A bizarre wasted day

Since my online cruising life started in the mid 1990's, there have only been two occasions when I've turned up to meet someone for a session and been turned down once we've met face to face. This makes what happened to me on the Saturday around three weeks ago completely bizarre.

With the two occasions in the past, one was because the other guy felt too uncomfortable with the situation of having another guy visit purely for a bit of fun. The guy had never put himself in that situation before, and once I was there with him he realised that meeting men like that didn't suit him at all. This was in November 1998, and as a result of that meeting I realised that it's important to start undressing quite soon after arriving to visit a guy you don't know, to help break the ice among other things, and make the situation seem normal.

The other occasion in the past was also in 1998. But with that incident, when I walked in the guy just casually said "Oh sorry, I was expecting younger, can you go please". This made me realise that it's important to show the guy you're going to visit a recent photo before setting off! This was also in 1998, when digital photos were still relatively rare. Although this guy was younger than me, he was also much fatter, so he didn't fit the description he gave me online either. But of course, it was me who had made the effort to visit him so I was very annoyed, and appalled at his rudeness.

So on the Saturday about three weeks ago, mid-morning I get chatting on gaydar to a guy who's about 15 minutes walk away from me. He's interested in having me visit him, but he needs me to get there quickly. The instructions I get seem a little unclear, and he doesn't have a mobile phone number either, but since it's only a short walk away I decide to take the risk.

When I arrive, it turns out to be a maze of a council estate, which is quite hard to get into. I walk round the perimeter, before eventually finding an entrance which is manned by a porter. Using the door entry system the guy buzzes me into where the porter is, but the porter tells me that the easiest way to get to the guy's apartment is to go back outside the perimeter and find another entrance. Eventually I find it, so again I have to get the guy to buzz me through the outside perimeter fence, then he has to buzz me into the building, and finally once I onto his floor he has to buzz me into his corridor. It's like trying to gain entry to a top security bank vault!

Finally I'm at the guy's door, and he lets me in. As I walk into the hallway I say

"You might have given me a few more clues online to help me find this place!"

and although I'm joking with him, perhaps he takes this in the wrong way. As I turn to look at him I realise that he's standing behind the still open front door, completely naked. He's quite a hairy guy, with a scraggly beard and a bit of a pot belly.

"This isn't any good, you're not what I expected", he says.

Unlike the guy back in 1998, this guy had seen my photo. "What on earth do you mean?" I say incredulous, "you saw my photo didn't you?"

Actually it's kind of a reciprocal feeling because he's not what I expected either, and standing naked behind the front door he looks like a complete weirdo. On my way out I feel like punching him for wasting my time, but looking back on the situation now I'm glad that I kept my cool. As I walk out of the building, through all the security doors, it occurs to me that a top security mental institution would be a closer match than a bank vault!

So without any fun in the morning, I find myself on gaydar again mid to late afternoon. I get talking to a guy who's only a short cab ride away. I'm chatting to the guy for quite a while, and gradually he moves towards letting me visit him. First I get his postcode so I can work out reasonably accurately where he is using www.multimap.com. Then we exchange mobile phone numbers. Finally he decides that he does want me to visit him for a bit of fun so he tells me the exact address and I set off.

He lives in a nice apartment which turns out to be a floor in an old converted warehouse, and which is one of a group of several converted warehouses. It's a very urban setting, which somehow works well. He's on the first floor, and the entrance to his apartment is up the old external fire escape stairway. He comes outside onto the stairway to welcome me, and seems happy to see me.

"Hi, nice place", I say as I walk through the front door, smiling at him. He nods nervously, and heads over to the sofa where he's been watching TV. I take off my shirt, underneath which I'm wearing one of my gym vests, and go and sit next to him.

He looks at me nervously again. Then with a terrified look on his face he says "Errr, I'm really sorry about this, errr, I can't have sex with you or anything, you can stay a while if you like."

Thinking back to what happened in the morning, I simply can't believe it! Twice in one day??!

"It's nothing to do with you", he continues, "it's just that now you're here I know I've made a mistake, I just can't do this sort of thing".

It took more than ten years to experience just one example of the two types of being turned down face to face, i.e. the situation where the guy doesn't like me, and the situation where the guy has a problem with himself. And now I've collected one more of each situation on the same day!

"Do I look like my photo", I ask, a bit worried.

"Yes, sorry it's me, I've not done this before."

He seems genuine, so I decide to take up his offer and stay for a while. He's in his early to mid twenties, and had met his boyfriend while at university. "So I was in a relationship for five years, which only ended recently. I've missed out on the whole growth of gaydar, I'm really not used to this at all."

Poor guy. We watch repeats of The Brit Awards on TV for a while, and chat about gay life in London, his job, my job and life in general. Although I'm annoyed about the situation, he's such a sweet guy that I find it hard to be angry with him. After about fifteen minutes, it's clear that he won't change his mind so I get him to phone a minicab for me. The minicab arrives after a further ten minutes so I wish him luck.

"Sorry again", he says as I'm leaving, "back to the drawing board I guess."

"No, I think I'll go to the gym instead", I say truthfully. "The bizarre thing is, in more than ten years of meeting guys online, this has only happened to me three times before, and one of those occasions was this morning!"

He looks at me as though I'm a Martian, because he doesn't know whether to believe me or not. Come to think about it, looking back on that day, I'm not sure I believe that both incidents occurred on the same day. Just sometimes, true life is stranger than fiction!