Rantus Interruptus

By the time I was getting ready to go home from Lizard Lounge last night, I was pretty peeved. Not about anything in particular, really. I was just stewing over the quality of the men I’ve been meeting here in Washington.

I’d had a pretty alienated evening at the Eagle and then at Lizard Lounge. Quite a bit of standing alone and one-sided conversations. In particular, running into a cute little guy I used to have an ongoing flirt with (before he moved with his boyfriend to Spokane), left me feeling pretty funky. I asked him about his new life in Washington State, what he was doing in DC, and so on, but he showed absolutely no interest in me or my life.

So by this point, I was writing a tirade in my head, and was eager to get home to write it down. It went something like this:

*** BEGIN RANT ***

If I ever meet a guy I find physically attractive who asks me one single, solitary question about myself, I’m going to marry him. Sometimes it seems like everyone I know is either so wildly narcissistic or so badly raised that the only thing they can talk about is themselves — if they can talk about anything at all. And I include in this most of my friends. (I say this without fear that they would be sufficiently interested in my life to actually read my weblog.)

I’m sick to death of carrying on one-sided interviews with the guys I meet, holding up both ends of a conversation to keep it going. Where is the guy out there for me who knows Evelyn Waugh was a (male) British novelist (no requirement that he’s actually read him) and that Ethel Rosenberg wasn’t? You’d think in a city full of trained lawyers I could find someone who could talk about something outside his little world. Wait a minute. What was I thinking…?

And so on.

*** END RANT ***

But it was just as I was about to depart Lizard Lounge that the tone of the evening started to change. First I ran into Pasquale, whom I briefly dated a while back. As he always does, God bless him, he always shows real interest in what’s up with me. He, his ex-roomie Bristol, and I talked for a while, and again I turned to leave. On my way to the door, I was flagged down by Doug, a young cutie who introduced himself to me at a poolside tea-dance a few weeks ago. He’s mainly concerned with me as the “gay scout hero guy,” but that’s fine. Plus he introduced me to several of his cute, young friends. Even Dane, the guy who moved to Spokane, showed interest in his way, tickling me on the chest or patting my ass each time he passed by.

Finally, I left the bar and headed home on foot. Just a block from my house, a rattly old Saab pulls up short at the curb, and my old friend Sidney yells out my name. He was in traffic, so we couldn’t talk long, but we caught up as best we could and made plans to hit Lizard Lounge together next Sunday.

Finally, I got home, and there was Raymond, God bless him. He’d come by just as I was leaving for the Eagle, hours earlier, to do his laundry. By the time I returned, he was still there, watching TV, drinking beer, and playing with Buddy.

Raymond stayed the night. And as I curled up against him, all the earlier anxiety and irritation just dissolved like mist.