I am Mayor of the Zone

Chandler: You waited too long, and now you're in "The Friend Zone."
Ross: No... no, I am not in the Zone.
Joey: Ross, you are mayor of the Zone.


I've been on a dry dating streak for a long time. Granted, it's most likely because I'm a fat old bitter fag, but in any event, that's the breaks.

Well, except.

In the past several weeks, I've ...

Okay, I'm working on finding the right words for this situation.

In the past several weeks, I've hung out with two charming and single men. On different occasions. And I've flirted with still another.

I spent 8 hours on a Sunday with one very nice man. We talked, we walked, we ate, we drank, we laughed... for eight hours. At 10:00 that night, he dropped me off at my apartment.

I spent 3 hours at the zoo yesterday with a great guy on whom I've had a crush for about six months now. We also had brunch together. We talked, we ate, we laughed. I leaned on him when I managed to skin my toe after slipping on a random grate (who knew flip flops lacked traction that way?).

On Thursday, I flirted with a guy in my building whom I bumped into as he exited a bar I was entering. I threatened to randomly stop by his apartment unannounced with a DVD and a bottle of wine. (I may actually do this sometime this week.)

All that having been said, I may just change my name to "Ross."

At the end of these days with these men -- both of whom would make excellent boyfriends -- we parted with friendly hugs. (This is the reason I hesitate to call any of these events "dates.") Although we keep talking about "next time" we get together, we make no definite plans and there's no indication that they're looking forward to planning the next get-together. There's no "Let's get together again soon" followed by "yeah, I'd like that." Instead, we exchange words to the effect of "Well, I guess I'll see you around" or "See ya when I see ya!".

By the way, no, I haven't actually let my bitter jaded self out in front of these guys. Or maybe it's a pheromone I'm exuding, and they can just "tell."

Perhaps I should just hope that one of the other (maybe both?) of these guys is just as shy as I am, and we're all just taking it painfully slow. The silver lining to this is that I won't actually have to make any kind of choice as to which one I'd want to date date.

Or I can just accept that I've made two new friends, which, in the end, isn't all that bad anyway.