This. Is. Freaking. Hilarious.

Poem For Later Expansion

I trust doctors to make me well,
firemen to put out fires;
but never will I trust another
man. They all are liars.

And Cry In The Night I Won't

"So he doesn't love you," said Tolkien Boy.

"That," I said, spearing a thin stem of asparagus, "at least, is certain."

"And you're upset about it." Tolkien Boy took a bite of his mashed potatoes.

I glared at him. "No, I'm thrilled. It's very pleasant when no man likes you."

Tolkien Boy smiled. "Swan, I love you to pieces, but whenever life gets troublesome you like to insist that it's true that no man likes you. Plenty of men like you."

"Fine, no sane ones, then."

"It's not really about being sane, is it?" He settled back in his seat, set his eyebrows at me.

"What is it with you, Tolkien Boy?" I snapped. "Is it so earth-shattering that I'm frustrated and unhappy because he doesn't love me? I mean, am I so much of an alien that it seems weird that rejection makes me feel sorry for myself? What kind of superman do you want me to be?"

His eyebrows raised. "What kind of superman do you think you are?"

"Oh--fuck you." I stabbed at another rubbery stick. "Now you're going to accuse me of a savior complex, are you?"

"Am I?"

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "Maybe we should just not talk about this, okay? I'm not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed."

"You want to talk about it, though. You have something you've wanted to say for almost a week."

"For whatever good that does."

"Yeah, for whatever good." He fixed me with his gaze. "I'm not in the best mood myself these days, Swan, and whatever it is you're on isn't making you the most pleasant of people to talk to. So probably I'll say some things that will sting, but I know for a fact that you're going to, too. So drop the wall to the world and tell me what's up."

"You said it best." I traced a pattern in the gravy on my plate. "He doesn't love me."

"And you wanted him to."

"Not wanted him to. Want him to. I want him to . I want him to be happy to see me. I want him to hope he gets to talk to me. I want him to think far enough down the road about me that he doesn't say things that are hurtful."

Tolkien Boy's glance was avid, doglike. "He's said something hurtful?"

I sighed. "From time to time. But like you say, I'm in a foul mood--he could probably say, 'have a good night' and I'd want to fillet his liver."

Tolkien Boy whistled. "Vivid."

"Yeah," I said, smiling in spite of myself. "I don't even like liver. But it's where the poison is filtered out, you know?"

He made a face. "I know, though I don't really see the connection you're making."

"Well." I took a bite of chicken. "It doesn't really matter, anyway."

"But he does."

"He shouldn't though. I mean, honestly, I don't even know if I like him."

Tolkien Boy chuckled. "You like him, it's obvious. You don't know if you love him."
"Yeah. So what does it matter if he doesn't love me?"

Tolkien Boy's smile widened. "It does matter, though--probably because his lack of love isn't the thing that is bothering you."

"Thanks, Dr. Freud. I thought you said you wouldn't psychoanalyze me."

Tolkien Boy spread his hands, grinning. "Did I say that? I don't remember that at all."

"Well, since you've started, what is it that is really bothering me, Pater Perspicacious?"

"Latinate snideness, I'm most impressed." He raised his water glass.

I clinked it. "I learned from the best."

"What bothers you," he said, taking a sip, "is that your hopes were crushed. You see everyone around you having relationships--strangers, friends, colleagues, and you're not included in on that. And here came a guy who was perfect in almost every way--"

"The most damaging way, of course, being that he doesn't love me."

Tolkien Boy looked sympathetic. "I'm sorry, but you have to admit it's a pretty important part of a relationship, that love thing."

I bit my lip. "I can't inspire it, Tolkien Boy. I feel like I do everything else in a relationship well. I just can't get anyone to love me."

"Because, of course, you can't 'get' anyone to feel anything, least of all love."

"You know what I meant." I stared at my dinner. "It seems sometimes like everyone has at least the practice, guys they date that aren't great for them but at least there's some mutual interest. For me, there's nothing. Not even someone I'm interested in who's bad for me."

"You're interested in this guy, and he's pretty bad for you."

"Only because he isn't interested, though; that's the thing. I mean, am I such a freak--am I so ugly or so stupid--that no guy is going to want to give it a chance?"

Tolkien Boy spread his hands again. "You know I can't answer that, Swan."

