And Lead Us Not Into Temptation

By Adam Kuhn
Posted Friday, October 19, 2007

There is a metaphysical law in the universe that no physics class in high school will ever cover; the law pertaining to long-distance relationships. It is my belief that the more distance between you and your lover, the time spent apart, and the amount of raw feeling you have for each other is directly proportional to the chance of interference from outside parties.

It had been one week exactly since my boyfriend, whom I love with all my heart, left New York for his home in London. In that one week, I had received romantic invitations from three separate individuals, ironically, all from the same source: work.

My chosen occupation while at school was a sales representative for a high-end clothing store on the upper west side. Attractive gay men would frequent the store on almost an hourly basis. Dangerous, you might think it to be, but both my boyfriend and I had a solid understanding that every night, I would be coming home to his bed, and his bed only.

Assuming that not very many of these sexy gay shoppers read my sexy gay column, and follow the events of my relationships, it’s hard to fathom why now, after my boyfriend has left the city, a select few have felt the need to roll the dice and take a shot at me.

Exhibit A: A regular visitor of my store strolls in to browse some limited edition dress shirts. He is geekish in appearance, and effeminate by some persuasion, but still a valued client. After some small-talk about challenging student life, he asks me out for coffee. Although I found it endearing that he somewhat reminded me of myself some years ago, there wasn’t a shot in Hell I’d give up my man for him.

Exhibit B: A smooth-talking French gentleman enters the store and is ambushed by one of my superiors and asked to try on roughly three fourths of the store’s merchandise. Upon rescuing him, I come to find he is more like my smooth-talking French gentleman than meets the eye. He was 20, European, and hot. Tempting, but I still have someone waiting for me overseas.

Exhibit C: Another client of mine, this one took me by surprise. I had just left the store after a Sunday morning shift to do some shopping for my new apartment at the nearby Bed, Bath, and Beyond. While browsing the lightly pleated see-through window treatments on the bottom floor, I ran into someone who had purchased some-six-hundred-dollars-worth of weekend trendy-wear not two weeks ago.

We caught up with each other’s menial errands, chit-chatted about living uptown, and then he mentioned his new job; his very impressive concert marketing job at Madison Square Garden, mentioning also the possibility of perhaps finagling a few tickets to shows he promotes.

This particular interference refused to be ignored. This was metaphysical law. I thought to myself, would it be that bad if we just became friends? I barely have any gay male friends to relate to. I was lacking in the “friends” department regardless when it came to Manhattan, and this possible friendship sure looked promising.

Then it hit me. Was he flirting? No, it couldn’t be. After all, when he bought all that trendy-wear, he was accompanied by someone of equal attraction, equal age, and who carried the only other check card to their joint bank account. This mystery man had “I’m his boyfriend” written all over him.

So there in the field of drapes, secure in my pre-existing relationship, and fairly certain of his, we exchanged numbers. As he began with his area code, 412, I immediately recognized it as Pittsburgh and told him I once lived there. Great. We have something else in common. Could this get any worse?

I thought at this point, I was half-way to Hell by giving my number to another guy. I managed to minimize those feelings by convincing myself that this was strictly a friendly engagement and nothing more. He can't be flirting. He was taken, wasn’t he? Who starts a joint bank account with just a friend?

When I thought I was free and clear, he asked the question I was dreading since I saw him behind the 10-foot curtain rods. “How ‘bout coffee sometime?” Shit. Now what? His friends are watching. Act cool. I agreed nonchalantly, but almost dismissively, completely forgetting the possibility that he just might call me in the next few days.

I left the décor department feeling guilty and wretched. What exactly did I just do? Did I make my first gay friend? Or did I just set up a date? If I was only innocently expanding my social network, why did I feel so bad inside? One thing was for sure: I couldn’t get my boyfriend, whom I love with all my heart, out of my head.

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