Men seeking men

Mike left his Ipod touch in my couch. It must have fallen from his pocket that day he sat there shortly after we had broken up. Having shown little to no interest in our relationship till then, now that I was finally saying: "aannnnnd cut!", he suddenly wanted more. Outside the door to my apartment, on the carpet in the hall, he dropped to his knees and looked up at me: "Take me back," he said. "This doesn't feel right". I reached down and put my hands around his confused, little face. "Call me in a month if you still feel that way" I said, and shut the door.

I met Mike in a bar. I was hanging and chilling listening to the band that it turns out he was playing in. When he walked by my table he immediately caught my eye in that way that makes me go, Oh! and catch my breath a little. Outside later he seemed to be waiting for me and after we talked for a while, without my asking, he wrote down his name and number and asked me to call sometime. Two days later, when I made the first call, would be the beginning of a pathetic effort of mine to make the connection that he had initiated. Finally, after a few efforts and being blown off, I said "nay" to the game and went about my business. A few days later, like the miracle of the face of Jesus on a piece of toast he called; on his big boy own. He wanted to get together; oh lucky me! Dreams can come true.

So to make a very long story short, and save enough material for my next one, I met him and his-taped-together-with-blue-painters-tape-headphones downtown, and continued our game of cat and mouse. So eventually (yada, yada, yada) I realized that I was wasting my time, which brings us back to Mike in the hall on his knees and the discovery of his Ipod touch in my couch.

After calling him and telling him I had found his little pod, I set it on the table next to my bed and went about my business. A couple of hours later, lounging in my bed, I looked over at it and thought I'd check out his tunes. He had freely let me listen to it before so it didn't seem invasive to me at all, besides, everyone I know-including myself-freely shares their ipods with others. It seemed like an okay thing to do. Ipod touches are a little different from regular Ipods though, because they can access the internet. And so it was with the great big blank canvas of my mind, that I powered it up and found myself staring at a CraigsList ad. A personal ad; men looking for men. It took me a while to register this and then of course I started to pry (that's right: pry, not cry). I had been dating and sleeping with this man for a couple months now and felt like I kinda had a reason to know. I pulled up the history of the other sites he had recently visited on the net. I guess I was hopeing my original discovery was some freak anomally, but instead what I saw was page after page of men seeking men ads. I was a tad stunned.

Later when I brought his Ipod back to him I asked him: "hey uh, you don't have to answer this but . . . what's up with all the dudes?" He only paused for a second before he answered.