Another awkward tale from my youth part 2

This is not the old caf at St. Olaf. But it conjures up the cold, Lutheran ambiance of which I speak. I mean, write.

In an attempt not to drag this on for a year as I did with the story of how PG and I met, I'm getting a move on with this tale. See here for Part 1.



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Just figuring out Jeff's name seemed like such an important feat that I hadn't even thought of what I might do with the information once I acquired it. I was always a fairly shy person and had never, at least in my own memory, manipulated a situation so that I would have a chance to talk to someone in particular. I was used to letting things happen and unfold as they may, which would probably explain the many disastrous events of my life up to that point.

I decided it was time to take control.

A few days later as I was walking toward choir rehearsal I saw him about 20 yards ahead of me. I knew I needed to get his attention and slow him down right then before he reached the choir room, depriving me of a chance to walk with him and chat him up for a few minutes.

"Jeff!" I called out. He stopped and turned around.

"Oh, hey Tom! What's going on?" I quickened my pace to catch up to him.

"Not a lot." (Yeah, right Tom.) "So how are classes?"



I was so nervous that I had absolutely no idea what he said in response. I had always been like that; it was so unusual for me just to start talking to someone I barely knew that my self-consciousness overrode anything else about the situation, including the ability to listen to the other person. Most of us shy folk can compensate by developing an ability to recognize the cadences of typical small-talk, and are able to imitate having an actual conversation with all the perquisite give-and-take.



It's remarkable how many people in life have told me I'm a "good listener." If they only knew.



I could not have repeated even five minutes later what either of us said to the other. There was just one very important part of the conversation that had to, and did take place: setting the stage so that I could run into him again and casually suggest having a meal together.



Over the next several weeks I took note of the various directions from which he approached the music building before choir practice, which was three afternoons a week, and made sure to be in the general vicinity each day so that I would be in place to chat him up. It worked.



One day, as we were approaching our rehearsal I said "So are you doing anything for dinner after choir? Want to go to the caf afterward?"



He he, the caf. It still makes me laugh today when I think about the caf, as we called the dining room at St. Olaf. Having a companion at meal times was crucial in the caf because it was this large room with two separate entrances, filled with long rectangular tables spaced out in perfect symmetry. It was a cold, glaringly lit stark room with a decorative motif that would be best described as "church basement pot-luck industrial."



No one ever wanted to sit alone in the caf, especially not at dinner time, because there were no safe corners in which a lone diner could tuck him or herself away to hide. If you went to the caf alone, there you were for the entire student body to see, pathetic and friendless under the glare of the unwaveringly Lutheran interrogation lamps---I mean, white lights.



In other words, asking someone to eat with you was a foolproof way of getting face time with the object of your interest. No one in modern history has ever turned down an invitation to have a dining companion in the St. Olaf caf, at least not until the college upgraded its facilities long after I graduated.



"Yeah Tom, that sounds great! I'll meet you at the door after choir?"





SCORE!! An actual dinner date!!! I thought. And I even had the rest of choir rehearsal to think up things to say to him!







.....to be continued.......

Another story of my awkward youth part 1

I have no idea who these guys are. I just did a Google Image Search for "Cute College Boys" and theirs was the first fully clothed picture I found.

Quite a while back I wrote about my more significant childhood crushes and in doing so promised to tell you a certain story from my college days. No one can ever accuse CP of not keeping a promise, even if it takes me three or more years to deliver.

Well Gentle Readers, today is your lucky day because I'm going to tell you a story that has kept many a friend on the verge of his or her seat when I've told it in person. A story of early 20-something romantical suspense, one that is sure to melt your heart. Or melt something.

In college I was just barely out of the closet - I had only told three or four people about my feelings for other guys, and most of these friends didn't live anywhere near me. Lulu was one of the lucky ones who knew, partly because I considered her "safe": she lived far away and didn't know any of my other friends, so there was almost no chance of her being able to rat me out inadvertently.


(As an aside I will note that while I was close to Mindy June, she and I weren't super close at this particular time because she had just abandoned me by transferring colleges, and besides, I feared she would judge me for having dated one of our mutual female friends just a few months prior to all this. She told me in later years that I was cracked to think she wouldn't have sided with me, although it's always easy to say that in retrospect.)



