The European Experience # 89

You never think it is going to happen. Or at least I never think it's going to happen. I was walking along the street in this beautiful foreign city, the last city on my European itinerary, and I swear I see a friend whom I met in a previous European capital walking toward me. I stop and watch her pass. It couldn't be! Why would SHE be HERE? I consider yelling out her name in hopes that she will turn, but I don't risk the embarrassment if it isn't her, but just one of those "I swear I saw your exact double" episodes. I decide I will email her and ask her if she happens to be here. A much less risky option.
She resonds quickly and lets me know that I am not crazy, I did not see her exact double, and yes, she is in town for a couple weeks. You never think it is going to happen. She is staying with a friend of her family named Eddie. Eddie is here doing reserach for some Ph. D. he is working on. We quickly makes planes to meet for a drink at her (well, actually Eddie's) place later in the week.
She is waiting downstairs outside of her apartment with her two lesbian friends. I am feeling bad because I am unfortunately late. She leads me up the winding stairs and up to her (well, actually Eddie's) apartment.
Eddie is beautiful. He is tall, with broad shoulders, and strong legs. He is wearing plaid shorts that hang low on his waist to reveal the waist band of a pair of sexy, masculine, blue cotton boxers. He wears his shorts and shirt and glasses, as well as his hair, in that haphazazrd academic way that says "I am too busy being smart to care about what I look like". Such casual confidence and aloofness is incredibly sexy. His shrt just happens to have the words "Mr. Perfect" written in big red letters across his manly muscled chest.
I begin to make converstation about the nature of Academic social life with my friend and her guests in order to keep my self from staring at the Post-Graduate hunk sitting at the computer in the next room (he has a pen dangling from his mouth in that oh-so tittilating way that the intellectual elite do when they are lost in thought). Trying to keep the conversation moving in order to keep my attention diverted from my new found crush, I tell a story about a lesbian I knew at University who, without my glasses on, looked like a gorgeous boy.
"Well, you see, as a gay man with glasses", I begin.
"I'm a gay man with glasses", my T.A. fantasy of a academic casually remarks as he walks by on the way to the kitchen.
(What! How perfect for me, Mr. Perfect) This can not get any better, hot, smart, academic, and a FAGGOT. You never think it's going to happen!
My friend, the two lesbians, and the homo intellectual and I leave the apartment to go get ice cream. The academic and I make conversation as our group makes our way down the street. The ladies get some ice cream, but the two fags refrain from fatty deserts. We stop off at a bridge to enjoy the view. My conversation with the intellectual is awkward, but not painful. I am afraid of saying something stupid, and the fact he is so intelligent makes me very cautious. I don't want to come on too strong, but am afraid of not coming on strong enough.
The ladies have to go back to the apartment for a second to pee. The Academic and I are left alone. On a bridge. In a beautiful European City. (Kiss me!) He doesn't. The Ladies return.
The academic suggests we make our way back to the apartment. He has to call his mother in the states who is out of the hospital today.
On our way to back to the apartment, I mention to the lesbians that I am smitten. They laugh. Appartently it is obvious...
The night has come to an end. The lesbians leave. I start to leave but am desperately hoping I will be asked to stay awhile longer. No such luck...
"Nice meeting you", he says as he shakes my hand (Why does he not embrace the cultural practice and kiss me on both cheeks?), "We should wander the gay neighbourhood sometime if you are interested." (Of Course I am!)
You never think it's going to happen. And it doesn't. Not like how you want it to, and not how like you expect it to. But what is important is not that it doesn't happen like you expect, but that something unexpected does happen. If everything turned out like our dreams, fantasies, and fairy tales, the world would be boring. So what! he didn't kiss me on the bridge that moment we were alone? So what! he didn't aske me to stay longer and so we could spend time together? These are the fairytales of Hollywood romances. These are fairytales of the past. You never think it's going to happen and it didn't. At least not like the fairytales of the past. But who know what comes next in this fairy's tale that is being told in the present... Possibility.