I'll Tell It To You Straight

This morning I asked Lynn if she could remember the name of the gay guy we’d met on a plane and subsequently tried to befriend—because we thought such a relationship would add to our social diversity, be fun, and make us feel cooler about ourselves. The plan went dreadfully awry when we visited him at his Northern Virginia condo and found him to be terrestrially uninteresting. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but it was definitely something gayer and more exotic than what we found. We all sat around talking about boring crap that I can’t remember anymore. He gave us a tour of his place, which was not diverse at all, looking like approximately 500 other condos in that particular development.

To be fair, I’m sure Lynn and I were way more interesting on the plane, when we were garrulous and heady with excitement at the prospect of having a gay friend, than we were in Northern Virginia, where our disillusionment no doubt made us listless and dull conversationalists. By the time shortly thereafter when that acquaintanceship ran its course, it wasn’t as if Plane Guy was begging us for another shot, sobbing that he’d display at least 50% more homosexuality the next time if only we’d give him another chance.

To the contrary, I’m sure he was thinking, “Am I just imagining that those two dullards were a hoot on the plane?”

So, this morning Lynn told me his name had been Alfred. That didn’t sound right to me. More ethnic, I seemed to recall. “Alfredo?” she ventured. Yes! I’m pretty sure yes, anyway. And that might have been part of the lure—that we’d have not just a gay friend, but one whose first name suggested creamy deliciousness. Not that we personally wanted to get creamily delicious with him, you understand.

Anyway, the reason I’d asked Lynn his name is because something happened a few days ago that was tied to this whole straight-people-craving-gay-mascots thing, which is awful and embarrassing and smacks of bad sitcom plots, but which I’m owning up to it right here and now.

There’s this woman with whom I became acquainted through my job, because she wrote a very engaging book about her work as a physical therapist, and I asked her to write an essay about those experiences for the physical therapy-themed magazine for which I’m a writer/editor. She lives in the DC area. I’m being purposely vague with these details because of the embarrassment referenced above. While it’s unlikely she ever would read this post, and while I’m sure that the few regular readers of this blog who know some of the story already wouldn’t blab to her, you never know who could just happen to stumble upon Lassitude Come Home and expose my heterosexual foolishness in some frighteningly viral way.

The PT—that’s what physical therapists tend to call themselves, although apparently in Delaware in the 1970s it meant “prick tease,” per my loyal reader NY Friend—and I exchanged several friendly emails during the essay-writing process. She did a great job on the piece, for which she received no pay, but it did alert the 90,000-plus members of the American Physical Therapy Association to the fact that she has a book available for sale.

Although the book touches in only a minor way on the author’s sexuality, the fact that she’s gay does come out, if you’ll pardon the expression. And this, of course, intrigued me. It wasn’t the only thing that interested me about the author—I admired her work as a PT, and her ability to write so interestingly and often humorously about it—but there also was that gay-friend itch of mine that longed to be scratched. (An image that perhaps sends a sexually ambiguous message, but you know what I mean.)

Sure, the whole Alfredo thing, all those years ago, had ended with a whimper, not a bang. But that situation had been a three-way with a guy, while this would be one-one-one with a dyke, and … oh my God, enough with the double entrendres! Suffice it to say, I had reasons to think this relationship could work. Both of us write, after all. Our senses of humor jibed well over email. She digs women. Me, too! Et cetera.

So, I proposed that we meet in person. She was game. We met for lunch in Bethesda on one of my Fridays off. But everything was off from the get-go. The conversation was strained from beginning to end. I think we both were trying too hard. She wanted to impress this editor guy who gives good email, and I wanted to impress this PT, book author, and aficionado of same-sex-intercourse. Our jokes fell flat. Every inquiry seemed to yield a brief, inarticulate answer. Our parting “Let’s do this again” rang hollow.

Still, we did do it again. The next time was at a bar off the Maryland Beltway, nearer to where she lives with her partner, who’d become her wife since that lunch meeting in Bethesda. We talked about work, family (they have two kids), her love of swimming and her swim team, my running and my 50-states list. I think we both assumed that alcohol would liven things up and increase the comfort level. It didn’t work. Again, I don’t quite know what I’d expected. Ellen DeGeneres, maybe?

Not surprisingly, there was zero contact between us for a few months after that. But then, a few days ago, I was driving to work, listening to the debut CD by this Australian singer-songwriter named Courtney Barnett. The recording had made a few year’s best lists, so I’d decided to check it out. She can really rock, and her lyrics cleverly embrace life’s mundanities. (The CD’s title says it all: Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.) There’s one song that made me think of the PT the very first time I heard it, because it’s set at a pool and involves swimming.

Then I read a short feature in Rolling Stone about Courtney Barnett, and learned, among other things, that she’s gay. Nothing in her lyrics had tipped me off, although, as it turned out, I’d missed something. I’m not always quick on the uptake when it comes to song meanings, but the swimming-pool song clearly is about how the singer has an unrequited crush on another person at the pool. Another swimmer who—I realized the next time I listened, driving to work that morning—is also a woman! The song is about a girl-on-girl crush!

This was the revelation I had during my morning commute—that this tune involves both swimming and lesbianism, and that I must, as soon as I got to the office, link the PT to a YouTube video of the song being performed, cut and paste the lyrics, and present it all in an email that would be much funnier than I had been in either of our face-to-face meetings.

With great excitement, I sent the email. Less than 10 minutes later, the PT responded.

“I LOVE IT! (I just posted it on my swim team’s Face book page.) Thanks for making me look cool and hip. And that CD title just makes me laugh.”

There was a bit more to the message, but those were the lines that mattered.

I’d done it! I’d had a genuine bonding moment with a Person of Gayness! I’d even come across, improbably enough, as someone who conversant in what’s “cool and hip”!

She asked me what I’d been up to, but she pointedly did not suggest that we get together.

You can bet that I didn’t bring it up, either, when I responded.

It was perfect.