How I Met Adam, part 3

About this time, another Iraq War veteran called me and said that there was some lady whose son was killed in Iraq protesting outside the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas.  She was demanding to talk to the president.  (This was Cindy Sheehan, of course).  He said that we should all drop everything and go down there to support her.  I told him that I was way too busy but that I would go for two days.  (These “two days” turned into a month in Crawford and then another month traveling with Cindy as her bodyguard).  I asked Hank if he would take care of my lab, Sydney. So while I was camped out there in the pasture in Texas and then when we were running all over the country, I would call Hank once or twice a day to see how he and Syd were getting along.  One day he said, “Hey guess who I’m dating. Adam!”  “No way,” I said, “I thought you hated him because of the whole Mike thing.”  Hank responded in the tone that only a gay man hooked onto what he wants can bring. “Weeeell, as it turns out we have a lot in common.  He likes to play video games too and we get along real well.”  I thought, “Damn, now not only do I have to pretend not to be interested in Adam but I have to be around the two of them being all ‘couple-ish’ and shit.”  That’s what I thought.   What I said was, “That’s great, Bro.”  So for the next few days I got to call and hear Hank gush about what an awesome guy Adam is.  Fun, fun for me right?  Wrong.  But then one of those things happened that are at once absolutely great and absolutely horrible.  Adam stopped calling Hank.  He lost interest in dating Hank.  Now because in this very short story two guys have decided not to date Hank, you might come away thinking that there is something wrong with Hank.  There’s not.  In fact, most of the gay men and straight women I know would love to end up with a guy like Hank.  For whatever reason though, it didn’t work out for the two of them.  Now I’ve already admitted to you that I am an asshole.  So I can tell you this honestly and you can believe me or not that when I got that call from Hank; when he told me that he and Adam wouldn’t be dating anymore, after the brief moment of relief, I really was hurting for Hank.  I have been on that side of unrequited love more than once in my life and there are few things that suck worse.  Plus, I still felt bad for not wanting to date Hank myself.  I hated to be part of Hank’s pain.  I hate for good people to hurt, but I hate worse when good people hurt because of something I did.  Now, on top of an (albeit short-lived) failed romance with me, the very next guy Hank had interest in had also said, “No thanks.”  So then I did the responsible “best-bud” thing and proceeded to try and make Hank feel better by telling him what  loser Adam was.  “Come on man, if he can’t see what an awesome guy you are, fuck him!  Plus he’s obviously got a drinking problem.  Do you honestly want to deal with that?  Besides, he’s not all that cute anyway.  I think you can do much better.”  You know, all the exaggerations any decent friend will tell you to make you feel better when you’d just as soon eat paste.  That’s what I did for Hank.  That’s the kind of awesome friend I am.

So by the time I finished escorting Cindy all over creation and our romp through Congress had (temporarily) ended, I headed back to LA, safe in the knowledge that at least I could have my buddy Hank back and I wouldn’t have to see him and Adam together.  In fact, I’d probably never have to see Adam again.  That’s what I thought.