it was rare for me to get any attention, both on apps or in gay bars and clubs. I’d hate to say being half-Asian had anything to do with it, but if it wasn’t that, I didn’t want to think about what the real reason was.
When I took the exit, I started to get a little nervous. I was aware of my own tendency to get a little shy whenever I met new guys in a set-up like this. But often with a drink, things quickly got better.
I was driving through the small town of Bethel, Vermont. It was already dark, but I could tell it was a pretty town. Killington wasn’t even on the signage. What was I doing? I questioned myself. But I got this far. Worst case scenario: a good story to tell my friends, and knowledge about if Pickle Barrel was any fun.
I still had a long way to go, over basically empty roads. I drove alongside the White River for a while, which was nice. I knew the sights would be amazing here, had it been light out. I might have to go for this drive during the daytime later. After a few more towns, I finally entered Killington.
Killington wasn’t exactly a booming city, but because of its ski resort and the tourism connected to that, it did have many bars, restaurants and, apparently, a gay nightclub. Barre and Montpelier did have queer bars, but I had known them since my college days. So I was excited to check this out.
I parked my car. I took a deep breath. After going over every possible scenario in my mind, like, having nothing to talk about, Mike not looking like his picture, getting stood up… I told myself I had nothing to worry about. I got out of the car and walked in.
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| Mike |
I walked towards him. Coming closer, he was definitely a brawny guy.
“Mike?”
His smile appeared and made him look very handsome immediately.
“Ben?”
He hugged me.
“You look much younger than I expected”, he said.
“Thanks”, I said.
We yelled back and forth over the loud music.
“I can barely hear you over the music”, he said, “I guess I shouldn’t have picked a nightclub.”
“No problem”, I replied, almost shouting now, “I meant to come here for quite some time, so now I’m finally here.”
He smiled at me. It was sweet and kind of awkward.
“Can I buy you a drink?”, he asked me.
“Sure!”
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| Mike |
I saw Mike come back with my drink, looking back at a group of young men who were next to him at the bar. I thanked him for my drink. He still looked a little bewildered.
“Were those guys bothering you?”
“They called me ‘Big Daddy’.”
I chuckled. Mike clearly didn’t think it was funny.
Calling men ‘Daddy’ was sometimes a little odd to me, but mostly it made me laugh for how ridiculous it was. In this case, Mike was only in his mid-30s, which seemed a bit early to start with that sort of thing. The guys who’d said it were in their early 20s at the most. Which seemed to be about the average age in this club.
As I took sips from my drink, Mike looked straight at me. It was kind of awkward.
“Mike?”
“What?”
“Are you going to watch me drink? You didn’t get anything for yourself?”
“No. I’m… I’m sorry, I just realized you are very pretty. Handsome! Pretty handsome.”
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| Mike |
“Sorry, I’ll look somewhere else.”
As I took another sip, he was holding his elbow again and looked out into the crowd. Men passed by, very obviously checking him out. Mike himself seemed oblivious.
It was one of the scenarios that had crossed my mind. Conversation wasn’t flowing. But I was incredibly attracted to this guy. I had to come up with something.
“You know what?”, he suddenly said. “This isn’t for me. Maybe I should take off.”
I just finished my drink and put it down.
“What? Why?”
“I… I look like the chaperone!”
“I think you look good!”
“Sorry, I just feel a little ridiculous.”
I smiled.
“I like that you asked me out to a place that’s clearly not your regular scene. That took some balls.”
His smile returned.
“Let’s just go to a diner or something”, I suggested. “We can talk and get to know each other better.”
He nodded.
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| Mike |
Across the street was a diner that I hadn’t even spotted when I came in. We got settled into a booth. We both ordered coffee. Mike took his jacket off, and again his impressive upper body came into view. I found it hard to keep my eyes off of his large, bulky frame.
“Is this OK?”, he asked as he pulled on his tanktop. “It’s more of a gay club outfit.”
I smiled.
“Doesn’t bother me”, I said with a slight tone in my voice that would suggest I actually enjoyed it.
“Oh, OK. That’s a relief.”
“I knew the club was a stupid idea”, he said.
I tried to say something to make it seem like it could have been fun, even though it was true that it wasn’t a great place for a first date.
“I can’t believe I thought I could just dive into this dating thing and pretend like I knew what I was doing.”
“Don’t take it too hard. We can just start over, right here.”
Our eyes met and I could feel the chemistry. He quickly looked down.
“So why did you get back into the dating game?”
“My son… He encouraged me.”
“You have a son?”
“Yeah… That’s why it was weird when those guys called me ‘Daddy’.”
I chuckled.
“Yeah, I can understand that.”
As we drank our coffees, Mike told me about his 12 year old son Tim, who is into online gaming more than anything. His face lit up when he talked about Tim, it was adorable to see. He never moved away from Granville to be close to his son and his ex at all times. Tim had just started 7th grade in a new school in Rochester though, so he was thinking about moving more often recently.
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| Mike |
“Was I the first person you messaged?”, I asked.
Mike once again got a little more awkward all of a sudden, as he looked down.
“Yes. I just looked at all the faces, because some just had bodies or no photo at all. You were the one that I thought looked most attractive.”
“Really?”
He looked back up.
“Yeah. I didn’t realize you lived so far away though, sorry.”
I smiled.
“That’s fine.”
And boy, it was more than fine. I really felt like this date was turning out to be pretty promising.
“I… I haven’t dated anyone since Tim’s mom. And we started dating in high school. So, I don’t really understand the dating world. And maybe the gay dating world is different too.”
“Oh yeah. It’s a jungle out there”, I said.
“I look at you though”, he said, “and I feel a little jealous. You’re still in your 20s, out of the closet… Makes me wish I had understood myself sooner. Or, at least, accepted myself the way I am. I wouldn’t be figuring all of this out at the age of 35.”
Mike was so sweet. I already wanted to hold him right then and there. The way he spoke made me feel for him. No-one is ever this outspoken about being inexperienced. Everyone seems to want to come across confident. And this visually impressive man was so open with me so fast. Vulnerable, even.
“I think you’re doing just fine though. Don’t worry about it too much.”
I reached across the table and held his hand. He looked at it.
“I don’t have any moves though.”
“You don’t need moves. Just… do what you want to do.”
“I… I want to hear more about you”, he said.
I told him about my teaching job at the Community College in Montpelier, which was also where I had studied. As I talked about myself, Mike stared into my eyes in a way that made me wonder what he was thinking. There was something intense about this guy. But our chemistry was off the charts.
“I’m so glad I drove down here”, I said once I was done talking about myself and Mike was still staring at me.
“I’m glad you did too.”
“I hope you’re happy you let Tim convince you to do this.”
He chuckled.
“I do feel a little silly now.”
“Why?”
“I guess I thought gay men went dancing in tanktops?”
I laughed.
“Why did you think that?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Some do, of course. Others don’t.”
He looked down and shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it”, I added.
“I realize I don’t know a lot about dating, or about being gay. But I know I’m looking for a meaningful connection. So this night is a good start.”
I smiled. Finding someone who is looking for something meaningful is pretty rare, I felt. But somehow we had found each other. After Mike took initiative to send a few odd messages my way. And now I was sitting across from a sweet, beautiful man.
The diner was about to close. Our waitress gave us our bill. Mike insisted on paying.
“I, uhm… I don’t really want to say goodbye yet”, he said.
“Me neither.”
We looked at each other.
“Tim’s at his mother’s place.”
I smiled.
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