I met this guy last night, incredibly sexy guy. He was talking to his friend at Wreck Room. I was talking to my friend. Both of us were looking at each other, past our respective friends. I went over and said hi. He was really sexy, really flirty. He was also, I would soon learn, only twenty years old.
My friend and I went back to the Black Opulence party we had left earlier. The party had cleared out. We were the only other people at this divey Puerto Rican biker bar. We had a couple beers. I smoked a cigarette just because you could. The bartender asked if she should turn up the radio. I said she should.
I fell on a patch of ice on my walk home.
I woke up this morning fairly late, fairly hungover. I rode the train into the city to go the gym. I was in a daze, had Beyonce playing in my ears, and was reading a sentimental short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about a woman who couldn't go to the First Friday mass because her blind grandmother (I believe) had just washed her dress sleeves the night before, they weren't dry, and there was no way the priest would administer the sacrament to someone with exposed shoulders. I don't really know what the significance of this was. I didn't finish the story.
At some point on my train ride, a guy got on and stood in front of me on this crowded train. I looked up and saw who it was and got instantly giddy, kept on pretending like I was reading but was totally unable to do so any longer. My eyes glazed over words on a page, something about sleeves and mass and fake flowers. There was this beautiful man that I have been hoping to see again right in front of me. I just kept thinking of how I was going to say hello to this person, how I was going to tell him how handsome he is. We had chatted on Scruff a couple months ago and he said he was going to come over. Something stupid came up and I had to cancel. And I was so, so bummed because I had seen this guy around my neighborhood before, had seem him make appearances in the Instagram and Facebook photos of my friends, and had always thought him to be breathtakingly sexy.
I have never seen him on Scruff since to try to flirt with him. Every time I have gone on, even earlier this morning, there is a not small amount of hope on my part that I will see him again. And now here he was standing right in front of me. This must mean something, I thought. This is my opportunity to say hello and be charming, that we have already exchanged dick pictures with each other, so surely a hello could not be a problem.
But I didn't.
Instead I thought about how the guys on both sides of me would have to potentially witness me crash and burn by trying to hit on someone on the subway. I always feel vaguely uncomfortable when I watch a guy hitting on a lady on the subway and I didn't want to be that person that makes other commuters squirm with second-hand awkwardness. Instead, I was hoping he would get off at Union Square where I was getting off. I could at that point say hello in that louder space and there would also be the benefit of quick exits available to either one of us should he have no interest.
He didn't get off at Union Square. The train doors closed and he kept heading further west. I was immediately disappointed in myself with how I had been too timid to express something I have been wanting to express, how I passed up an opportunity. It's 2014, I am 32 years old, and I can't let any moment pass, not one, especially not for reasons of fear. I am too old for that. We have always been too old for that. We were born to old for that. It is such a short time we have here. There can be no not reaching for the things we want. It is not how I intend to live my life anymore.
When I got home from the gym, I found him on Facebook. I wrote him a note apologizing for being a wimp on the subway. I said hello. I said that he is really handsome. And I said that I would love to hang out with him. He messaged me back his cell phone number and told me he wants to hang out.
There is nothing to lose, folks. Come on, 2014, bring it - I am not running away anymore.
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