The second Adam tapped send, the second the radio waves percolated a mile or so through the atmosphere, the second my phone buzzed, the second I saw “new message received” from Grindr, the second I clicked, I should have known it wasn’t going to work out.
I opened this fortuitous message at Public, a four-story bar in Dupont Circle, wedged in a web of straight people for my friend William’s birthday – and with minimal prospects of in-person action.
Routine for me.
Then, the conversation, brief but flirtatious. I don’t have it to look back on now — when you delete Grindr, which I frequently do, you lose your conversations. My human brain appreciates this, though my writer’s brain strains to string together precisely what happened on a random Friday night more than a year ago.
I remember talking with him and leaving William’s party early. It won’t be the last time I’ll leave a straight friend’s event early to hook up with a man. Karma slaps me across the face for doing things like this. For example, a few months later, I left a different straight friend’s holiday party to go see someone from Grindr. My sweater came off mid make-out, and I left it at his apartment. I have yet to get it back more than a year later.
But back to Adam. I caught an Uber — or Lyft? — and arrived at his apartment building. The rest of the night bordered on transactional: I waited for him in his lobby. Dark green walls stood tall while I slouched on a bright, beige couch. Maybe yellow. He came to get me. We shared the elevator. He let me into his one-bedroom apartment. I didn’t get much of a look around before we moved to the bed you could see right when we walked in. Sex began, he entered me, sex ended. We would have sex three more times. Four?
Men are starting to blend together.
I talked to this one about books. About writing. He spoke to me about his work. A lawyer, he was smart or seemed smart.
A law degree couldn’t make him smart. Not about me.
He listened to me, but I don’t know if he heard me; he grew busy correcting my opinions. I forget about what, but he fit my pattern of finding men who shot down my ideas like pro-archers.
Could a Grindr relationship beyond sex develop, somehow, someway, somewhere? Am I channeling Stephen Sondheim too hard right now? At the least, you hope you’re seen as a fellow human. People met their boyfriends on this app before. I could get lucky in more than the traditional sense.
But when Adam took control during sex earlier, I froze. He treated me more like an object than a person. I have a habit of letting people in, even when I shouldn’t.
“Did you call your Uber?”
I hadn’t yet. Subtle, Adam.
“Do you want to hang out again?” I asked. I shouldn’t have.
A few months later, either he or another person gave me pubic lice. Like I said, I should have known it wasn’t going to work out.
* * *
I heard the bathroom light screech on at 6:57 a.m. – yes, it screeched – and realized I wasted so much time scrolling through Instagram, I missed my window to shower before my roommate. This never happened before. “Searching and scanning for answers in every line,” like Eliza from “Hamilton,” wondering if he had liked or commented on anyone’s posts instead of texting me back.
When I got up – minutes later, as I had to get to work – I noticed something wrong: That I calculated how long it had been since he texted me, since he Snap-chatted me, since I felt attractive.
This Friday morning resembled other mornings more than I’d like. I was 26 but felt 18. Teens typically discover their sexuality amid awkward first kisses at middle school dances and wet dreams that follow. I was still navigating gay dating. I still am.
I slunk out of bed and showered, letting the suds sweep off the man from the night before, Adam. The twist? I wasn’t anxiously awaiting a text back from Adam – but from someone else.
The clock ticked past 7:30 a.m., time to get dressed. I jumped into jeans, but … they weren’t mine. Well, yes, mine, but they didn’t feel like mine. Too baggy. A straight man’s jeans. I started wearing more form-fitting clothes, and these jeans were from an old version of me. Why did “straight” me show up, even in my literal closet?
“Straight” me showed up during my first gay dodgeball event earlier this week, where I could barely make eye contact with anyone out of a fear of being jilted. He showed up when I got a rejection letter from a piece I submitted to a literary journal, another reminder of my imperfection. He shows up, four years after I thought I stopped feeling less than. Confidence in my sexuality and overall confidence twist together.
The old me lingers while I try and figure out the current “me.”
I started walking to work and let the music wash over me, like the suds in the shower. Rita Ora’s “Let You Love Me” echoed:
I think I run away sometimes
Whenever I get too vulnerable
That’s not your fault
Love was in the air and in my headphones and not in my texts, but … oh, right in front of me?
A woman ran toward a man – galloped, more like it – and embraced him. Kissed him. I didn’t know how. I don’t know how.
At best, I crawl, between texts and Snapchats and Instagram messages, typing and taking pictures in the hopes of moving an inch closer to a man I know isn’t going to embrace me anyway. Not like that.
8:18 a.m. He Snap-chatted. He texted.
I peeked.
The Author
David Oliver is the social media editor for USA Today's travel section and a
freelance writer. Oliver's work has been published in USA Today, the Washington Post
and U.S. News & World Report, as well as Washingtonian magazine. He has an M.A. in writing from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. He grew up in Randolph, N.J., and lives in Washington, D.C.
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