The Single Rider

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

The question had haunted me way back then when I’d found out about Mark, but other boys had been waiting in the wings and I was soon distracted enough to put such thoughts aside. Now that I knew about Harry too, it seemed really important to find the answer.

It is very difficult to explain what it feels like to know that you have fallen for not one but two guys who, as it turns out, supposedly “don’t like girls” – at least not THAT way. When your understanding of the sexuality spectrum includes only black and white, you can walk away from such an experience feeling as though the person you fell in love with was someone you’d made up. You experience an uncomfortable epiphany – it’s possible that his declarations of love had been lies. You vaguely suspect that you’ve been used unwittingly as the implement of some sort of deception, but you’re not quite sure if that’s entirely accurate, or who it was supposed to fool – himself, you or the world. And finally – you hope this is not the case, but you sort of dread the thought that maybe this whole thing might be a commentary on your own feminine allure, or lack thereof. I’m not the girly-est of girls – all those brothers, you know, plus a sense of justice that does not allow for the notion of freezing to death in a skirt when the boys get to stay warm wearing pants. So, my fevered and panicked brain reasoned, maybe the straight guys don’t find any of that as appealing as the gay guys do? WTF?!?!?!!!

I needed an answer to this question. There were two places I could go to get some clues. One of them was my 10th grade diary. The other was Spencer.

I have known Spencer since we were both in our early 20s and he was still dating women. I don’t recall exactly when or how he came out, which may simply indicate that it was sort of a non-event among the people close to him. He didn’t make a big announcement or anything. He just kind of slid out. We had studied voice with the same teacher, and we did get to perform together once in a production of Cavalleria Rusticana, in which he took great and gleeful pleasure in flinging me to the ground during the lovers’ quarrel duet. Spencer now lives and performs in Europe.

I was convinced that he’d truly been crazy about some of the women he’d dated, even contemplating marriage and children with one of them. If anyone could help me to understand, it was Spencer. Shortly after my googling spree and subsequent discovery about Harry, I fired off an email to Spencer, which explained in brief about both Harry and Mark, and asked the $64,000 question…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

Truthfully, my outer 49 year old wasn’t doing so well now, either. This was not the first time I’d discovered that a boy I’d loved and thought loved me was, in fact, gay. During my senior year in high school, I’d dated Mark, who was two years older (sorry, no cougar story there). Mark ran hot and cold about us to extremes. He was crazy in love with me one minute, but then he’d disappear for a couple of weeks. He would return all in love with me again, and kiss my ass to get back into my good graces, or else he’d pretend he’d never been gone and everything was fine. He swore to me that he was not seeing another girl; I guess I should have asked a less gender-specific question.

At one point, Mark had me so convinced that he loved me and that we were meant to be together forever, he became my “first” – a much more significant first than just kissing. But he just kept disappearing periodically, and I didn’t know why, or what I’d done to alienate him, or why he kept coming back. At some point, I was prepared to go to my senior prom with someone else, but then he swooped back into my life and declared that HE was taking me and no one else.

He broke up with me that night. He broke up with me forever and for good at my senior prom. That really sucked. I think the only people with prom memories worse than mine are the ones that inhabit Stephen King’s Carrie.

A couple of weeks later, I ran into a mutual friend who knew the truth and had the compassion to tell me. That’s how I found out Mark was gay, and that all those times he wasn’t with me, he’d been with some guy named Angel… he’d been confused, he couldn’t make up his mind which way to go, so he kept bouncing back and forth between the two of us until he wasn’t confused any more. (Excuse me? You were confused, so you decided to relieve me of my virginity? )

My inner 15 year old stood up at this point, yanked at my sleeve, and demanded to know, “What is it about me that attracts gay men?”

I had no idea what to tell her.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

So, here’s what happened to Harry. Harry apparently grew up to become the owner of a talent agency… an adult entertainment talent agency… an all-male, adult entertainment talent agency.

Shocked, I sat quietly for a moment, allowing what I’d just learned to sink in. And then I laughed. And I laughed and laughed and laughed. Harry always was a little bit on the outrageous side. OK, a LOT on the outrageous side. My friends always said three things about him. Well, four, if you count, “You guys look great together!”. They said he was funny, they said he had beautiful baby blues, and they said, “But my GAWD, he’s totally OBNOXIOUS!”.

