Smile Boy, Smile!!!

The Beginning:
There’s this guy whom I take the lift with on some days. He’ll be in his running gear when we share the lift down. Something about him told me he’s gay. A gaydar works that way, and mine had never failed me thus far. After a while of communal lift taking, it didn’t take us long to know who’s gay at each level and who’s not.

The Problem:
Over the next few months, we kept meeting each other on the same lift landing. We hardly notice each other initially or acknowledge each other’s presence but as the days went, it’s only nice to be neighborly and smiling to strangers does come to me naturally. I greeted my security guard everyday, I can’t offer any treatment diminished to neighbors, can I? But here comes the irony, how do I smile and say hi together at my neighborly gay man without giving him the wrong impression that I want to bag, gag and bang him right now and there? That’s how gay men works isn’t it? Our libido is about as managed as a herd of bulls. How am I going to be friendly and not letting them think I’d premeditated to get excess attention?

The Response:
One fine day he finally looked at me and smiled. I was expecting this of course, but the most calculated response I gave was to smile faintly. It was not a very courteous thing to do I realized. Standing there was a fellow gay citizen and neighbor, a faint smile was not ably to convey social acceptance. He looked away with tardiness, hardly hiding his discontent from want of chatting up.

The Application
Confiding this with Marcus the other day, I wanted to know how he felt was the appropriate response. He said it was encouraged to be warm and neighborly. I realized it was for our sakes that had caused my tepid reaction to this man in the lift. I didn’t want to encourage anything in my own private time to accommodate another gay person without my bf’s knowledge. I guess it’s a reflex mechanism which kicks in when the warning signals goes off.

Semplice Simon