How I Met Adam, Part 2

So Hank and I became good friends, really “best buds” almost from the start.  The older I get, the more bored I am with stupid people.  My circle of friends in my forties is much, much smaller than it was in my twenties but I’m surrounded by smart, thoughtful people with kindness in their hearts.  Hank is definitely such a person.

Now since I don’t drink at all, I rarely go to bars.  I haven’t sworn them off, it’s just that I haven’t had a real reason to go for a few years now.  Occasionally someone will suggest a game of pool or something at a local pub and, since the desire to drink as long since removed (thank you, God) I’ll go along if I feel like it. (not something I recommend to the newly-sober by the way) One night, Hank suggested that we join a couple other friends, Bill and Dave and this dive bar in Venice called the Rooster Fish.  This is the joint made famous earlier this year when Daniel Craig was (allegedly) seen making out with another dude there.  So what?  Leave the guy alone.  Anybody with good sense knows he’s too sexy to be straight anyway.  (relax, it’s a joke) The Rooster Fish actually reminds me of some of the college bars in which I used to drink, beer boxes on the floor, ten year old posters on the wall, a juke box…only gay.  I was probably on my second O’Doul’s and enjoying a nice big fat dip (I still dipped Skoal back then) when one of those “chance” little happenings changed my life forever.  I looked across the bar and saw this beautiful man.  In about a nanosecond, several thoughts went through my mind.  He had this James Dean badness about him that I have always found terrifying and irresistibly attractive, he all but had the cigarette hanging off his lip.  In fact, I would swear that he did except for that smoking is illegal inside public establishments in California.  I also, on some level thought, “Now there’s the kind of guy that I’ll end up wishing would like me like I’d like him to like me.”  (There have been a few.  You see, it replicates the paradigm of my father’s….oh, nevermind.  That’s a complete other story.)  So while I’m standing there drooling, I go completely from “Holy shit, look at that beautiful man” to “Uh, uh, you better not even look over there.  Besides, he looks straight.  No gay man would put that little effort into his appearance.  ‘probably lost.”  About that time, Hank says, “Hey you see that guy over there?”  “See him?! Hell yeah, I see him.  How could I not see him?”  Hank wasn’t pleased I found him attractive.  He said, “Well when I was together with my ex who I had been with for three and a half years, that guy broke us up!  His name is Adam.”  Holy shit.  Now I definitely had to steer clear.  Everybody knows it’s “bros before hoes” even if you’re queer and the “hoes” happen to be other “bros.”  Now I later found out that that the whole “Adam broke us up” thing wasn’t exactly like it happened.  Yes, Hank’s ex did find Adam attractive and there was one very messy night where they all ended up wasted and back at Mike’s place and Hank and Mike had a big ole fight.  But nothing really ever happened with the whole Mike and Adam thing.  Hank admits that things were pretty much on the way out with Mike and Adam came along the right time to be the proverbial straw, even if the camels back was pretty fucked up already.  None of that matters really.  Simple fact was that there had been bad blood at one time and since Hank was (is) my buddy, that made Adam definitely off limits.  Oddly, they ended up speaking to each other and after everybody (except me) had a couple more beers, Adam had joined our group and we were all throwing darts and playing pool.  I just looked at my shoes a lot and pretended not to notice Adam as much as I could.  Every time I looked at him though, he was looking at me.  As it got closer to time for the evening to end, he kept “getting inside my bubble”…that moment where we could have at the very least traded numbers came up over and over.  I just kept backing away…not because I couldn’t have eaten him alive right there, but because of my friendship with Hank.  Even I’m not that big an asshole.  Well, since you know how the story ends, and as we ultimately find out, apparently I am.