The Alphabet Lovers

A is for Adrian - Emerald Pools

I have always felt like it was easy for me to fall in love. Or at least the idea of falling in love. Because of the weird and abnormal trajectory of how my life has ended up to this point, I often felt that this concept of falling in love and how that love manifests may differ significantly from my friends. And especially because gay love comes with more insecurities than hetero relationships, it has always been a struggle for me to reconcile what I see and how I feel. It is also important for me to admit that my outlook for falling for someone has evolved drastically over time. I am sure many other gay men have similar ideals of love, but I wonder if they have also experienced it in the ways that I have. Or whether they would categorize what I deem as being in love, with what they believe it to be so. But I categorize that as a hallmark of maturing, based on a rulebook I wrote in my head; understanding that you can feel inspired and strive to attain the type of love you see from positive influences in your life. However, every individual must dictate and express what that love means. Only they can control the narrative of what that relationship looks like and how they feel before, during and after it happened. And whether that understanding changes over time or stays the same, it is within every person's right to tell that story in the way they want to and when they want to. Sometimes, the greatest love stories are the ones that were never told, and that is okay.

I come to this sort of philosophical reminiscing when I think back to Adrian because our connection was more emotional and psychological than physical. He's never said in plain words that he's in love with me or that he is gay. However, the way he made me feel through his actions, his other words and the deeply personal stories he shared with me, left no doubt in my mind that he loved me enough to let me in. And perhaps he wasn't in love with me, but in his own way, I think it was the closest he would get to being that vulnerable with another man, at least up to that point in his life. Admittedly, the thought that Adrian's retelling of this story might be different from my own does sting, but I need to respect that perhaps he did not find the same things I found significant throughout our relationship. And I have come to terms with that, not just for Adrian's story but for all my other alphabets. Somewhere in my 'always-the-romantic' mind, I like to think that he shared in those exact feelings at those specific moments in time. And although I do not have contact with Adrian anymore, and I do not know what has become of him, I will always treasure those terribly intimate moments in our whirlwind of a summer when we were both 22.

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Adrian's eyes, the smooth, velvety, green windows into his soul, framed by those sharp academic rectangle glasses that often slid off his narrow nose, were his nicest features. I found those eyes so striking that it's sometimes hard to listen to what he's saying because I'm so captivated. They remind me of calm pools of emerald that you want to dive right into. Adrian's physical characteristics were tall and skinny with olive tanned skinned and a classically handsome face. He also had jet black hair that was curly when it got longer and always stood in weird ways that somehow looked perfect on him. When I first met him, he was pathologically shy and was comfortable only talking about stuff that were stereotypical for straight men that lived in a university frat house. Sports, women, political gibberish and a couple of other topics, which no doubt he learnt from his childhood surroundings and the good ol' first year college dorms with his bros. Going off face value, there was nothing extraordinary in the way he phrased things or the perception that he had on life. I know that sounds judgmental but I think most people have a basic checklist that they go through when they first meet someone new in their lives. To be quite honest, he was almost a write-off for me in trying to form any sort of friendship because I did not find his personality appealing, but something about him intrigued me. I knew that in crude terms, he was a grower and not a shower.

During the time I met Adrian, I was also best friends with Bailey, who I liked to party and play with. The two of us ran around the town with an air of nonchalance and sovereignty, which no one bestowed on us except ourselves. We felt indestructible like we could conquer the world together, one kegger at a time. One fated summer day, we were having a conversation about friendships and decided that we wanted a third act in our dynamic duo; new meat that will make things a bit more interesting for us. It just happened that a good friend of ours invited us to an engineering house party that night.