It was the first week of freshman year, 2001. At Drexel, that meant the tail end of September. My new roommate, a graphic design major from California, and I, a photography
major from New Jersey, were becoming fast friends along with a classmate of hers, a charming young gentleman from elsewhere in PA. (As an interesting aside, all three of us are getting married in the next six months, though not to any of the others.) Kat, Jason, and I had been, to varying degrees, involved with theater in high school, and decided to attend the "Welcome Freshmen" performance of the shows that the theater department had prepared over the summer, which was to be followed by a meet and greet with the cast, crew, and faculty. (Above, me and Jason, 2005, obviously not freshman year. Note: water bottle does not contain water.)When we arrived, the audience seats were on the stage itself, strangely intimate with the seemingly disembodied set only feet away. But then, we had no idea what we should have been expecting, so this was easily accepted by three teenagers whose only constant, lately, had been that nothing was familiar. The first piece featured three players, including a wiry, slight, dark-haired young man who compulsively shuffled cards. The second piece used the same three actors but expanded the cast by five, including one offstage player who produced squeaking bat sound effects. Strange as I am, I instantly decided that he was my favorite.
After the show, we moved to the room next door to get to meet the cast, etc, and I made it my mission to talk to "the bat." Meanwhile, the card shuffler, now out of costume and sporting a brightly colored bandana kerchief-style around his curling hair, bounded enthusiastically up to we three freshmen, to introduce himself as Peter. In my mind, I'm thinking "How nice to meet new and interesting people. Now, where'd that tall blond guy go?" Peter's thought, or so I am told, was "I can't decide which of the three of them is most attractive."
Shortly thereafter, we all found ourselves at the after-party for the show, in a huge old house just a block off campus where Kat and I would eventually come to live. At some point in the evening, I was chatting politely with the show stage manager, a Philadelphia native who would relentlessly hit on anything remotely female that didn't happen to be running too fast for him to keep up. Peter, meanwhile, was perhaps ten feet away giving a lapdance to the tall blond guy while the song "Queer" by Garbage played on the stereo.
This next bit requires a little bit more backstory (a flashback within a flashback, yes). If I had developed any sort of "type" of guys that I date, it would have to be guys of dubious heterosexuality, at least to the outside observer. I like to optimistically say that it was an interest in men confident enough to be flexible with gender identity without being threatened by what other people thought. Really, it probably had more to do with seeing my parents' relationship issues and needing to find someone enough like me that I wouldn't feel threatened (physically, or by gender roles). Occasionally, this would lead me to guys who would let me walk all over them, which wasn't at all what I wanted. Logically, you'd think this might lead me to date women, but alas, no. I would have to search for the elusive metro-sexual.
(Seen here, in captivity, 2002.)
But I assumed, as I observed the aforementioned lapdance, that Peter was gay. When I expressed disappointment at my conclusion and was informed to the contrary, I may have declared that if Peter wasn't gay, I would marry him.
And that's still the plan.
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