Had dinner with my friend last night. We'll call him Biff, but that's not his name, fortunately enough for him. I met Biff on Yahoo Personals a few months ago and we dated a couple of times and then he broke the news to me that I had been his last ditch effort to go on denying that he was gay. It was a nice compliment, in a way. He said that I was so nice and we had so much in common that if he couldn't fake it with me he couldn't fake it with anyone. Which explains why there was no physical chemistry between us. It was one of the first dates in my newly-found singlehood, and I was probably trying to make something happen just to say I was OK, but that's another entry, I guess.

Anyway, dinner was good. I think he feels pretty open with me, but some of the things he's willing to dicuss, I don't particularly want to hear. Nor would I want to tell him about those things in my life. But he's a good person who needs a friend who understands, I guess, and since I told him about my brother, I think that made it easier for him to be honest with me in the first place. He's really conflicted within himself, not about WHETHER he is gay or not, but more how to BE what he is. He a Republican and pretty traditionally conservative about most things, which puts him in a tough spot, naturally. I get the feeling he wants to a have traditonal family and relationship, except with a man, and I'm not sure if that's the way things work yet. He said it was hard for him to reconcile the fact that when he thought about himself at the age he is he always figured he'd be settled and married with kids and a dog and a house and now that's not the way his life will ever be. I think Biff will be OK though. He's probably not the type of person I would normally have for a friend...meaning his personality in general and not his sexuality...but I'm going to make an effort. Another one of my poor stray puppies, maybe? I don't think of it that way, but someone said something of the sort to me, and I wonder if it's true. Or even if it matters if it is true.

There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.

Rebecca West (1892-1983)