THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

at his amazing view of Chelsea. It's his fortieth birthday

and he is eating his dinner alone. Most gay men round up

special occasions, so he will have cocktails with friends and acquaintances on Saturday night, but that's not the point. This solitary moment has allowed the thoughts he has been suppressing to finally cross his mind. They are: "How did this happen?" and "why am I alone?" Of course he knows the answers. Even though he spends a great deal of time looking into the mirror, he has never been a fan of truly facing himself. He spent a great deal of his life making himself into what he considers to be a good man. He is well-educated with a high profile job. He is in the gym an hour a day, six days a week, making sure that his body is at its absolute finest. He wears perfectly tailored clothes and has the best haircut to suit his face. He doesn't volunteer his time, but he goes to all of the right charitable events and always writes a check. It doesn't seem wrong that he expects the men he dates to live up to the same standards that he holds for himself. The problem is that they never do. Chris has a vetting process that makes Goldilocks seem low-key. Each guy seems to have at least one fault—usually more—that disqualifies him from being good enough: The wrong job, the wrong friends, a bad address, a weak education, small nipples, too much body hair, a slight overbite, et cetera. Even if a guy has potential, if he shows interest in Chris too quickly, Chris will respond by cutting ties before he gets too close. If Chris doesn't know immediately that a guy isn't good enough, he will know for certain by the end of three weeks. Too emotional too soon is always a deal breaker. Chris never found it necessary to get too attached when a better guy is going to show up someday soon. And he was always on the lookout for the better guy. It's because of this behavior that Chris has never been in love. Or if he was, he wasn't long enough to remember. He knows that he has let some great ones slip away. Every now and then he will see someone he dated with a boyfriend or husband and he will wonder if that could have been him. What he feels is probably just a fraction of the disappointment that he caused them to feel, but he feels it now. What Chris didn't expect is that he would be alone at forty with no one in his life. Somewhere down the line he got this idea that there was such a thing as a perfect man and they would meet and live the perfect life together. Chris got everything he wanted out of life, so why not this? If you asked him though, he couldn't really give an answer as to what it is that he was looking for, just a long list of things that made great men not good enough. Before he collapses into tears, Chris stands up and opens the window. He agrees with himself that he will accept the next date invitation he gets, no matter who it is that asks. It's time he learned to connect with real guys. It's time he gave someone a chance. Until then, he's just going to be a forgotten, tortured stanza in countless heartbroken diaries.