In consideration of older men and selected other thoughts

Karaoke was good last night. I didn't sing but it was because I didn't feel like it, not because I was terrified to, which is an important distinction. There were so many people there, you could hardly hear anyone at the mike and only 5-10 people in a tiny room that had to have been beyond capacity could actually see you. I screamed back and forth with a couple of nice women and was pleased that more than half of the women who showed up weren't interested in singing, were coming out for the first time, and had also recently moved and wanted to make some women friends. A surprising number of women had boyfriends or husbands. Most were dressed even more casual than me, some took a little more care, so I definitely did not feel like the loser in walking shoes. All in all, I'm glad I went. Met some interesting people (always), had a very full day, including lunch with a friend who happened to be in town, and woke up this morning with a sore throat in what feels like the same cold I had three weeks ago. I hadn't had a cold in two years and this year, I've been sick three times now. Totally weird and very irritating.

Friday night, I took some out-of-town folks to my neighborhood bar/cafe. There, I saw Boston, an older guy (older-than-my dad-older) I met about a month ago when I wandered in to the place to shake off a funk I was in. He has a dark hair that has gone mostly gray, a kindly weathered face, a wonderful Boston accent, and killer blue eyes. I think he's at least 20 years older than me but I like him. We had a nice talk, walked out together and that was that. Last night, the place was crowded and he had just given his seat the the guys I was with and I invited him to join us. Though he had eaten already, he ended up staying with us the entire meal and even after the guys left. We talked about everything under the sun and like the last time we talked, I felt a weird energy coming from him. If I'm right it was 1/3 loneliness, 1/3 alcohol, and 1/3 lust--not in an aggressive way, but as an extension of his loneliness. He reminds me a bit of Jay, because their loneliness is similar. but Boston is a quieter soul. He strikes me as the type who could earnestly fall in love with a stripper. We left the bar and walked a few steps before our separate homes drove us in separate ways and the space between us was pregnant with something that I thought I recognized but didn't really want to. I gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, he lingered at my neck in a way that could have meant nothing but I think it meant something. I know I'm one for overblowing things--IBC springs immediately to mind, but this feels different.

I don't want to date Boston. He has 4 grown sons, he's older than my father, and I refuse to believe that if God ever had anything at all in mind for me, that Boston would be who he sent. What has me here typing about him is I think what Boston feels happening between us is what I feel between me and every wrong guy. I bang my head against the wall and say, 'how do we talk for hours? how does he share his soul with me and still want to be with somebody else? how can things be so easy between us yet I feel he doesn't seriously consider me romantically? what is wrong with me?' If Boston and I are splashing on the same emotional pheromones, I can see with some degree of objectivity why I seem often to have these long term emotional affairs with the likes of Maybe and IBC and others who haven't been assigned monikers. Like I am (inexplicably) to Boston, these guys are attracted to something about me, maybe they're attracted to my attraction to them. Who doesn't like feeling wanted? Even though I think there is something in them, perhaps a basic decency, that won't allow them to take advantage of the uneven emotional playing field, I do run on the fumes of something in my passive pursuit of their affection. Maybe they are the innocents and I generate all the romantic tension and energy all by myself. But it could also be like the lyrics from the Mamas and Papas:

"I saw her again last night and I know that I shouldn't
To string her along is just not right, if I could then I wouldn't.
But what can I do? I'm lonely too, and it makes me feel so good to know she'll never leave me."

And my favorite, which feels like a shout out to IBC:

"I'm in way over my head, now she thinks that I love her
Because that's what I said, though I never think of her."

Such a jingly sing-songy tune with 'whoa' lyrics.

I'm not sure how, but I can't do Boston like that. It helps that I don't really go to the bar that often and so I'm unlikely to run into him a lot but I will run into him. While I don't need to borrow that trouble in advance, wringing my hands and trying to figure out how to be, what to say, I will be thinking in the coming days how I would have liked my many beyond reach men to treat me. I know I don't have control over his emotions and he's free to like or dislike me the same as everyone else, I just see this as an opportunity (if I've read this situation correctly) to sow something into the world that I will one day benefit from in the way someone conducts themselves with me.

And now for something completely different.

A great song and fun video. Anyone who saw Inside Man will remember this song from the opening and closing credits. I love the dances in this video. They are gettin' down.