My 15 year old self agreed wholeheartedly that we looked good together; we were around the same height, so we just kind of fit together walking down the hallways at school, arms wrapped around each other. I also agreed that he was funny and that his eyes were a wondrous shade of blue (it is worth noting that I love the color blue so much, I coveted a blue suede sofa from Crate and Barrel for years, and finally bought it last spring). However, coming from a household with three brothers, I had a high tolerance for “obnoxious” and barely noticed it. I just took it in stride that when dealing with teenaged boys, a certain quantity of “obnoxious” comes with the territory. When we were one-on-one, Harry was just a funny, sweet boy with a wicked – but never mean – sense of humor. However, when a wider audience was available, that’s when he was “on”. I still wouldn’t call it “obnoxious” – more like “outrageous”. He didn’t just entertain, he “shockertained”; the more off-beat and out-there he could be, the better it delighted him. It was like he was testing us – how far could he go, where was the line, how close to it could he dance?

I broke myself out of the reverie of distant memories. I wanted to know more.

It wasn’t long before I’d amassed a fair amount of information regarding what Harry had been doing with himself for at least the last 5 years or so. He’d left a fairly easy-to-follow breadcrumb trail across the internet under his new name, and I soon came to understand that he was a fairly big shit deal in the gay community in his area, well-respected for his contributions to adult entertainment industry practices, and for his donations to charitable causes as well. As I continued to learn about him, I was startled to realize that my 49 year old self could look back in time, see the signs, and fully accept what everything I was reading about him implied – but my inner 15 year old was having a really rough time with it. She flat out would not accept mere “implications”, and kept pushing me to search for something concrete that spelled it out in no uncertain terms.

OK, here we go; MySpace. Harold A*****, age 40-something. Same logo from the business, instead of a head shot.

Status: In a relationship.

Orientation: Gay

My inner 15 year old deflated and crumbled into a crestfallen heap…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

I hope you will all excuse me for taking a little breather. I needed some processing time. I’m going to interrupt my intended “cougar” series to tell you all about it. After you read what I’m about to tell you, I think you will forgive me; it was a little difficult to wrap my brain around it.

I ended my last post by recounting whatever became of the “engagement” ring and the tiny, perfect, silver cross. Not long after posting, I started to wonder whatever became of Harry. And so, I took my madd googling skillz to the interwebz and launched a quest to locate Harry, long-lost bestower of first kisses.

I started in the logical place – Facebook. It’s like the village green of the entire planet, or maybe more like Tevye’s dream in Fiddler On The Roof – eventually, everyone you ever knew is going to pass through there. Unfortunately, a search for “Harry M*** “ came up nil; likewise “Harold M***”. I googled around a bit but kept coming back to Facebook, looking for people we’d hung out with back then, to see if they knew how to contact him.

And then one morning over coffee, I remembered Harry’s sister Jennie. She and my older brother were in the same graduating class, and we’d had an elective together – History of the Occult, where the only thing I remember learning is that Dracula’s real name was Vlad the Impaler. I found her profile easily, and cruised through her friends list in search of her brother. The only “Harry” I found on her friend list was a “Harold A*****”. Disappointed, I abandoned the search and started my work day.

But something kept nibbling at my brain about this. It was not improbable that he just wasn’t on Facebook – after all, none of my own brothers had signed up. Still, something nagged at me about it. I could not get it off my mind, and then halfway through the work day, it dawned on me. I remembered teasing Harry about his initials, but being a theater geek, he was quite proud that they spelled H.A.M. …..

Before I knew it, I found myself wading through Jennie’s friend list again, clicking on Harold A*****, whereupon I was faced with the typical “Harold only shares certain information with everyone. To learn more about Harold, add him as a friend.” Well, I wasn’t about to do that until I was sure. His profile picture was no help. It was not actually a picture, but the logo of some dot com. I plugged the address into the URL bar, and…

Oh.

My.

GAWD

I hit the “back” button on the browser, fast.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it – every, every minute?

- Emily Webb, Our Town

And how can we, when we are born knowing absolutely nothing? I think it’s one of the cruelest things about life – that we are born not knowing jack shit, and we have to make a bunch of serious mistakes before we learn and grow and start getting in right. I’m not really sure how we are supposed to appreciate what we have when we’re so young and inexperienced we’ve got nothing to which we can compare it.

I had to go through cancer to understand how precious a working body is. I had to go through years with the wrong man to understand how fragile relationships are, and how irrevocable heartbreak can be. You can learn things by the example of others, certainly, but there really is no substitute for experience. I look at my young nieces and I wonder what trials they are destined to endure in order to reach the place where they realize at least part of life, while they are living it. They have no idea. How could they?

