Early last winter, my dad asked me to do him a favor – his best friend’s son had just moved to the Boston area and he wondered if I could give him a call and maybe show him around (he didn’t know anyone in the area). I groaned internally because I’m a bit of an oddball and my dad is pretty straight-and-narrow, so I’m not expecting to really mesh with his friend’s son, but I agree to it and a month or so later, my dad provides the phone number. A lot was going on so I didn’t call immediately, but I finally phoned him up in early March. He (let’s call him Ryan) seemed pretty surprised that I was calling (didn’t know who I was at first), but he did eventually recall my dad telling him (back in the fall) that he’d have me give him a call. The conversation was fairly brief and a little awkward, but generally amicable and we agreed to meet for coffee the following week.
We spoke again the night before we were to meet to figure out how to recognize each other. I told him I was tall, thin, pale with longish red hair. He said he was short with black hair. When I arrived, there were a few people who met his general description, but none came up to me. I noticed one fellow who was having an animated conversation by phone just outside the coffeehouse, but he didn’t seem to notice me (and generally, I’m hard to miss), so I didn’t think it was him. But he was the only one fitting the description who remained in my vicinity for the duration, so when I finally gave Ryan a call, I wasn’t surprised when the guy on the phone answered. He looked pretty normal for the area, not too conservative, but not unusual in any way (about what I’d expect from my dad’s friend’s son). He was friendly enough with me, despite my blue vintage shirt with butterflies on it & “unusual” look. We grabbed some coffee and found a table to sit at.
We chatted for quite a while, about our dads and a little about us and a lot about what there is to do in Boston. He had just moved here from Seattle and was surprised that it seemed a bit more conservative in Boston than in Seattle (because Boston has such a reputation as being “liberal”). I told him my story of how a few weeks back, I had coined a new MA state motto: “It’s not as liberal as you think” and I explained how the Puritan influence lives on (tattoos have only been legal for 4 years or so; liquor stores have only been able to be open on Sundays for a few years; you still can’t buy liquor in grocery stores and the MA elected governors are usually Republican). We had a good laugh about that. And then we talked about driving and the amusing/infuriating local tradition of chairs in street parking spaces.
After a while, it seemed conversation was winding down. I wasn’t sure if we would be friends, but he seemed like a nice enough guy and I felt bad that he really didn’t know anyone in town. So I was thinking of how I might incorporate him into my social network. He seemed to be pretty normal, a hetero male meat-eater (so probably wouldn’t work with my queer or veg friends), but I thought he might get along with some of my more normal friends. And it so happened that I was going to a party the following weekend with some of those friends, but I was planning to go all dolled up (i.e., fierce makeup, etc.), so I knew I had to warn him. So eventually, I explained about the party and my friends who would be there and I said that I didn’t want to freak him out or anything, but that I’d be going in “drag” (to use a term he’d know).
He quickly responded that of course it wouldn’t freak him out and we continued conversing for a while, but clearly that did freak him out a bit. The whole tone of the conversation changed after that – I noticed him looking at my longish fingernails a lot and noticing the other androgynous clues in my features. He was now a teensy bit nervous whereas he hadn’t been at all before. After 15 minutes or so of this, I thought it was getting time to go, so I suggested we leave. We walked out of the cafe and down the street a ways together (towards our cars) and then he veered off towards his car without much of a goodbye. I was feeling brash and forced a goodbye & handshake (which he didn’t seem to want, but was too polite to refuse) and the night ended there.
I wrote him an email the following day as promised with a list of local resources and links. I mentioned that some friends of mine (that he’d get along with) were meeting up for coffee that night and if he wanted to join us he’d be welcome. He made some vague expression of interest, but said he had to work late and maybe he wouldn’t be able to make it. I said he should call later on if he could make it out and I left it at that (I knew by then better than to follow up on the party invite). He never wrote or called again (no surprise). The irony, of course, is that MA is not the only thing that’s not as liberal as you think.
