Encounters: The Bather

I can't remember exactly how we started talking. It was definitely online, it just couldn't have been any other way. 

Straight people don't always realise, and sometimes we don't either, but a lot of our "promiscuity" possibly has to do with forced isolation, with having to conceal who we are from the people around us, being unable to form meaningful relationships in the contexts we are already part of, in case it compromises our standing. I'm sure most gay people would rather have had a boyfriend in school as a teen, someone they felt something tender for, someone whose company they enjoyed, someone that they could share things with and eventually it became physical too, rather than feeling so isolated, deprived of attention and affection that you just want to feel someone else's touch no matter what, sometimes no matter who. 

 I can't imagine how it was for the people before me, but having access to the Internet, this sort of limbo where you can meet people who are like you without necessarily expanding too much on who you are and being able to sever these connections before there's an overspill and strings become attached, was, to an extent, a salvation. A sad one, we shouldn't have to, but I suspect fear is very intuitive.

I knew myself to be a kind kid, to try my very best at the tasks I was given, to try and abide by rules, I asked questions because I didn't always understand them, and yet I've been through a lot for "seeming to be gay" before I even had any glimpse of desire towards anybody. What could happen if I was actually caught doing something irrefutably gay? 

***

I think I was the one who started talking to him. Friends of friends online, that meant something depending on the friends. On his profile picture he was sitting on a beach chair. I like to think I caught a glimpse of his solar personality, which he indeed had, but the reality of it was that it was a nice spread. He had strong hairy thighs, the sun glistened on his sallow skin, the hair on his legs wet and speckled with sand. His arms crossed, his tattoed biceps bulged out of his tank top. 

I poked him. In hindsight it sounds like such a weird interaction to happen in real life or online. Nonetheless, he poked me back. We said hi, said a few platitudes about how we were doing, tiredness, work. I must have moaned about how hard it was to find anyone. Soon enough we were exchanging pictures. 

I think we both knew what was about to happen from the moment he poked me back. He, like a lot of the men I was into then, had that energy of someone firmly grounded, that could "take care" of me. 

He wasn't the only guy I had been talking to, and I think there had been a succession of 4 to 5 guys that I talked to for a while and when I had the guts to ask them out, were already dating someone else. I thought I brought people the realisation of what they weren't looking for, at least. 

I haven't yet rationalised how it was perfectly acceptable for me to be sending very sexual videos and wanking online on calls to other people, and yet I froze at the very idea of going out with someone. Even if going out just for a coffee or ice cream. 

However, there was something about his voice. I remember in one of our Skype calls, I closed my eyes and listened to him groaning as he came. I pictured myself sitting on his lap on the beach chair, hearing the same sounds, feeling his warm breath on my earlobes and the sea breeze on my skin . 

I decided I would get myself together and ask him out. 

He seemed to always be online, but after I sent the message, he disappeared.

Once again I confronted the weird feeling of perceived rejection, or worse, the feeling that I was owed some sort of explanation. I thought it was only fair that people pointed out to me how I could be better. 

It isn't fair, that would have been asking to conform who I am to what they're looking for, and that is never as complex as the real me. I know that now. I was caught in the idea of correcting what I had done wrong, what was wrong with me, how I could improve, how I could become what people looked for, how I deserved this and that... 

Self commiseration is also very self indulgent a lot of the time. I tell myself that very often if I'm going down a spiral of self pity. 

I think it was about 5 days after his disappearance from MSN messenger, I stumbled upon the news: 

Gay man killed with pressure pan blows in his apartment in the capital. 

The suspect was caught trying to flee the scene. Victim suffered several blows to the head with a pressure pan. 

Further down, the news went on to say that the killer had become violent after he had proposed that they had sex. The killer's name was not disclosed. His was, along with a picture. He was sitting on a beach chair, the arms bulging out of his tank top. 

This weird online limbo where you know people, but hardly enough to approach their family, sometimes it feels not enough to even validate your grief, but certainly enough to feel like a fool for making so much about me in my own head. 

Sometimes I feel like I am unapologetically gay, unapologetically me, like I finally roam the place knowing who I am, like I'm finally OK if I'm wanted or not, if people accept me or not and, sometimes in doing that, I see a few rowdy men going home after a football match. I try not to dim my own light for as long as possible, but I can feel myself suddenly staring at the pavement. Fear is very intuitive.