It was 2013, close to my graduation from the University and I felt extremely lonely. Nowadays, I'm most likely to install Grindr and go on scrolling down and tapping random users, before realizing that I don't really want a date and uninstall the app. At that time Grindr meant absolutely nothing to me. Also, at that time, instead of finding someone new I was more into dusting off my memories and thinking about those people whom I've known. And Simon popped-up in my head.
When I had been at high school, I had been dating Kate. Kate was quite a smart and very talented girl, with unorthodox approach to everything. So, upon learning that I was a bisexual, she decided to invite one of her friends, who was gay. Well, that was Simon. A tall and quite a handsome guy, who liked listening to Marilyn Manson and Gwen Stefani. That evening we were going to the concert of an organ music in one of the local Cathedrals. We met about an hour before concert and somehow it ended up in Kate making me and Simon kiss. She made a few photos of us, which eventually turned out to be blurred and distorted. If only I could have thought of that as of an omen in 2013!
Eventually we broke up with Kate, with her telling me that I shouldn't pursue career in art, as I was unoriginal... oops, I've forgot to mention that Kate was lisping and suffered from other speech disorders, so basically she'd told me "You woon ashieve suckssess in artz, caz you aaa unoigial!". Anyway, I haven't seen either her or Simon since then. But that day something came over me, and I decided to look for him online. I spent hours trying to find him but with no luck, which was quite obvious, as how many Simons you can find looking for one particular without knowing his last name. So, all in all, I had to collect all my courage and ask Kate to give me his profile on some of social networks.
I felt like a complete idiot, as it turned out that she had no hard feeling about us breaking up five years ago. She just sent me the link to his profile. It turned out that even if I'd known his last name I still wouldn't have been able to find him. Instead of his real name he was registered under the name "Delirium Knight". Of course, there were no photos of him, but there were photos of burning houses, black goats and all the other Anton LaVey's stuff. Oh, boy! What on Earth am I doing? I thought. Not that I have something against occultism, witchcraft or Goth-culture. Just something in the back of my mind was telling me that all that stuff, in case of Simon, was neither sinister nor exciting, but rather silly. But, as I don't like giving up halfway, I decided to send him a friend request anyway.
To my surprise he immediately recognized me. We started chatting about different things, he told me that he was studying cinematography. He asked me if I was still writing and upon learning that I continued writing, despite Kate's claims of my "unoiginaiity", asked me to send him some of my recent stories. And I sent him my mono-play "Meekness in the Trench". I really hate people making commentaries while reading something. For me it's – read then discuss and comment. Nope, he was commenting all the way. And I've got a feeling that he didn't care for the play itself, he simply wanted to make impression on me.
After that he sent me one of his recent stories, and, boy, was I trying to seem impressed. It was that typical Anne Rice-inspired fan-fiction. The extremely long three pages of a boring text about a young vampire watching opera together with his maker. No suspense, no ending, no open ending, nothing, but sheer vampirism mixed with homoeroticism. It's not that I have anything against Anne Rice and her "The Vampire Chronicles", but fan-fiction based on it is just not my cup of tea. Simon's short story could easily make Stephanie Meyer's poor-language "Twilight" the "Lolita" of vampire literature. Quite often I'm getting surprised by the fact how hilarious real life characters manage to create such boring stories. And a lot of real life hilarious characters that I knew have been aspiring writers. But, enough of that.
Finally, we decided to have a date. I asked him to send me his recent photos to make it easier for me to recognize him on the street, but he said that he hadn't got any recent photos. Frustrating, but I'd decided to go anyway. He told me that he is going to help his fellow students with the film, so he won't be able to meet earlier than 7 pm. Well, whatever, I agreed.
Knowing that a lot of people can simply forget about things they have agreed on, I prefer phoning people to ask whether we are still going on a date today. Usually, I do it two hours before the date, as phoning earlier would be impolite and phoning later can be too late. I phoned Simon at 5:30 pm, but he didn't pick up the phone. Then I phoned him at 6 pm, also with no reply. Considering the fact that it would take me about 45 minutes to get to the place where we decided to meet, I thought that our date just won't happen. I phoned my friends to ask whether they want to have a drink with me, as a cancelled date never means that I'm not going out. And I was that close to happily go and have fun with my friends, when Simon finally called me. 6:45 pm. While I could simply say "Next time" or "Fuck you!", things that I usually do nowadays, that time I decided that waiting for me for forty minutes would be quite a punishment for Simon.
I told one of my friends living in the downtown that we could still meet for a couple of drinks, in case my date with Simon would go shitty. At that time I already had the feeling that the date would eventually turn out to be shitty, but it was too late to give up, too late to say "fuck you". So, after forty minutes I finally stepped out of the subway station into the dirty and smelly downtown and started looking for Simon.
