Encounters : The Hoarder

 

There are people that seem to materialise some of the ideas that we have of what we want, need, deserve. It's been said before, I'm pretty sure. 

I was finally in college. During my first few weeks in, I thought I would really have to prove myself more than ever. This was the moment where I would be surrounded by the people who knew what they were talking about, the ones whose point of view was challenging. Aesthetically, that implied a shift, I thought.

A mix of immaturity and imposter syndrome, most likely. These people are gonna be nothing like the people I'm used to, nothing like me, I thought.

I usually arrived there about half an hour before the lectures were meant to start and had breakfast. That day, I sat at one of the benches, the sun had barely risen. I sipped orange juice from a carton and was about to bite into the pastry I brought when, just at eye level, I saw a pair of stone washed jeans struggling to contain his bulge. My spine tingled and I bit into the air, hurting my tongue and letting the pastry fall. He walked past me. I made a mess with crumbs of puff pastry all over me as I was trying to quickly get myself together so I could see the rest, his face, his demeanor. 

Like I imagined, a lot of people would be different from me in college, their skin was lighter, their clothes were more expensive, they drove around while my feet always seemed hot from standing up inside crowded buses. I didn't think too deeply about it at first, I just felt different. Thankfully I think I understand better what happened. 

This was an elective discipline, the professor asked us what course we were taking and how far in we were. 

I liked the contrast of his rough beard with how soft his skin looked, the hazel eyes, the nonchalance, the thick rimmed glasses and the likelihood that he had something hefty inside his jeans. 

- I'm on the first semester... 

A little bit of hope grew 

-... Of my master's degree, comparative literature. 

His voice was raspy and soft at the same time, I had goosebumps. Horny and alone would probably be enough to summarise my situation throughout a lot of that semester. Of course he would be in some unattainable level, way ahead of me, too good for me. I couldn't gauge if he was straight or not either. 

Slowly I managed to not freak out when seeing him walk in, but I could never keep myself from getting a boner when his voice rolled out of his mouth. I imagined biting the dimple on his chin. Perfection only exists if we're lonely enough to fantasise it. 

One day, after I had already decided that this was one of those situations in which you stare awkwardly at unattainable random people and can't look away, my phone buzzed. 

It was one of the 3 hook up apps I had  mostly for lack of other use for my phone and curiosity about the gays around me. I can't remember whether it was a tap, a woof, a sting or anything else app developers come up with to disguise our inability to be vulnerable and say hello to the people we find interesting or attractive, but even though there was no full face picture, I recognised his chin right away. 

My profile only had an excuse for a face picture as well. I had sunglasses on and the picture was strategically cropped to make me look more proportional in my own standards. 

We started talking and exchanged nude pictures. I never told him I had been observing him all along. I was mostly right about how I imagined he'd be naked. I guessed time and time again when he walked in and there it was, the hairy chest, the broad back, the nipples that were visible through his tee shirt. 

I remember once sitting down with a friend in the corridors and he walked by. 

- That's him, I said. 

He didn't talk to me in person, even though I thought it was clear that we knew who each other was.

- I saw you were talking to a friend so I got a bit shy. I'm not out yet,he said. 

His father was someone "important". When I googled the last name he had even a Wikipedia page. He was one of those people who's always mentioned with a last name. Something distinctive, Italian, I guess. Our conversations were mostly about a number of things he was willing to do with me, sexually. I think we skyped a few times, we wanked, I wish he'd talk to me in college. Out of curiosity,  I asked him where he lived, he asked me the same. 

- Oh. 

I asked him should we meet out of college some day. He said we should rent a room or something and have sex until we passed out.

What about food or coffee? 

Well , he wasn't out, I should be patient.

The semester ended and we never did anything out of online sex. During the holidays, he disappeared from the app. 

Before we were back, I found him on Facebook. 

He wasn't alone on his profile picture. It was a recent thing according to Facebook. It was also a man next to him. He had a last name too. 

I had to pick some documents up in college and he showed up as being nearby on the app. 

- Yes, I'm dating. We started talking around the same time I started talking to you. I think the two of us are better suited though, he lives closer, he's about to become a doctor. But we could definetely have a threesome. 

We probably would be better off staying unenthused by the materialisation of ideas that we have, there's no element of surprise.