He stares right at me with a big grin I couldn’t decipher as either silly or suggestive, or both. I suppose the most apt term would be GAY. Now I really couldn’t and wasn’t going to hide my impatience. As I was heaving the weight, I made it clear that I wasn’t just frowning because of the weight, but because his big ass fucken grin was right in my line of vision. As soon as I felt that I had communicated the sentiment, I fully cleared him from my awareness.
He eventually left and looked a bit confused. I guess I had only thought I was not in the closet. I saw him around a good more later but he kept his distance, preferring to eye me from afar.
As with most universities, parking is a bitch—I’m just glad the concept here exists. Through trial error and exploration however, I found a lot few know about which is not intended for us but which lies adjacent to a path way that leads ultimately to where most of my classes are held. Lucky for me, this pathway is through a series of air-conditioned and heated buildings making the lot one of my year-round destinations. Though long, it is comfortable.
One morning while doing my speed-walking shuffle, I notice a very tall, very blonde guy coming my way staring in my direction with a sly grin. As I look in his direction he moves his head slightly so as not to stare at me directly. He held that same grin.
OH SHIT—I sort of thought to myself, he’s a doctor. There he was going from one building to another heading towards the med-school. I shrugged it off and gave it little thought henceforth.
After “coming” out, I eventually made it to some of the queer clubs in the city. It was hard to start going at first. I didn’t like that someone could get my name and through the school social network know a great deal about me. Still, I went and as I was standing by myself sipping a drink and talking with some random dude, I see this very tall, very blonde guy move in my direction. I notice it out of the corner of my eye. I swear I’ve started to grow eyes on the back of my neck.
He eventually comes and stands again, right in front of me, except this time he’s with this shorter dark-haired guy. He just gawks at me. Doesn’t stare or glare. He gawks. His jaw opened, he turns his head and body and looks at the dark short guy and then looks back at me.
I don’t know how the fuck I managed to ignore it, but he then just gawked at me again, and then turned and left. I didn’t know what to do, and the guy in front of me tried to ignore the whole scenario when he realized I was going to do so.
What the hell??? Didn’t he know I was gay when he came up to me at the gym??? Why did he have that dumbfounded, incredulous look on his face?
A couple days ago, I was working out at a different gym in the university. It is less frequented and suits certain workouts better. He walks in and again eyes me from afar yet without an attempt at hiding it. At this point, I must say my curiosity is piqued. He’s obviously intelligent in some regard, and I gather that unless the med school bears his last name that he must have social graces. In which case, I wonder—what the hell is up with him? Do I remind him of someone? Has he mistaken me for a long-lost best friend who he thinks will not talk to him?
I disregarded our previous encounters and just moved through my workout. The first time we passed by each other I didn’t avert my eyes and just passed by normally. He got nervous when he realized I would do so. As I started to pass him his face followed me and as I turned to look at him he got visibly very nervous, which freaked me out and so I looked away. Gawd I’m retarded. I should have said something long ago. I thought he would just quit.
He was tall and muscular but wasn’t my type. He was too blonde and while fit and buff, his body wasn’t doing it for me. His eyes are also on the grey side and not really that intense, jewel-like blue.
He started working on my machine. Okay, now I’ll talk I thought to myself and moved to ask if I could work in with him. He stared at me as I approached, not in the same way as before but with almost fear. At this point I was habituated to the intense and incomprehensible looks. So I just smiled and asked. He moved away as he looked at me, and without ever smiling just nodded while looking right into my eyes. I thought he would have said something, and although I had resigned myself to ignore his weirdness, I somehow ended up mimicking his non-verbal response.
I finished my set. Just when I thought I would be up for talking to him, this other guy comes up to me and starts conversation about the exercise I was just doing. The guy knew a lot about kinesthetics and so we ended up conversing for a while and then blondie was gone.
Tonight, I’m grocery shopping and on the phone. Fuck, there he is again, looking at the meat section. I turn away. I go into a different aisle and when I leave there he is in my aisle and steals a look at me.
Okay, the gym, the fucken parking lot, and now off-campus at the grocery store. This situation is gathering momentum. I’m such a prude. I keep going. As I head towards the cash register several minutes later, there he is again turn into me. I just look at him, and he looks at me (there’s that intensity again), as he turns away he winks.
Aaaaah—some indication as to the reasoning behind all the looks. Finally, I resolve myself as I leave the store, I’m going to have to go after this one. He may not be my type, but also, its not going to be like this always.
Analysis
The intensity of stares is something of a consuming mystery to me. Whoever said that the eyes are the gateway to the soul must have meant that it is like the doors of an elevator—opening one set, opens the next.
I have been on the receiving end of some incredibly penetrating stares. Without a doubt, I must resemble a dear caught in headlights when I look back. I cannot recognize the look without opening myself to its impact.
Its intensity knocks me hard, like a blow to the gut. I refer to the gut because the vulnerability of the stare is so pervasive that it cannot, except from a complete senseless being, demand some reciprocation. Who can stand and see this tremendous act of vulnerability without recognizing and relating to the most human emotions lying just beyond the fragile surface of the stare?
There is of course, retarded lust and it is—“whatever”. But then there are looks that communicate something akin to “emotional lust”. It’s a profound, tremendous, and intense “neediness”. Except, it is so utterly authentic, that it cannot be but attractive in its genuineness, and not connotative of the pejorative use of the term.
The first time I got it was at sports camp when a teammate and I were injured and sat out of a game together. As I approached to sit next to him, he looked up at me, and hit me with “the look”. I was stunned and sat. He proceeded to flirt with me.
Another time was while leaving a mall in an elevator. A tourist walked in and when he saw me, took off his sunglasses and again hit me with “the look”. We chit chatted, and he was very friendly.
Of course, then there was the morning I ran into Him. I was jogging and he was going to class. I stopped, and he hit me with it. Except this time I hit him back almost simultaneously. We locked eyes without saying a word for what seemed like quite a while. We finally talked, and arranged to meal together for the first time.
Most recently, I have become terse in my focused attitude and do not allow for the look. Still, there are some who get my attention, and then they have the opportunity to hit me with it.
As inhumanly as I have learned to run my life, it unsettles me and reconnects me whenever I do get struck. Sadly, this is soooo fucken superficial compared to true relating.
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