2001-03-16 - 16:49:38
Memories & Their Anticipation

Memories & Their Anticipation

Remembered Oops

For some reason this morning I thought of Leonard on my three-mile walk to work.

Exactly ten years ago I worked as a secretary for a branch of the provincial government here in town. Everybody there was friendly and not hard to please; it was a rather lax place to work.

Leonard was one of the not-quite-senior bureaucrats in the office; in his late 40s, I would guess, he triggered my gaydar big-time.

Sure enough, one weekend a few weeks after I started working there, I saw Leonard at the gay bar with a guy I presumed to be his lover. I didn’t go up and talk to him, and he didn’t come up to me either. It was kind of awkward.

But later that night, the guy he was with came up and said he needed to talk. He sat me down and explained that Leonard was freaked out, big-time, at the sight of me at the club, worried that I’d “out” him at work. I assured Leonard’s boyfriend that his secret was safe with me. Later that night I talked to Leonard too, and reassured him I wasn’t going to blab. His relief was palpable, and he actually loosened up a bit and we visited gaily. But he still avoided me like the plague during office hours.

One of the duties of my job was to sit at the receptionist’s desk during her lunch hour. Now you need to understand how the office phone system worked. All calls came in through a central number, which I would answer. Then I would page whoever the call was for, indicating what line their call was on. And the paging system was not private; that is, my announcements came through the intercom speaker on everybody’s phone, not just the intended recipient.

Okay, so about a week after running into him at the gay bar, a call comes in for Leonard while I was covering reception.

“Can I tell him who’s calling?” I asked, business-like to the max.

“Nelly,” she said.

“One moment please,” I said, as I depressed the ‘hold’ button.

Now, what I meant to say was, “Leonard, Nelly on Line One.”

What I accidentally broadcast throughout the entire office was, “Nelly Leonard, Line One.”

Stereotype Demolition

Which triggered another memory from that same period.

One night I was cruising in my car, driving around and around the cruisey part of this city’s downtown core. Another young guy, too, was circling around and we began to follow each other. It’s damned difficult to assess the desirability of somebody when you’re both in moving vehicles, eh? My least favorite way to cruise.

Anyway, he followed me down the hill towards home, right into my apartment building parking lot. When he walked up to my car and hopped in, I was pleased to see that he was actually quite cute.

The usual small talk ensued. Leading to that inevitable question, “So, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a secretary,” I said. “You?”

“I’m a nurse.”

Unfinished

The “big talk” has not yet happened. Since I last wrote about Pierre, we’ve been trying to set up a time to get together. I thought it a bit odd that I was doing all the work, bending over backwards to suggest times to meet up; Pierre wasn’t that forthcoming in terms of actually scheduling this get-together. Finally, Tuesday evening I called him and we arranged to meet up the following night at a coffee shop near my house.

Wednesday, he stood me up. I sat there waiting for thirty minutes. Sure, I was a bit choked; pulling a no-show is incredibly juvenile and rude.

I’m not going to make contact with Pierre again; the ball’s in his court. Once I calmed down a bit, I no longer feel all that angry. He’s a wounded young man, and I guess he’s doing the best he can.

From the very beginning, I’ve been as honest with Pierre as I’m capable of; perhaps he’s nursed a secret hope all this time that I’d eventually come around to realizing he was husband material. Which I haven’t; which he’s not. Equally likely, his reasons for pulling away now have little to do with all that.

In any event, I have some happy memories—erotic and platonic—of our year-and-a-half friendship, as well as a guilty sense of relief that it might be over. Emotionally, Pierre can be quite a handful, and some of his quirks were starting to drive me crazy. And, his affection and loyalty were unsurpassed; I shall certainly miss that cuddly heart of his.

It would appear that most relationships—friendship, lover, whatever--die out, rather than deepen. That might just be a fact of life? I can get so fucked-up over interpersonal rupture; in the (very recent) past, it has triggered all kinds of old shit for me. But maybe, just maybe, I’m moving through some of that.

If in fact my abandonment complex is giving way to resignation and indifference when people leave, is that progress?

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