The year was 1987, and I was especially touchy about anyone at my college knowing about me because, above all, I feared scandal in my dormitory: I had three male roommates, not to mention a whole floor of guys I had to share a shower with.

Although I'm sure it still happens today in some parts of the country, back in those days it was par for the course that if a straight person found out their roommate was gay, they would raise a stink, go to the housing director and demand that the gay person be removed. This chain of events would result not only in the serious upheaval of one's routine, but also public shaming and involuntary outing. And trust me, being outed involuntarily as a gay person in 1987 was not what you wanted.

It distresses me to this day that so many of us had to live in that kind of fear during our most formative years, years that are supposed to be filled with the magic of youthful self discovery, first kisses, heavy petting (and, if you were a girl, seat-wetting).


Oh, well.

So to summarize our story thus far, we've set the scene with a 21 year old gay boy living with a bunch of straight guys, afraid to be discovered yet starved for affection and also in possession of the normal 21 year old boy hormones. In other words, quite the dilemma.

My 21 year old boy hormones led me to take an acute interest in a certain guy who sang in the same choir I did. I didn't remember where I had met him, but I must have met him somewhere because several different times he walked by me and said "Hi Tom!"

"Hi Tom!" Wow! What on earth could this MEAN????

I had no idea who he was or even what his name was. But I kept a close eye on him for weeks, until one day I noticed him wearing a monogrammed crew neck sweater. (Parenthetically, should I actually have been wondering if this guy in my choir with a monogrammed sweater was gay?)

So that day, after memorizing the initials on his sweater, I went up to the music rack where each choir member was given a shelf to store his or her music, and scanned all the names on the rack until I found one that matched his initials. This uncannily brilliant detective work on my part led me to the irrefutable conclusion that name of the object of my interest was Jeff Henderson.

(For the record, Jeff Henderson is not this person's real name. But I hope you can sense in this story the first stirrings of a first-rate cyberstalker in the making!)

to be continued........

A Highly Satisfactory Star Sighting

My boss, who is straight, is also a big show-tune queen. So when he visited me in New York last night I took him and some other colleagues out to dinner and then to Marie's Crisis for a round of Broadway show-tune belting.

Shortly after we arrived, the girl depicted in the above poster walked in with her mother. She had the starring little-girl-bitch role in one of my favorite all-time movies, Camp.

Needless to say, I was smitten.

Normally I don't talk to famous people in public, partly out of respect for their privacy, but mostly because I would feel like some gawky, stalkerish fan or something. But in this case I decided to approach her because she's not really famous enough to be annoyed by that sort of thing yet. Camp is the only film she's done, and I don't think it enjoyed any sort of prolonged theatrical release outside neighborhoods teeming with gay men, divas and other drama queens. Although the film does show up on the cable channels quite often - and I always make a stop there when surfing, of course.

Anyway, I figured since she's not really that famous she probably appreciates a certain amount of public adoration. Not to mention the fact that she showed up at a show-tunes piano bar frequented by gay men. I mean, helloooo! Craving attention much?

I debated with my colleagues (none of whom knew who she was) as to whether I should approach her - and they all urged me on, telling me I'd regret it forever if I let this one-in-a-lifetime chance pass me by. So I waited until we were ready to leave, and then I made my move.

"Hi! I didn't want to leave without coming over to say hello. You are the girl from that movie, aren't you?"

Ok, it was kind of dumb sounding, but I'm no expert at pickup lines or anything. At least not pickup lines for girly quasi-movie stars.

"No, I'm afraid I'm not. What movie are you talking about?" She was TOTALLY playing me. I liked it.

"Camp! You are the girl from Camp. I know you are. I really enjoyed your performance."

She smiled sheepishly, and then her mother broke in.

"Yes, it is her. She is very talented, isn't she?"

"Yes! I love that movie! I watch it all the time when I see it in the cable tv listings. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your performance."

Giggle.

She really is cute, even if she played a total bitch . My God, I'm so predictable.

"Anyway, I just wanted to stop over before I left. My name is Tom." I offered my hand, which she shook.

"Thank you, nice to meet you!" She wasn't about to offer her name in return. And by the way, I am not mentioning her name in this post because I don't need her Googling to see what a dork I am.

All in all, this was a highly satisfactory star sighting. And not at all meaningless.