I had recently joined GLIB, the Gay and Lesbian Information Bureau dial-in bulletin board in the DC area. My user handle was “cronjob” and my profile included a somewhat detailed personal description of myself with key terms I carefully added, like “beard.” Among messaging and other resources, GLIB had a “match” feature allowing users to search for others by interest or other traits, and I wanted my interest in facial hair to be clear.
After only a few days on GLIB, I received a message from “Douggie” who said he read and liked my description, and wanted to meet for a drink sometime. I looked up his GLIB profile, which probably said something like 40-ish, beard, teacher. I replied that he also sounded interesting, and so where should we meet?
Douggie suggested meeting at The Tombs, a bar in Georgetown I'd heard of but never been to. On the day, I arrived at The Tombs a little early, found an empty booth, and ordered a beer, sipping it and trying to look like I belonged among the many boisterous and (I was sure) straight college students. After a getting up a few times to look around the bar for someone who fit Douggie’s description, I thought I saw someone likely, sitting alone. What, he wasn’t also looking around for me?
I went over to say a quick hello and confirm it was him, then went back to the booth to get my coat and beer. When I returned, Douggie had been joined by a somewhat older man. I wondered if Douggie had brought a date, or maybe a bodyguard.
He hadn’t. But after a bit of conversation with these two, some interesting things became apparent. Both were professors at Georgetown University (teaching what, I forget). Douggie’s friend, Richard, was intrigued and amused to hear me call him Douggie. But by suddenly calling him Theodore in front of me, Richard let Douggie’s real name slip, inadvertently, I was sure. Richard liked to talk about women (not in a creepy way), and it was pretty clear Richard was straight, clearly knew Douggie-Theodore wasn’t, and clearly didn’t care.
Douggie-Theodore, however, didn’t seem comfortable about being out of the closet even this much, even to his friend. He was very good at deftly dropping or diverting the conversation if it got too close to home. (I could relate.)
But while Douggie-Theodore was a bit shy, Richard was a delight. He was one of those classic, white-haired, college-professor types: observant, funny, and probably the life of any party. As we talked more, I began to wish it were Richard I was there to meet.
We finished our drinks at The Tombs and said good night to Richard. (Oh, c’mon! Didn’t Douggie-Theodore suspect Richard suspected why much-younger-guy-me was there at all?) That evening one of the Bush-Dukakis presidential debates was on TV, and Douggie-Theodore and I used that as an excuse to head to his house across DC. As we drove, Douggie-Theodore talked about how he figured that Richard knew about him being gay, but they had never really talked about it. I tried to say kindly that it looked like Richard didn’t care either way and was clearly a good friend.
At Douggie-Theodore’s house, we watched the debate a little, taking turns sitting on each other’s lap and doing a little touching. Being literally in the arms of academia, I was trying to think of with-it political comments (which I’m not very good at, did I say?).
But I was also feeling like Douggie-Theodore was losing interest in me. He got up to go to the kitchen when the program ended and after a moment, I got up to follow him. I happened to be standing in the doorway when I trapped Douggie-Theodore as he walked by. We started kissing and I slipped my hand inside his shirt.
We stood in the doorway feeling each other up for entirely too long, and finally we wandered over to a bed in a side room. We got naked, cuddled a while, and probably jerked off; I don’t remember.
I was still (can you believe this?) having pangs about not being comfortable about gay sex and even less happy that here I was, once again, feeling like I was using, then running out on someone, even someone who didn’t seem very interested after all.
But I guess it didn’t make much difference as I never heard from Douggie-Theodore again. I wondered if Richard asked him about me the next day