I took a vicious bite of roll. "No, no one can. It's not something that can be answered until someone I respect is interested, and then I won't need it answered."

"You probably will, still. Some things don't go away just because we like the people who tell us differently, you know. But this thing about respect--is that what you mean by 'sane'?"

"I guess."

"And you respect this guy."

I bit my lip again. "A lot. I mean, if it weren't for the fact that his not loving me makes me want shake him, I might say I respect him as much as friends I've had for years."

"And you've never had anyone you've felt that way before really be interested in you, huh?"

I resumed eating. "Not really. Lots of really cute guys, but not many I've respected."

"And so you thought he might be interested in you, and you hoped against hope, and--"

"And here we are. Hope, the feathered monster. Hope, the plucked chicken."

"It's a little dry," he said, taking a bite.

"Do you think, Tolkien Boy," I said through narrowed eyelids, "that any hope of mine wouldn't be dry?"

"Touche," he said, raising his glass again.

A Word About Preemptive Breakups

And now, a brief word about preemptive break-ups.

Some of you have argued that a preemptive strike against a budding relationship is, in fact, the same as an all-out war on an existing relationship. This is false for the following reasons.
1. You have nothing to return.
2. Most of the things you are tempted to say in the height of break-up passion sound ridiculous when you have only known the person for less than a week.
3. The length of time people are willing to sympathetically listen to your post-break-up woes is directly proportional to level of commitment you and your estranged partner enjoyed.
4. The power structure of preemptive relationships is always against the one who has tried the hardest, since there is no "couple" to spread the impact to.
5. Preemptive strikes can be self-evidently about resource consumption, but wars require an ideological justification to continue.

On a lighter note, the law of averages suggests that one day, something will work out.

Song for a Summer Afternoon

The men who are in all ways ripe:
I’m not their type. I’m not their type.
The fifties’ dads with sweater, pipe:
I’m not their type. I’m not their type.
The lisping twinks of Broadway hype:
I’m not their type. I’m not their type.
The ones who like small dogs that yipe:
I’m not their type. I’m not their type.
The cute dumb ones who weep at tripe:
I’m not their type. I’m not their type.
The brown-eyed brawny. Forgive the gripe:
I’m not their type. I’m not their type.
Yes, men of every shape and stripe:
I’m not their type. I’m not their type.

What Does It Matter?

I have an attractive friend who constantly replies to me, when I say something self-effacing or denigrating, “That’s the Ugly Swan talking.” He will, likely, object to this post, but at least (unlike so many a freshman paper) no one can doubt its authorship:

Gays are, to take the phrase, gorgeous people. I know this because I watch a lot of them on movies and television. I’m getting to the somewhat diseased point where they’re almost the only thing I watch—and that when I should be doing such things as 1) writing my master’s essay, 2) grading my student’s papers, 3) putting the finishing touches on one of the most brilliant stories ever written about (surprise!) gay men, 4) sleeping off this lingering sickness, or 5) cleaning up the disaster that is my living room before my roommate returns from her stint in the balmier states.

Take this moment. I am watching Boy Culture in my bleary, illness-addled way, replete in my frowsiness. My terrycloth robe is swaddled around me, my hair is sticking at impossible angles from my toadlike head. This is not the proper attitude in which to watch a movie about attractive and intelligent hustlers—the fact that it’s filmed in Seattle only emphasizes that. It strikes me, suddenly, that there might actually be prostitutes trolling Broadway, six blocks from my house, and that a few of them might actually be—well, persons of worth. This is the utter revolution of my native republicanism—I’ve gotten to the point where I’m willing to mentally canoodle with all sorts of disreputable types.

But that’s not the point. The point is that, on TV and on movies, the gay men who are worthwhile are inevitably lovely. There are, of course, a few here and there who might be what you could call normal. They kill people. Seriously, pay attention—the frightening gays in visual fiction are either dolled up to an extreme degree, or they look a lot like—well, me on a bad day. (Today, you may have guessed, is a bad day.) The message is clear—mundanity spells mass murderhood. Er, murderity.

