It's been a longer than usual interval between journal entries. Not that I have nothing to write about (if you don't mind indulging me in a double-negative). It's more wondering where to start. The obvious place is Friday night, when I drove to Oakland Airport to pick up PB, who was flying in from Southern California to spend the weekend with me. PB is one of the people I've known for the greatest length of time in this country, but somebody whom, until recently, I didn't know at all well.

We met fifteen years ago when I was just coming out of the closet. I was at a dance organized by the gay union at Penn, where I was in a Masters program. I was still skinny, back then, an awkward, tall thing, almost entirely lacking in self-confidence, and usually covered head to toe in something that concealed my bony appendages. That evening, my eyes were fixed upon a cute, hunky little guy, with huge, brown eyes, wearing a skin-tight black t-shirt. At one point, I was leaning against a pillar, hoping that people would mistake me for part of the architecture, when I felt a tap on my chest. I looked down and there was PB, staring up at me with his appealing, puppy dog eyes, asking me to dance. I suppose I took him up on his offer, and lumbered through a few ungainly steps with him. I could not believe that he was interested in me, but, to my amazement, I went back to my dorm room that night with his phone number tucked into my pocket.

Our big date came the next weekend, and I can't actually remember the details. It was really my first ever date with a man, not counting one rather sordid, sexual encounter a few weeks previously. The one thing I do remember is holding his hand in the cinema, watching "Moonstruck", and the almost unbearable eroticism of runnning my fingers over his muscular biceps in the darkness.

For some reason (I think I was on the cusp of meeting my first boyfriend Philip Kent), we never had a second date, and our paths didn't cross for many years. Then, years later, and a year after I moved to San Francisco, I spent a few days in Philly visiting friends. I was staying with Dougal, my former roommate, and he was telling me about this bar he was hanging out at, where there was a sexy exotic dancer who specialized in hanging off a pole wearing nothing but a leather jockstrap. No big surprise for you when I tell you it was PB who was the exotic dancer. Being 6'6, I'm very easy to spot in a bar, and before long, PB was sidling up to me in his jockstrap, and, I guess, we made some sort of plan to rendezvous later that evening. Again, I don't remember many of the details. I remember walking through the steaming, late-night Summer streets of Philly to his apartment, and having sex with him. And that was that.

Around Christmastime last year, my profile was featured, along with three others, on the front page of Planet Out. Just a little headshot, and their chosen tagline (which I hated) "Intellectual. He loves to cuddle".; PB spotted it, thought I looked familiar, clicked on through, and realized, hey, that's Keith from Philly! We exchanged emails, and began to talk regularly on the phone. I'd never really known much about PB. I didn't even recall what kind of man he was; was he kind, was he full of himself? On the phone, it began to sank in that PB, who was now a lawyer in Southern California, was a lot more substantial than I'd guessed. Thoughtful, open-hearted, smart, vulnerable. As the date arrived for him to make a visit here, it was with a feeling of inevitability that I drove to the airport singing to myself "Let's take it nice and easy.... it's going to be so easy.... for us to fall in love."

In my head, I'd imagined something like this. I'd put him in my guestroom, but leave my bedroom door open overnight. There'd be sexual tension in the air, and at some point, I'd hear him coming out of the bathroom, and he'd whisper, "Keith, are you awake?" I'd say, hoarsely, "Yeah." He'd come into my bedroom, sit on the bed, and we'd lock eyes, and... [gentle fade out to next scene].

What really happened is that I was parking the car in the Castro to go eat, fresh from the airport. We hadn't even so much as dropped his bag off at home, when he was offering me his open lips. Oh, I'm such a bundle of little neuroses and hot buttons. I backed off from the approaching lips, saying that, oh dear, this was going much too fast for me, and we probably entered the restaurant, both feeling a little uncomfortable.

Predictably, though, the rest of the weekend went much as I expected, which is where I came up with the moniker PB. It means "potential boyfriend", and it comes out of the fact that neither of us can see any reason why we won't become boyfriends. But there will be shoals along the way. I really question, often, if I'm cut out to be boyfriend material. I'm so set in my ways, in some regards. Last night, for example, we were getting ready to go out clubbing, and the question came up, who should shower first. PB (because he's the romantic sort) suggested we shower together. I've never cared for showering with somebody else, for ever so many reasons, which I don't care to go into. Should I open myself up to new ideas, be accomodating, and just do it? Not this time, I'm afraid.

And then later, at the crowded Stud, where we danced shirtless, I was, unaccountably, getting tons more attention than I usually do. And a gorgeous Asian guy just in jeans was dancing with his hands behind his head; I swooned at the smooth swoop of his shoulders and the sensuous smile sent in my direction. It's one of the small mysteries of life; why do such looks only come in your direction when you're not available to respond. And why am I even thinking that way when I've just reacquainted myself with PB.