Mike Time

This morning, something triggered a memory. I was thinking about the first crush I got in high school. His name was Mike and we had biology together our sophomore year. That was it; just the one class. I hated that class and were it not for Mike being there, I would have fully resented having to show up for it at all.

The best part of the class, was when the bell rang--not only because class was over, but because this began my "Mike time", the time that I got to walk home with the object of my affection. My family lived a block away from the high school and Mike lived four blocks further in the same direction. I soon discovered that I could get more "Mike time" by walking past the street with my house. I did that for the entire year. I would walk with Mike to his house and then turn around and walk back to mine.

If Mike ever realized I was doing this, he never let on.

Those walks, the time in class, and a couple other random moments were the extent of my relationship with Mike. We never met up outside of school, never had sleepovers (DAMMIT!), never went to a movie or anything like that.

Yet, Nearly twenty years later, I still remember well the "Mike time" that I had.

I decided to look up Mike and discovered that he has a Facebook page. He also has a wife.

I forgot to mention that during my sophomore year, I did a LOT of fantasizing about Mike. In my mind, we were going to be boyfriends by the end of sophomore year, no longer versions by the end of our junior year and making a life-time commitment to each other by the end of our senior year. Naturally, we were going to enroll at the same college and arrange to be roommates. After college Mike would continue on to law school and I would work hard to help my love make his tuition payments. He was going to make partner by our tenth anniversary together, the party for which he would surprise me with a dog. By the time we were 30, we would have adopted our first child together and a second one by 32.

I pictured us growing old together and, yes, I pictured fantastic sex.

It's tough, though, when you see that last chance of reality dying right before you and I think that is especially hard for gay people - especially the hopelessly romantic ones like me who keep falling in love with straight guys. It isn't until you discover that those objects of your affection have gotten married that the fantasies really take a nose-dive. Until that moment, there is a tendency to grasp for that last chance no matter how hopeless the cause is in reality.

I haven't seen Mike since high school, but it wasn't until today when I saw his Facebook relationship status that I was finally able to let go of the last fleeting hope I didn't even know I was still harboring. It's a painful process.