Secrets

by Dlove

“I know a secret about you.”

That’s what the guy said to me. What the fuck? I had known this guy for a few months. He started to come to our ultimate Frisbee games in Balboa Park on Saturday mornings. We’re a very welcoming crew of people and we are always looking to expand our game, so it was cool that this new guy was coming regularly thus insuring better numbers.

This guy has always been pretty cool and I’ve never had any problems with him at all, so when he told me that he knew a secret about me, I was a little taken aback. “So, what do you know?” I demanded. “Well, I’m not going to tell you here. Do you want to get some lunch or something after the game?” I couldn’t go to lunch since I was meeting up with someone else, but I agreed that we should meet up.

“Does the secret reflect on me in a positive or negative way?” I asked him. “Oh, it just depends. Let’s just meet up and I’ll tell you then.” Fuck! He wasn’t going to tell me. On the ride home after the game, my head was swimming with what this guy could possibly know. I really don’t have too many secrets. I basically poured my heart out online for over three years when I had my Diaryland journal. I didn’t hold back too often. From who I’d fucked, to long, scathing rants about any number of subjects, I’d pretty much let everyone know how I felt about everything. What else could the guy possibly know about me?

It was kind of a shitty position for him to put me in, but I found solace in the fact that he wanted to hang out with me and discuss it. It’s not like he seemed upset or disgusted although, in the back of my mind, I was worried that he might be the husband of a woman I’d wronged sometime in the past. I could imagine him showing up at a bar with his hand in his coat gingerly fingering the ivory handle of his stiletto. He’d saunter up next to me with a wild look in his eyes and say, “I’m gonna cut you good, you womanizing man-whore!” I would, of course, go all ninja on his ass and have to karate chop him in the throat a few times for good measure. You’d better come at me with something a little more substantial than a stiletto if you want to take me out, Sparky!

Something else dawned on me; maybe he only thought he knew a secret about me. Maybe the secret he knew was about someone else that has a similar name. One of my concerns was that, somehow, he thought my “secret” was that I’m gay and I thought he might try to make a pass at me when we met up. After all, the guy lives in Hillcrest, a predominantly gay area of San Diego and, really, who can tell which guys are straight or gay these days anyway? It also dawned on me, yet again, that if I really were gay, I’d be getting a lot more action than I do as a straight male. Despite the fact that gays are wrongfully discriminated against in our society, they’re still having more and better sex than most of the straight population. Meanwhile straight men and women across the nation chronically masturbate in lubricated silence. Or maybe that’s just me.

Maybe what he thought was a secret was actually something that I don’t really think is so secret. I was hoping for this. He called me on Saturday night to set something up for Sunday. I agreed to meet him for lunch in Hillcrest at high noon.

I slept through most of Sunday morning and woke up to apocalyptic yellow skies. The city was (and still is) on fire and ash was falling like snow. This didn’t seem like a good omen for my meeting at noon. My stomach was doing somersaults, but I couldn’t tell if that was from my nervousness or the fact that I had downed a variety of alcoholic beverages throughout the previous evening’s festivities. Whatever the case, I was resigned to the fact that I was going to have to meet the guy, if only to satisfy my curiosity about the secret this guy knew.

So we met up. It was kind of trippy because the guy acted as if he didn’t even really have a secret. We made small talk for awhile until I couldn’t take it anymore; “Look man, this whole thing about the secret you know about me is really driving me crazy. What exactly do you know?” I said as I grabbed a fork and held it up to his jugular. He explained to me that he had only been living in San Diego for a few months and that, since he’d moved here, he hadn’t had much luck meeting any women. He decided to go the internet dating route and, after browsing through the women’s profiles, went to check out some of the men’s profiles to scope out his competition. It was there that he saw my profile. That was his big secret. Big fucking deal, dude! You got me all worked up over that?!

I didn’t say that to him, of course. Mostly, I was relieved. I think he simply wanted to start a friendship with me and that seemed like a good scheme to hang out with me away from the Ultimate Frisbee crowd. After I checked him for weapons, I decided he was a alright and that I should take him under my wing. I’m sure we’ll hang out sometime soon. In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out a way to modify that whole “I know a secret” scenario in order to meet women. At this point, anything is worth a try.