So, there exists the outside chance that I may be a killer. More relevant, though, is the thought that in a purely sexual sense I might not be worthwhile. (Either this or my neurons have been ravaged by virii and one too many of these superslick representations of everyone else’s life. I am willing to entertain the possibility. Heaven knows that I’m open to a number of frightening possibilities these days.) I am not hideous, nor even unattractive, but I’m not specially attractive either (as Tolkien Boy quips, “I think I’m not expressly hot”)—and in the language of movies and TV that means I probably have body parts from other people in my refrigerator (and that, in the words of Homer Simpson, not in a good way). This is not snobbery—I would, of course, love to be one of those chisel-jawed yokels of the silver screen set, but the truth is that I’m not, and never will be, of the attractivati. (I have one friend who I have shared these physical fears with; he responded uncertainly, “Well, you have…nice eyes.” This, from a guy who rejected me on three separate occasions—I wanted to say, “Let’s not perjure ourselves!” but he wouldn’t, having the memory of a fish, have known what I was talking about.)

Good grief, I’m all over the place here. Let’s get back to the gorgeous men, certainly a much more tantalizing subject. I’m actually not entirely fascinated by hot-ness, which is the first strike (can you imagine, my dears, a gay man so aligned?). Oh, sure, I like watching hot guys: here I am, wading through the embarrassing diction of Boy Culture, after all—and that, cheerfully. But it’s conversation that I crave these days, something more than not-so-hidden gay fury or prattle, prattle, prattle. I keep running up against these excuses for exchange in the men I date, which makes for a number of engaging stories but not for a lot of confidence in the ability of men who are attracted to me to be substantive.

And, considering that I myself am substantive (in a number of surprising ways), that can be an obstacle to overcome.

The South Will Rise Again

I am not doing well.

I say this because my face is in revolt. I have four zits. Zits are something which, along with dating girls and being sealed in the boy’s bathroom by bullies, I feel I should be allowed to leave behind in high school. The fact that zits have returned has not, as you might imagine, caused me the sorts of nostalgia normally associated with people with preternaturally happy childhoods (as, I argue, mine actually was), and I face my face each morning with the sort of grim what-have-we-now attitude usually reserved for seasoned leaders of soldiers or actors.

From the corrugated look of my morning face it’s likely that these few pustules are advance troops in what looks to be a delightful three-week return tour of the highlights of my adolescence (with, no doubt, an accompanying side-tour of Ugly Swan’s Adolescent Attractiveness Issues), with me in front-row, paying seats (I had front row seats to The Cure at Troy, coincidentally—I’m still in orgasmic raptures about it. If you live in Seattle, see it before it closes).

If the zits were the extent of it, that would be one thing. But my mouth, apparently suffering from a lack of kisses (thank you, Catullus), has bloomed in a particularly inconvenient garden of canker sores. This has upset my jaw to the left—I think, when I sleep, that I try to avoid the fleshy parts of my cheek (because tooth-to-canker action tends to wake me in non-orgasmic raptures), which turns my jaw skeewampus (I believe that is the medical term), which makes me speak out of the side of my mouth like an Oxford don who grew up in the wilds of Brooklyn.

I don’t like to press this point (as it incites criticisms from my long-suffering friends—hi, guys!), but I never seem to lack reasons why men aren’t interested in much more than swapping a few philosophical platitudes with me on their way to Bigger and Better Things (which I find unfair: the Better is probably able to be posited, but you’d think someone would stick around long enough to be sure on the Bigger). I’ve had a few dates this last month that were comfortable and somewhat engaging—I admit I wasn’t howlingly interested in these guys (reserving my ardour for those who are mad, bad, and not like my dad), but I was charming and accessible and complimentary just the same. I believe in creating environments of success, I really do—and those who are certain that I live my life in a haze of pessimism can go suck eggs. Buena gente, says I, at least as far as other individuals are concerned.

But, possessed of a face which appears to be dedicated to the principle of Mount St. Helen’s one way and Vesuvius the other, it’s no wonder, perhaps, that I’m slowly adding the names of the guys that I dated in April to my ever-growing list of one-note wonders, a sort of Wall of Shame particular to me: the one-night sits; encounters which had all the appearance of camaraderie but denied the power thereof; dates that, in the end, resembled not romantic exchanges but a sort of protracted hallway greeting—scripted, genial, flat.

So, I’ll gargle and smear Clearasil and try again next month—when, no doubt, some other oddity of my mutinous body will trot forward and make a nuisance of itself. But at least I am trying, imperfect/imbeautiful body and all, which does something to disprove all those accusations of inertia, don’t you think?