Buck's Long Journey Into the Gay, or, What Happened on My Walk Home

So thank you again for handing over some of your travel-sized Aquaphor. That shit is the bomb. I still had one of the big tubes, but I had to throw away my last little tube after letting a model apply some of it to his dick. He had a rash from shooting in the great outdoors and some crazy wave of kindness washed over me and I let him borrow it. When he handed it back I had to think, "Wait, he just touched the tube, then his rashy penis, then the tube, penis, tube, penis...and handed it back." No way I was putting that on my lips again. Not that I apply the tube directly to my lips, but still. Ew.

I know that being my friend for as many years as you have, you've learned a thing or two about how gay guys cruise each other. Like, how we like to stare and tease in public and then go randomly have sex. Well, sometimes I'm lucky and get the sex. But whatever, we gays are gross.

So. On my way home I decided to swing by the big record store that's kinda not that far out of the way. I got on the escalator going up, listening to my headphones really loudly as usual. I turned to my left just as someone was passing me going on the down escalator. We'll call him Derek. Derek was staring right at me, so I nodded and mouthed "Hi" at him. I continued going up and when I turned, he had totally turned around to stare at me. It was cute.

See, I know this Derek guy. We met yeeeeears ago because we always passed each other on our morning walks to work. I had heard of him because he was kind of the rebound guy for this guy I broke up with a few years back. A rebound guy for the one I broke up with, not me. But I always thought he was cute in a regular guy kind of way, which is generally what I like. Anyway, we still occasionally pass each other in the morning and he goes out of his way to avoid me on the sidewalk now, which is weird to me.

So then I go all the way to the top floor, just browsing, and like a minute later, he's standing like 10 feet away from me. I see him so I take my headphones off. As soon as I do this, he starts to wander away. And to myself I'm like, "Dude, you just obviously followed me all the way up here after you were on your way out, why are you playin'?" So he wanders, I grab a few magazines and go to pay for them. I look up and he's pretending to look at a rack of CDs right by the escalator, but he's staring right at me. He sees me looking back, so he goes downstairs. I pay and go downstairs as well, where he's waiting by another rack, pretending to be interested. So, being me, I just walked up to him and put my arm around him. And then say, "How's it going?" He looks petrified. So he goes, "Do I know you?" And I explain that we met forever ago and who we dated in common and blah blah. So he looks less bewildered and introduces himself, then asks my name. And that was it. He had nothing to say. So I walked over to a rack of movies, and he gets on the next escalator going down. I do the same and he turns around to see if I'm there. He walks out and goes directly across the street to another store. I decide not to play anymore, so I start walking up toward home. I turn and he's standing just inside the doorway watching me. I just keep going, then notice that he's following me up the street on the other side. So I cross so we're on the same side and then cross the cross-street. He gets to the corner but gets caught at the light, so I stop and pretend to text you (I was actually trying to text you but my phone was being too slow). So he crosses and instead of coming up to me, he turns left and goes into this giant department store. So I say "fuck it" and start walking. I of course peered around the corner first, and I see him going into the door really slow-like so he can see if I'm looking. So I keep walking toward home, past the store, and I look in. And he's mirroring me from inside, walking the same speed, staring at me. Amy, he was walking through women's cosmetics. Don't pretend he was actually needing to go in that store. So I keep walking and when I get to the other end of the store, he's gone.

Um, yeah.

It was oddly exciting and fun, but what the hell? Was he just playing? Or did he want me to follow him in to the big store so we could fuck around in the bathroom? Cuz I'm not down with that. And I KNOW I wasn't making all this up. It wasn't all coincidental. At first I was thinking, "Damn, my new haircut is working. Men who avoid me are loving my ass right now." But afterward, I was thinking, "That cute guy was giving my fat ass false hope because he just wanted to mess with me and make me feel bad."

Whatever, I bought two magazines. I'm fulfilled.