6.12.01

I remember I wanted to write about the man whose name is like wine I don't want to drink, and who, as a result, is upping the ante, increasing the pressure, calling too soon and too often. The few hours we have spent together I've directed the conversation, tethered him on the gentlest guys. My mind is not captivated so I entertain myself by observing the details of his movement, what he says and is not saying, and what that indicates about him. I feel part machine, a sociopath, with one eye on the conversation, the other scanning and recording. I guide conversation to activities we have in common because I don't particularly want to give up much information about myself and I know he is not mature enough to ask me in direct interest. I notice he's easily entertained by the topics I choose. He is easily impressed that I regularly practice a wider variety of sports than he does. He is easily impressed by what I know of small electronic items. He's bread and butter, Angela says. He's inexperienced really. Doesn't know anything about me—not my age, where I live, not one thing I have done in the last ten years besides sport—only that he doesn't want to wait so long to see me again. Doesn't want to wait so long to talk boy with a body he wants to fuck. No, he's a good boy. He's bread and butter. Just inexperienced really. One square spread sweet and bland. He's a skier-biker-sailor guy. He goes away to the Whistlers and yacht clubs of the world and drinks beer in the bar scenes out of 80's sex&ski movies. He still believes love and women or wives or families are things to be acquired without thinking about the reason for it and without being able to engage the humanness required of it. (That is, he's using a simple courting protocol without questioning its origin, its method, or the substance of its outcome.) It's the multi-dimensional qualities he senses and projects onto—what he is not. If he were to face that tension consciously, that difference between our places and personalities would intimidate him. It does anyway. He's in over his head. I'm going to cut him free.

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