Because I’m pressed for time, I decide to go to the coffee shop closest to my house—not the usual place four or five blocks away where they know my name and my coffee likes and dislikes, but the café just around the corner that is frequented almost exclusively by gay men.
I walk in. A fit, muscular, bearded man in a Santa hat takes my order. “Hi.”
“Hi. I’ll have a green tea and … and….” I point. “And I think I’ll have a slice of that banana nut bread.”
“Small, medium, or large tea?”
“Uh … small, thanks.”
He grabs the tea bag. “And … I’m sorry. You wanted something else, right? What was it? My phone number?”
I smile, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll have some banana nut bread, too.”
“I’m sorry.” He turns away, looking let down. “We’re just a little too happy here today. Would you like the thick end slice or the thinner slice that isn’t an end piece?”
“Umm….” I look over my options. “Give me the thin slice.” I search my wallet for my credit card. I can’t find it. Damn, I think, I must’ve left it in the ATM again.
“Visa?” he asks, taking the card I had evidently placed already on the counter.
I now make eye contact. He looks embarrassed. I want to say something reassuring: “I’m flattered, but…. If I were gay, you know…. If I ever decide that I’m not straight, yours will be the first number I….” But instead I explain that I thought I had lost my credit card, but, apparently, I had it out right there on the counter, and … and….”
He doesn’t respond, gives me the credit card receipt to sign. I tip generously.
After I sit down, when he’s busy talking to the other barrista, I size him up. He’s young. Young, tall, dark, and handsome. And, to judge by his popularity with the other customers, he seems to have charisma to go with his looks. I'm flattered. And, because I'm flattered, I wonder how to maintain his interests without actually giving him what he wants--without being dishonest. I wait to see if he looks at me. He doesn't.
I take out a crossword puzzle, but I can’t concentrate. To my right sit three obviously gay males and one female. If one of the men speaks, the group immediately responds with a follow-up comment, question, smile, or laughter. The woman, though, has to work much harder to be heard. She gets interrupted and has to speak louder than the others to get noticed. It strikes me that if the men were straight, the woman would be the focus of conversation, especially if the woman were as attractive as this one is. The men would hang on her every sentence, look to her for approval, compete for her attention, trying to do with words what they wish to do with their hands and bodies. But here it’s reversed. The men seem to thoroughly enjoy each other’s company; they interact effortlessly. The woman is clearly forcing it, being inauthentic. And when the men address her, it’s out of politeness more than interest in her views or comments. She looks foolish.
I’m envious of the men. I’ve never had that kind of power, the power of indifference, over an attractive woman.
But, as I bury my head in a book and try to block out their voices, my empathies are with her—with the outsider, the one nervously folding and unfolding a candy wrapper as she tries to follow the conversation, her legs crossed, back straight, shoulders hunched forward trying to politely impose herself, trying to act as if she’s one of them, trying, with less and less poise, not to be forgotten.
Empty Nest..
8 years ago
