Next was a man in a furry mask. I thought he was supposed to be a golden retriever.
I wasn’t into puppy play.
The next profile proudly proclaimed NO FATS NO FEMS, like it was some kind of badge of honor. I hoped he found the joys of herpes in his near future.
The profile after that seemed nice at first, until I read the very last sentence in his profile where there was a hashtag followed by four letters that made me want to vomit. “Make America great again, my ass,” I muttered. “Fucking psycho.”
If my life was a romantic comedy, I would have kept scrolling before coming across the profile of a certain college professor. It would read that he was new to this whole Grindr thing and that he really wasn’t into hookups. He wanted, he would write, someone to hang out with, someone to listen to terrible music with. And then he would go on to say that there was someone he was interested in, someone charismatic and beautiful and wicked awesome whose name rhymed with Maury, but that person was off-limits. It hurt his heart, he’d lament, and he would probably just delete this profile because no one else could compare.
I would swipe right, and we would connect, and after a bit of back and forth (“Yes, it’s really me, Jeremy! I promise. I’ve been waiting for you!”), we would meet up. It would be awkward and filled with blushing and stolen glances before he would take my hand in his and whisper that he’d wanted this for so long, and fuck the fact that he was my boss, he would quit and then everything would be sunshine (“Just like the color of my Jeep,” he’d whisper earnestly) and roses. He would quit Phoenix House (because I needed the job more than he did, and he was nothing if not magnanimous), and we would go antiquing in an alley behind an Indian restaurant.
But since my life was not a romantic comedy, there was no such profile. Instead I got one with a shirtless guy holding a rifle. The caption above the picture read: YTES ONLY.
“Yeah,” I said to this pinnacle of masculine bigotry. “I hope that works out for you.”
I closed the app, trying not to think about how long it’d been since I’d gotten laid. There’d been a couple of guys since I’d come to Tucson, but nothing serious. I wasn’t hardwired for the hookup culture that seemed to permeate the younger queer community in Tucson. It wasn’t something I was interested in. It certainly didn’t help that on weekend nights after Jack It closed, people gathered outside in what was known as the Meat Market, a last desperate grab to find someone to go home with and fuck.
You tended not to form long-lasting romantic relationships at a gay bar.
Okay. There was Paul and Vince, sure.
And now that I thought about it, Sandy and Darren. But they were the outliers.
Until I remembered that Ty and Dom had had their first kiss inside Jack It too, and realized that I hated everything.
I threw down the phone and banged my head on the desk.
“So lame,” I whispered to no one in particular.
A few minutes later, just when I was about to give up and put on sweats and plop myself down in front of the TV, my phone vibrated.
I stared at it for a moment.
Had I accidentally swiped right on YTES ONLY? Oh god. Was he going to be in for a surprise.
Instead there was a text from Charlie. You want to go grab some lunch?
Sweet, wonderful Charlie.
Beautiful Charlie.
Charlie, who had been studiously avoiding me ever since the revelation that Jeremy and Robert lived only a couple of blocks away.
I hadn’t gone to the bar the past couple of weeks. Working a full-time job was more exhausting than I’d realized, and the idea of going out had made me physically feel like dying. I’d always heard that your twenties were for partying until all hours of the night, and then your thirties were pajamas at eight. I couldn’t wait until I turned thirty because I was already there in spirit.
Sandy had been there, of course, but I didn’t think he’d remembered to chew Charlie out. He tended to get distracted. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d forgotten about it altogether.
Then I got suspicious. Charlie texting me out of the blue to go out? We were the ones who always had to text him.
I wrote back. Is this because I’m alone and realizing I have only a few friends and they’re all screwing each other and happy?
It took a few minutes for him to respond. Yes.
Great! Where do you want to go?
IT TURNED out he wanted to go to an old diner downtown that served tater tots covered in cheese. Which was absolutely okay with me.
The older waitress smiled at us as she took our order and sashayed away after patting Charlie on the shoulder, telling him it was good to see him again. She moved with a practiced swish of her hips through the throngs of people that filled the restaurant. When we’d arrived, there was already a wait list, but they’d seated us right away when they’d seen Charlie.