Never take the simple path...

When it rains, it pours.

A little while ago, faced with the perpetual boredom and the lack of any gay interaction, I made some inquiries to see if there were indeed any openly gay guys around my age in my area. To my surprise, I came into contact with a small but promising number of them, each one a little different than the other.

It became apparent fairly quickly that only one of the few guys actually had his shit together. While I have no problem with guys who are in the closet or still feeling out their sexuality, I was faced with the knowledge that we might suffer through a bit of a dramatic phase; I wouldn't know what he wanted, he wouldn't be able to follow through, etc.

But the one guy, James, was different from the rest. At each sentence I found we had more and more in common. We go to the same school, live within a block of each other in Toronto, have similar acquaintances, and so on and so on. It turns out we even would have met before this, had I went out after attending a mutual friend's birthday party, where he and a few others were waiting to carry on the festivities.

It started innocently enough. I didn't see in him any sort of boyfriend attraction, and even the sexual pull was perceived to be the work of circumstance; two gay boys in a gay-free zone naturally want to get naked with each other.

And we did exactly that. Even though I wanted to go through with things as building a friendship that can carry on past the last days of summer, we found ourselves kissing, cuddling and groping until finally we blurred the line between 'just friends' and something else entirely.

At first I was terrified. I though I'd ruined the chance at keeping things friendly, that when I told him I really didn't want anything serious our friendship would be over. But the discussion never happened, we kept on our course of coffee and movies and dinners and occasionally blowing each other when the opportunity arose (not an easy feat with the both of us living under our parent's roofs).

But as the weeks have passed, we've grown sort of attached to each other. For some reason, the boy I had written off as not my type is now the boy I find myself texting every night to say "sleep well".

It's bizarre, and I don't know when I crossed the line from thinking of us as 'just friends' to actually becoming interested in him. I'm still mad at myself, because it would have been better to just enjoy each other's company and then carry our friendship to the gay streets of Toronto. Alas, we've passed that mark...though God knows how it happened...

I'm also having my usual terrified thoughts of 'is this what I want/is he right for me?' While he's great on paper, and his personality is complimentary to mine, I still look at him and wonder if he's 'perfect' enough for me. I've spent my dating time so far going out with people, trying to find that one click that felt right from the moment it happened...and it never has. Now, here I am with someone, quite comfortable, and second guessing if I should invest myself in someone that I'm not head over heels for yet or not.

It's quite hard to explain, really, so bare with me. But even physically, he's not what I envisioned as my 'ideal imaginary boyfriend'. He's got a great body, don't get me wrong, but he's shorter and a little slighter than I would have envisioned. There are other things, but in essence he does not embody the 'imaginary boyfriend' I designed in my last English lecture.

Still, I'm trying to go with the flow and not let that stop me. The bottom line is, I'm having fun, I do have a soft spot for him and I want to see where things go. We did have a semi-confessional conversation last Thursday when I had gotten back from a friend's party and was sufficiently lubricated to speak my mind and vent my fears. He pretty much repeated the same as me; how it was unexpected, back home of all places, how it was untested, since we're both not able to just stop by and cuddle on the couch on a Tuesday night, and most importantly: is our attraction and our situation borne from a real connection and click, or is it just circumstantial from being the only two gay guys we know in the area?

Since then, we've kept things really out in the open. We're both pretty careful about commitments and labels and all of that, so things are so far very unofficial and untested. Our bottom line seems to be, "I have fun when I'm around you, and I just want things to keep on going like they are."

This is all fine and good by me. But when it rains, it pours.

He decided to skip a friend's birthday party in Toronto to instead spend the evening with me when my parents were away for the night. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, but he got quite a bit of flack after the fact. Seems his friends want to meet this mysterious boy who was important enough to miss a party for.

Funny how he even met his friends...they all go to our same university, are all our age, and all met through the GLBT group's meet and greets since they all didn't know any other gay guys. Yes, go ahead and insert several ironic comments here.

So, the invitation was extended to me, and come Saturday night I'll be having an evening of many firsts. For starters, it will be the first time I meet the guy I'm seeing's group of gay friends. Needless to say, I'm terrified. Then comes the venue...my first night out on the town with gay guys at one of the most popular gay clubs in the city. It also happens to be the most popular, packed night of the year: the night before the official Pride Parade (aka gay Christmas eve). It all culminates with my first Pride ever, the parade on Sunday.

Yikes.

I mean, it would have been great to do some of these things, on a smaller scale. Ease myself into everything. Give myself a chance to get used to it all. But no, I have to be meeting the friends on the busiest night of the year, in one of the busiest clubs in the city. All for my first time.

"What a shitty night to not be single," a friend said.

"I don't know if I'll be able to handle all the judgment at once," I replied. "The friends who want to meet me (whatever that means), the crowd at large on the craziest night, and of course James who would probably not take kindly to me accidentally making out with anyone, should that happen," I said, in a half joking but half terrified moment of cringing clarity.

Another offered his advice. "Nobody's going to be looking at you anyway," he said. "They'll all be either drunk, or high, or both...and not really going to notice you. Besides, everyone will be looking for someone to go home with."

He paused. "What a way to go, though," he said, chiding me.

"It'll really be sink or swim."