I finally went out without caring for once.  Don’t care how I look, don’t care how I act.  I just didn’t care at all about life at that point.  Going by the bar on a weekend night, I know better than to get noticed.  Half the people I meet say they are regulars and yet I’ve never seen them.  Regulars are there when I am.  On weeknights or during the day. The slish-slosh Saturday nights you and your buddies love so much wouldn’t be there without the solid bones of weeknight regulars. 

The regulars make up the soul of a dive bar. We aren’t the big spenders that make weekends so profitable.  Most of us don’t have the money we’re spending on these drinks.  We are just here because there’s nowhere else to go.  I’m not pretty enough to nurse a beer in the sports bar.  I don’t dress well enough to nurse a martini in the cocktail bar.  I’m too cis-whatever to nurse anything in a gay bar, at least in Seattle.  Luckily, the dive bars are still there.  There’s a dive bar everywhere.  It’s where we go for whiskey on a weeknight.

This evening, I accidentally made eye contact.  More accurately, he caught me looking.  I’ve got a thing for some people.  I feel a connection that puts me at ease without even speaking.  There’s a resonance when they are near me and I feel less alone than before.  It can be a man or a woman, sometimes even a dog.  I might be sexually attracted or emotionally or even spiritually, if you believe in that shit.  The only common thread is nice eyes.  Especially with the dogs.

We shut down the bar separately and yet walked home in the same direction.  By then I was hoping he thinks I’m pretty.  Casual confidence, I doubt he thought twice about any of it.  He did end up kissing me that night.  Because I wanted to and he could tell.  That’s why, I come to find out.  He’s “not in a relationship place” and doesn’t want to have sex with me.  He makes me come because I wanted it.  Nothing to do with his desire.  He’s just an accommodating neighbor.

That should be enough.  I shouldn’t want more.  And then I look into his eyes and melt.  That stupid connection on a deeper level that I can’t explain or ignore.  Now I’m elbow deep in a crush for someone that wants to get back together with his ex-girlfriend.  He’s in the midst of making positive life changes toward that goal.  I’m just a lapse in judgement.  I’m non-consequential entertainment.  I’m a blip.  A fun weekend.  I let myself get all squishy inside and have to spend the next few weeks hoping I don’t run into him while desperately hoping I do.