Hello Project,
I don’t know if you remember me, 25 y. o. then, now 26, I give you a clue, we also talked about fencing, I wrote you several months ago when I was affected by a great sense of depression and fear, especially fear because I was getting into trouble but you made me understand it, we talked almost until the morning.
I don’t know if you remember me, 25 y. o. then, now 26, I give you a clue, we also talked about fencing, I wrote you several months ago when I was affected by a great sense of depression and fear, especially fear because I was getting into trouble but you made me understand it, we talked almost until the morning.
Well, I want to tell you that things have changed and that the cold shower that I got that night was good for me. I abandoned all clubs and dating sites, it was not easy because even if that environment was for me depressing, it was essentially the only outlet for me and actually I was about to enter a real phase of addiction. I started to attend my old friends, all straight but all good guys. I graduated and I also found a job, unfortunately only fixed-term but somehow it’s a job. I had to fabricate an imaginary girl living in another city to ward off the attentions of my co-workers (clearly female co-workers) and especially the gossip, but this is not very important.
I am writing to tell you about another story that has really changed my life. You know that I live in a small village about 30 kilometers from my home town. At that time I still had to make the final exams and to discuss the thesis because I was back to study and I wanted to come to the end as soon as possible. I had an appointment with my teacher at the University to 9.00 in the morning, so I had to leave home at 7.30. I go out, and go by car because of bad weather (October), just after one of the three villages that I have to cross to get to the city it begins to rain heavily, I see a guy on the side of the road without umbrella and looking for a ride, I stop and I do him get in the car. He was hooded and I had barely caught a glimpse of him. He gets in the car all wet and bathes all over the seat, he doesn’t even apologize but immediately asks if I’m going to town, we did not even shook hands, he seems to me quite unkempt, beard of a few days, long hair, nails not very appealing, etc. etc..
During the ride (about 20 minutes) we were in silence without saying a word. When we were close to a porch he asked me to stop and got out of the car, but said nothing. I had to go to the University and it ended there. About a week after, more or less exactly the same thing happens again, this time it pours and we stop for a few minutes to wait for it to pass the time of the most intense rain but almost without saying a word. I just said that in practice I was going to town by car every day at the same time. He didn’t even respond. Then the rain falls and he gets out, but the day after he is in the same place but not hitchhiking, I have the distinct impression that he is there waiting for me.
To reach a minimum of meaningful discourse it took us more than a month but then it happened. We were in the car talking for half an hour. He is 28 years old, I'll call him Paul, he lives in a village 10 km away from my house, a little village, now he is unemployed because it is very difficult to find a job, to me the matter of work went well but it's really hard today. In the past worked as an agronomist in a farm. The dialogue with him is very difficult, he tends to see things in a negative way, then at some point the conversation ends, he thanks me in a very ritual way and leaves. In the following days I found him in the same place and at the same time.
And here's the story of the Sunday. Obviously I do not go to town on Sunday, but a particular Sunday it happened that I had to go and he was there in the same place, even though it was bitterly cold. This time we talked a little more, I asked him what he was doing in the city every day, he said he used to spend the day in a large shopping center because at least it was warm. So he went to town every day, even before we met, and this made me think that maybe he just wanted to get a ride by car, but there is an extra-urban bus line that comes right when I come and I often find the bus just before my car, but he does not take it, perhaps before we met he used to take a bus but now he doesn’t and waits for me. He is not a particularly nice guy and I was not interested from that point of view even if I wanted to understand why this guy was waiting for me in the morning (also on Sunday) just to spend twenty minute with me, if things were really that way.
Project, do not expect sensational endings to this story, at least externally nothing has happened, I know almost nothing about him, he doesn’t tell me and I do not ask questions, but I go out every day to go into town (also on Sundays) in order to spend with him twenty minutes, it is paradoxical, I know. Since he doesn’t even accept my proposal to go to breakfast together. The only change I've seen in his habits is a little smile (the smile of someone who is not used to smile). I don’t know what to think about his (and also my) somehow strange behavior, I thought of anything, from the most tragic to the most stupid things but Paul is not superficial. I think he is studying me, I think he’s trying to figure out how deeply I’m interested, probably just as a friend, but the word friend is not reductive. I don’t know if he is gay, I do not know if I would like him to be gay, it's all so incredibly undefined and yet it is something that intrigues me deeply.
I mean that I expect something from this guy, at least that this friendship will go on like this, that is, that will not end in anything, because for me, little by little, it became important. It was just the fact of thinking continuously of Paul that allowed me to live a real emotional life. Between going to a gay bar and meet people that only are searching for sex from you and thinking constantly of Paul to try to understand a little more about this guy, there is a huge difference, I have the impression that something has been created between us, even though I'm afraid that bring out the speech explicitly can actually make everything collapse.
Between us now there is some hint of a smile and some rare word but very significant and painful, nevertheless I have the impression that things are meaningful and between us there is also an encrypted but very serious dialogue, I do not know yet exactly what is the meaning of our dialog but Paul is now part of my life and I warn very clearly that my life has found its way. I think I'm fond of this guy, I'm fond of (I don’t speak about falling in love) and in the end I do not care whether he's gay or not, it is as if I felt to be important to him beyond words, it does not matter why I’m important but I realize that I'm really important, I’m not just a piece of the puzzle as I was with other guys, but I’m important as a person.
I realize that what I say is heard and remembered, and that the words he says to me, even if rare, have been planned for a long time because they are especially dedicated to me. If one morning I didn’t find that guy in the same place as usual I would hurt, I would feel abandoned but it never happened and I make sure to never miss to that appointment and then there's that smile. He may be just a depressed guy who needs a little attention but even this way I would be fine. I know that our silence has a deep meaning and that there is the pleasure of being together twenty minutes a day. For me those twenty minutes set the tone for the day.
Project, I do not deny that I have many doubts and especially I don’t know how to behave because I live in a kind of exhausting waiting for something to happen that never happens and I'm afraid to take the first step. Yet we are not kids, we should have put aside these hesitations now. I do not even know if I feel a sex drive for this guy, certainly for other guys I felt much stronger sexual involvement. He interests me in other respects, more complex and less easy to understand.
Project, I remember when we talked, you were trying to emphasize that the important things come when you least expect them and follow their own logic that has nothing to do with models that everyone can create in his head. I have no plans about this guy, I'm interested in him as a person, I just want to see him smile, maybe even with a girl. He is giving me a lot and I hope I can do the same for him. Project, I'm rediscovering what it means to love someone and it's something that makes me feel good.
With affection.
Steven
With affection.
Steven
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