Still, I refuse to believe that the essence of youth is “wasted” only on the young. Most of the time, I feel like I’m around 12. Most of the time, my inner adult gladly steps aside and yields to the fun, fun, fun of unencumbered singlehood. I think I’m making up for lost time. I think I’m doing all the things that were forbidden or at least frowned upon when I was young and controlled and repressed – and I didn’t know jack. Jack and I, we’re more than just acquaintances these days, and we both like to have fun. Jack definitely realizes life – every, every minute. Jack is my hero.

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

A friend directed me to some resources regarding “The Law Of Attraction”, and while I was reading there, I discovered that one of the authors had made use of a Ouija board to receive guidance. I have a healthy respect-from-a-distance for Ouija – meaning, I won’t play. No sireee bob, you cannot make me, and I will leave the premesis if a Ouija board makes an appearance.

See, I read The Exorcist when i was ten. Yes, you read that right. I was ten. I read lots of things I should not have read at that age, but The Exorcist is the story that left it’s mark on my psyche. I’m just never, ever going to stick around to watch what happens when someone pulls out a Ouija board.

I’m not at all sure that it’s true that “spirits” communicate via the Ouija board; I think it’s just as likely that the subconscious minds of the players are at work sending “messages”. But I reason that the Universe is all about balance, and *IF* there are good spirits, then there are also bad spirits. I’m pretty sure that if you open the door to the good ones, you cannot guarantee that the others won’t piggyback on in somehow, too.

Whether by Ouija or other means, if one should encounter a spirt…how would one know that it’s one of the “good guys”? How do you know it’s not an evil spirit who will take possession of your body, slap your grandma, kick the cat and burn down the neighborhood or something?

I am so bad at boyfriend radar (I have ZERO romantic radar), I shudder to think how profoundly bad I would be at spirit radar. I can just see myself going along, lah ti dah, thinking I’ve got a Seth or an Abraham communicating with or through me, and all along it’s, like, Hitler or Rasputin – or someone REALLY evil, like… nope, not going there.

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

I was driving home from a shopping expedition this afternoon, approaching the I-75 overpass up on Colonial, and I noticed a bunch of construction on the other side of the interstate. Looked like hotels – wanted to confirm that and tuck it away for future reference for when Bro No. 1 comes with the family. He likes to dump the kids here and take himself and wife off to the hotel. I’m ok with that!

Anyhow, I made a right after going under I-75. Fairly new-looking road. I did see three buildings back there. One was the office of a home builder – probably their design center (it was fairly large). Right next to it, a new Candlewood Suites; however it does not have a pool, so I don’t know how Bro would feel about that.

And at the end of the court, a tall, broad building that says “NOVA Southeastern University” on the side of it. Lots of construction vehicles sprinkled around the unfinished parking lot, but the building looks like it’s nearly completed.

So I quickly call my home phone and leave an answering machine message for myself, so I don’t forget to find out what this is all about. Turns out theres a BIG campus of this school in Fort Lauderdale, but there are all these “distance learning centers” sprinkled here in Florida, and as far flung as the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Las Vegas. This is apparently one of those “distance learning centers”.

I found the page where they tell what programs will be offered here; one of them is Mental Health Counseling.

I was seriously thinking I wasn’t going to do this. I loved school; it also damned near killed me, seeing as getting my BA in Psychology coincided with the most difficult years of my career at the Firm, AND with my “other career” singing with the opera company on Long Island. I look back at those days and shake my head. How did I cram it all in? Where did I find the time? AND, I was still an ABC Daytime and HBO Sunday Night junkie back then too – I watched HOURS of TV in addition to writing papers and memorizing performances in other languages! Why did I do that to my life? What was I thinking?

But, you know, the initial supposition that originally led to my going back to school in the first place is still valid. I am not going to be able to retire the way my parents did. I’m eventually going to become obsolete at the Firm. I’ve had a good run, but my years of service are starting to add up to the point where I’m going to be entering that category of folks who are candidates for “early retirement” (translation: here’s some cash, get thee gone).

I’m going to NEED a second career.

My other choice for second career would be horticulturist at Disney. However, I’d have to move to landlocked Orlando – ok, there are worse things, but I’m REALLY enjoying being near the beaches here. You might have noticed. LOL

Well, they aren’t done building it yet, even. I can make the same deal with myself that I made for the BA. Be back in school learning SOMETHING by time I was 40. I went back when I was 39, in fact. So now, I can say, “be back in school for 2nd career by time you are 50″. I’m 47. I have some time.

© 2008 – 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.