The SF Chronicles, Part II: In Which I Become Acquainted with a Delightful Young Woman With a Charming Accent

So as I understand it, it's Pride Week here in San Francisco. Also, I should reiterate my complete and utter inabilty to function in the presence of gay men. (I can flirt and talk when I'm reasonably certain that neither he nor I are interested in anything beyond funny bar banter. But put me in the presence of a guy I might actually be interested in....) It's against this backdrop that I relate the following story.

I flew into Oakland rather than San Francisco International possibly just because it was substantially cheaper. For a good discount airfare, you catch a $2 AirBART which takes you from Oakland into San Francisco proper. Public transport rocks.

I got off the plane and dutifully made my way to the AirBARt stop. As is my wont, I began scanning the other travellers in seaarch of the one (or two, or three, or five) cute guys to fixate upon. Seeing none, I settled on a nice tattoo on one guy's lower calf. Between that and fiddling with my cell phone for no reason whatsoever, I was plenty occupied (snicker).

Not having grabbed a map or anything to help me figure out what was going on, I was basically shooting in the dark with respect to my journey into San Francisco. But I got onto the bus and started hoping for the best.

I took a vacant seat next to a young woman whose backback probably extended over her head in a height equal to her entire torso's length. She'll return to this story later.

At the second stop (there were only two before we made it into the city), three young men (among others) boarded, whom I tagged to be homos from the moment they sashayed through the doors. Okay, they didn't sashay, but let's face it, certain gay men just exude this air of fabulousness that just screams volumes about them.

One man bore a t-shirt that proclaime "This shirt is B-A-N-A-N-A-S." Cute shout-out to Gwen Stafani, I thought. I pegged him to be gay even before I noticed his oh-so-subtle left-ear small hoop earring in rainbow colors. And even before I noticed that his sunglasses were Chanel. I started trying to work up a way to make conversation.

One of his companions was also noteworthy for his awesome smile. I was actually shocked at how perfect and white his teeth were, and his smile was quite fetching. As fascinating to me, though, was a silver stud this guy had in his lower lip. I have never made out with a guy with an oral piercing before, but I can imagine it would be kind of cool. Except that this guy's stud wasn't the usual round. It was pyramidal -- it was sharp. I can't imagine bumping gums with someone while their lips are drawing my blood. Pity, would have been a normal reaction, but I came to grips with the reality that I stood about a snowball's chance in hell of ever having my lips touch his in any context anyway.

So did I speak to any of these cute, obviously gay guys? Of course not. I spoke to the young lady with whom I shared a seat, which is clearly my wont: I make friends with straight chicks and can't even deal with talking to gay boys.

She was backpacking in the city from Quebec. Apparently, although Canada is officially bilingual, she still had a prefernce for French, and her English wasn't perfect (though, of course, it was more than passable). We discussed the BART map; we talked about how to get into the city; we chatted about the difference between Fahrenheit and centigrade; we discussed our plans for the week. We rode public transport into the city together, chatting the entire time. She was very nice, and I feel like I did my part to help welcome a traveller to the country with a friendly, conversational gesture.

Did I ever speak to the cute boys at all? Nope. And it totally wasn't a huge loss.