Luke Danes, I Do
Chad Michael Murray, it has been so long since I sat down to write I can’t even talk about it. I just spent the last ten minutes sipping dark roast and waiting for my fingers to patiently return to the keyboard. These last few months on the Coast have been an absolute washout – literally. After it rained, correction, down-poured for nearly sixty days straight, I thought I had seriously lost my mind. Somehow during that time, Donald Trump became President of the United States of America, and my debut performance as Olaf (the gay snowman) brought tears to a little girl’s birthday party.
In between working two jobs and checking Instagram every five minutes, I have had barely enough energy at the end of the night to twist off the cap on a bottle of red wine. The moment it became clear the eleven o’clock news was just as devastating as the weather outside my basement window, I found myself, more and more, escaping into the fictional town of Stars Hollow. Pressing play on seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, my addiction to the alternate reality grew stronger than Lorelai’s compulsion for coffee. I knew it was time for an intervention when Mama Fox called one evening, and I surprised her with the news that, after all these years, I was finally in a relationship with Luke Danes.
Fearing I might die from watching too much Netflix, I injected myself with 200 CC’s of coconut water and got straight to work finding a man outside a television screen. After self-imposing a lifetime ban from Grindr or any other online dating site, I knew I was going to have to deploy a different strategy this time around. So after careful thought and consideration, I did what any other attractive single gay man in his early thirties would do, and started begging everyone I knew to hook me up with their single friends.
“Now that you are preggers,” I topped off my best friend Claire’s glass of club soda, “I need to find someone else to drink white wine with for the next eighteen years.”
“Gay men do have a biological clock!” I slammed my cosmopolitan down in front of my fabulous friend Ritche, “It starts the second all their best girlfriends have married off and announced in some clever way on social media they are with child.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW ANY SINGLE GAY MEN?!” I harassed the lady over the intercom speaker at a McDonald’s drive thru. “And yes, I would like that supersized … please.”
My brazen efforts to meet a man offline finally succeeded when I got set-up on a blind date with a friend of a friend’s, mutual friend’s roommate. I was so eager to accept the date that I didn’t even think to ask a single question about the guy; a fact that readily caught up with me when I sat down on an Earl’s bar stool and waited for him to arrive. After dodging the first three unappetizing gentlemen callers that walked through the door, I thanked Meryl Streep when an attractive young man in a toque came up to shake my hand.
Settling-up my happy hour tab at the bar, I joined him at a table for two with a nighttime view of Robson Street. Over two glasses of red wine and one order of chicken tenders with yam fries, I gathered as much information as I could about my date. His name was Bidwell Mathers. He was 25 years-old, worked in Tech and had been out of the closet for all of ten minutes. As I sat there trying not to drink too much, I could not help but chuckle at the thought that, when I was his age, all I would do on a first date was list all the reasons why the relationship couldn’t work; and now, six years later, I am doing the exact opposite.
After paying the bill, (Side note: can we talk for a hot second about how masculine I have become as of late? I also have biceps and a beard.) I walked him to the sky train station and kissed him goodnight.
The next morning, I brewed a cup of coffee and sent him word via text message that I enjoyed myself thoroughly and looked forward to seeing him again. When I didn’t hear back in twelve hours, I powered off my phone to make sure the service was working. After twenty-four hours passed with no reply, I advised my co-workers, at the restaurant, that he was a millennial and probably very busy on Snapchat. By the time three days had come and gone, I returned to my usual spot at Luke’s Café.
If I have learned anything from this last year, it is to never give up hope. So that is why I made a deal with myself, that for every fictional relationship I go to bed with on T.V., I must have two active crushes on real-life men who live in Vancouver or within SkyTrain distance. I am pleased to report that so far I have been entirely successful.
My first crush is a baker who works at a café in Mount Pleasant that I discovered on Instagram. I dropped by the other day to try one of his rosemary-asiago scones and promised myself I would return when I confirmed that he was not working. The other crush I cannot disclose at this moment because he is classified as top secret. But I will let you know soon.
