Skeeters

I like too many boys. But also, no boys at all. Which is to say that I like a lot of boys, but I don’t like any of them enough to actually do anything about liking them. It’s making me pensive and stay-at-homeish. On top of which, mosquitoes have somehow been getting into my bedroom every night, keeping me up until the wee hours of the morning trying to kill all of them and making me very grumpy indeed.

Like the mosquitoes, the boys seem to come out of nowhere, inexplicably multiplying. I wish I could swat them all, leaving just one perfect bug-man to love me and suck the blood from my veins.

Toby
I met him at a party in Chinatown. I went because I thought I might be into the host – we’d sort of been flirting for a few months – and I needed to make sure. Turns out, I wasn’t. I spent almost the whole night sitting in a very low beach chair on the roof talking to Toby. I could tell almost immediately that he liked me, which is odd, because later he told me that his initial impression of me was, “Eh, another gay boy.” We talked about writing and his growing fear of his new iPod. I tried to make him talk about Kate Bush.

Weeks later, we’ll go on a date and end up, accidentally, in an obscenely romantic bar with a fireplace on a miserable, cold, rainy night. “Is this a date?” he’ll ask, and I’ll say, “Insofar as ‘dates’ are things you do to get to know each other better, then yes, this is a date.” We’ll get a little drunk and he’ll mention his therapist twice, and then we’ll go to the movies where he’ll put his hand on my thigh in the most nervous, unsexy way, which, oddly enough, makes me want to kiss him.

Rex
His name’s not Rex, but he looks like it could be. Shaved head, square jaw, stubble. So that’s how I think of him. Rex. My friend Glen brought him to the Shortbus after-after-party at the Delancey.

“You look so familiar,” I kept saying. Apparently I met him through a friend whose sort-of-virginity he sort of took.

“It was such a mistake,” he said. “It was like he just tried to imitate what he’d seen in porn.”

Midway through the night, we were alone by the fountain on the roof. Well, not alone, but amongst strangers, so it sort of felt like we were alone. I was trying to flirt without seeming flirty, and wasn’t sure if I was getting anything back. Then Glen dragged us all downstairs to dance and I lost track of Rex.

“Where’d he go?” I asked. Glen looked at me, shaking his head slowly and deliberately, the universal girlfriend signal for “You don’t wanna get involved with that.”

But I really think I want to get involved with that.

Shane
I was checking him out at a vintage store after work one night. He had a big dog and long black hair, and he kind of looked like he was from another planet. I was trying to be obvious so he’d notice me. He didn’t notice me. But he started talking to my friend Jimmy. They knew each other years ago. He wasn’t exactly cute. He was weird lookin’. And suddenly, I was thinking about what it would be like to kiss him, to get naked with him. I wondered what he looked like with his weird, poorly chosen clothes off. I wondered what we’d do in the sack and if it would be any fun.

Emory
In a way, Emory is sort of my boss. I’ve written for his magazine. But we won’t get into that. I thought he was cute before he was sort of my boss.

When I met him he was dating someone else. He asked to take my photo at Duvet. I said something disparaging about electroclash, which made him frown and walk away. I thought that was pretty odd until I found out, months later, that he’d actually sort of coined the term a few years ago. We kept trying to go out and have drinks last year, but it never happened.

He doesn’t live in New York anymore. He doesn’t even live in the US anymore. But we’re friends on MySpace. I try to send him flirty sounding messages, which is surprisingly difficult. They end up sounding awkward and stalker-ish. Secretly, I keep hoping he’ll get deported and have to move back to Brooklyn.


I guess I could potentially fall in love with any of them. I just don’t know if I want to.