The perspective that time naturally brings...
For any number of years at my job I had one technical wish: to never, ever again have to find a bug and then say "wait, how did this ever work?" only to find that it hasn't ever worked and that some other bug was hiding the failure. I never got this wish. This very scenario presented itself yet again a mere 2 days before I left.
As one of my many goals for my current time off, I am attending to some long-ignored email messages. One of those was for a local producer, the owner of which I met in person at several public wine tastings about 6 or so years ago. At those times I ran into him, some of his wares seemed ever so slightly queer-inspired. He himself could have been described as a bear, although he was behaving somewhat formally, so I couldn't get a good read. I realize that last sentence may only make sense to me, and be fraught with subconscious peril, but I'm leaving it there. I attempted to be slightly flirty with him, or at least signal that I was gay myself, but didn't perceive any reaction. I found out earlier this year that he is gay, and married, and somewhat well known in the local bear scene.
Another of those email messages was for a local band I've been following since circa 2006; it turns out they are still around, but 4 of the 5 members have changed. I decided to spend some time finding out what happened to the original members (thank you, Internet Archive!), especially since I had huge crushes on 3 of the guys. This turned out to be quite a long and enjoyable trip down memory lane! But the results are frustrating in the end. 2 of them got married to each other and moved to Oregon. 1 of them (the extremely attractive one) moved to Portland and married another boy (and made a HUMP! film maybe? I don't know if I wish I saw it or not!). The last one is still here in Seattle, and is very different than he used to be, but also turns out to be gay. I am now very much wishing that I'd hit on one of them (or, all of them) after one of their concerts.
So I think my new wish is that I never want to find out that some presumed-straight boy I used to be interested in turns out to be gay.
I suspect I'll have as much success with that wish as I did with the previous one.
Or maybe I just need to be more forward in pursuing people, even if they are probably straight? I wish I knew what a 10- or 20-year older version of myself would say. Probably "yes".
As one of my many goals for my current time off, I am attending to some long-ignored email messages. One of those was for a local producer, the owner of which I met in person at several public wine tastings about 6 or so years ago. At those times I ran into him, some of his wares seemed ever so slightly queer-inspired. He himself could have been described as a bear, although he was behaving somewhat formally, so I couldn't get a good read. I realize that last sentence may only make sense to me, and be fraught with subconscious peril, but I'm leaving it there. I attempted to be slightly flirty with him, or at least signal that I was gay myself, but didn't perceive any reaction. I found out earlier this year that he is gay, and married, and somewhat well known in the local bear scene.
Another of those email messages was for a local band I've been following since circa 2006; it turns out they are still around, but 4 of the 5 members have changed. I decided to spend some time finding out what happened to the original members (thank you, Internet Archive!), especially since I had huge crushes on 3 of the guys. This turned out to be quite a long and enjoyable trip down memory lane! But the results are frustrating in the end. 2 of them got married to each other and moved to Oregon. 1 of them (the extremely attractive one) moved to Portland and married another boy (and made a HUMP! film maybe? I don't know if I wish I saw it or not!). The last one is still here in Seattle, and is very different than he used to be, but also turns out to be gay. I am now very much wishing that I'd hit on one of them (or, all of them) after one of their concerts.
So I think my new wish is that I never want to find out that some presumed-straight boy I used to be interested in turns out to be gay.
I suspect I'll have as much success with that wish as I did with the previous one.
Or maybe I just need to be more forward in pursuing people, even if they are probably straight? I wish I knew what a 10- or 20-year older version of myself would say. Probably "yes".