Friday, Mar. 01, 2002 / 6:32 p.m.

~About Joe~

We met on the Internet in October of '99, on a hockey message board. I was looking for people to go to games with, to see our new team in their Inaugural Season. I went looking for fans, for companions. Joe had season tickets and he'd just broken up with his girlfriend. I was available to go in her place, so we exchanged email after email, and he made me laugh again and again. He jokingly offered tickets for sex, and wrote about how terrified he was to meet anyone off the 'net.

We did meet though. He became my hockey pimp, my sugar daddy, and all I had to provide to him was my charming company. He refused all offers of money. We had fun, made each other laugh, and though I know the rules of the game I still liked to ask him questions so he could assert his sportsmanly manhood, and I liked to act girly just for fun, and to be totally out of character. I'd ooh and ahh every time they showed my favorite player or the coach up on the Jumbotron, calling them by name, "Oooo, Curt, I LOVE you!", "Look, it's Yanni! Isn't he dreamy?!", etc. Much to Joe's feigned embarrassment.

I'd cut out the stats from the day's sports page, bring them to the games, and we'd pore over them, discussing other teams and the faults of our own new team. We'd meet other message board posters in between periods, in one of the arena's bars, we'd drink, laugh, jokingly call each other by our internet names instead of our "real" names. It was weird and crazy fun.

We had a spark between us, but neither of us acted on it. He claimed to be too immature for his age, ten years my junior, not yet willing to be in a relationship after his breakup, and I wasn't sure I was attracted to him enough physically. I also didn't want to lose his friendship. So, being the healthy young man he was, and still is, he found a girl, one ten years his junior. Though she didn't relate to his life or cultural experiences, not entirely, she fulfilled a need he had, a need for sex, for a sexual companion.

She started accompanying him to games. And she was very jealous of me, although I could never understand why. Yes, Joe and I liked each other, yes, we could talk with ease, mostly about hockey, occasionally about relationships, etc. in lengthy phone conversations, but Joe chose her, not me. Her behavior made no sense to me. I sensed her discomfort every time we met, she so young and shy, me much older and boisterous in my demeanor, Joe and I obviously "clicking", so I stayed away, stopped going over to Joe's section to sit with them at the games.

We'd still go out after the games, in a large group. We'd go to a local sports bar, watch highlights from the game, talk stats, the game, the team, and anything else, drink, eat, talk, laugh and talk some more, staying out until late. Joe would sit next to the girl, plying her with Long Island Ice Teas, she only just old enough to drink, and she would sit quietly, drinking, clutching his hand beneath the table, or rubbing his leg. The more she drank the more overt her physical show of possession/affection became.

Joe and I would joke about it, puzzled, when she left the room.

At some point, she became comfortable around me, even apologized for her behavior, for feeling jealous, and we had a hug, and I liked her, thought she was good for him, in a way.

But Joe and I had taken a road trip at one point, a drive to see an AHL team play in another city. It was a relatively long drive, maybe an hour or two, and we rode in his convertible with the top down, the weather beautiful, early Spring - April. We listened to CDs I'd brought, and we sang out loud to James Brown, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin. I wore my new team jersey, the one he'd bought me for my birthday. After a whole season I finally had my own jersey. It was a perfect day.

We had a blast being at another city's arena - the tickets were so cheap, we were right down by the ice. We made fun of the "puck bunnies", the fanatical fans, we chanted along with the crowd, we cheered, we jeered, we drank beer and ate hot dogs, popcorn, and I bought souvenirs. We drove back, laughing, singing, listening to the music loud, and Joe got quiet. There was a moment, and I forced him to tell me what it was. In that moment, he was so aware that we were having a really good time, an almost perfect time, and in his manner of wanting sexual relationships with good friends, he was wanting that with me, but he knew it would ruin what we were having, a good friendship, plus, he had a girlfriend, of sorts�

His admission of this was confusing to me, and it altered the mood of the road trip, but I was flattered. And wished things were different.

That night, when we got back, he stayed the night at my apartment, sleeping on my futon sofa opened out into a bed. He wanted to sleep in my bed, with me, just sleep, but I knew we wouldn't just sleep. We talked and talked until the early morning, skirting the issue, of what we wanted, where we were going, where we wouldn't or shouldn't go. After lying on the futon with him, talking, end to end, my feet by his head, him massaging my feet, feeling the hair on my legs, saying it wasn't bad like he'd thought it would be, me melting from the massage, until he fell asleep and stopped, I quietly got up and went to bed.

It was the right thing. We stayed friends, it never went beyond that, and he is still with the same girl. I stopped going to games because I hate to go alone, and I can't access the message boards because they changed the format and my little computer doesn't have the MGHZ for all the bells and whistles.

We've drifted. He lives less than a mile from me, yet we haven't seen each other since Opening Night this season, at the Arena, when he gave me a giant hug and it was like seeing my long lost bestest friend ever. Someone who really wants to know how I am, doesn't just say, "How are you?" and not wait for the answer.

Yesterday, here at work, I answered the phone without giving my name, as I sometimes do because it's a long name, my real one, and it's a hassle saying it every call, and sometimes I don't want them to know it anyway, and the caller said his name, and his company, and it was him, it was Joe. Joe, at work, calling here to locate an employee in the big Corporation which has hired this outsourcing company to do their grunt work for them.

And if I'd said my name, he would've played with me, given me shit, bugged me until I realized who he was, but he said his name first, and I said it back, "Joe! It's me!", and we chatted, he sounded so glad to hear my voice, he asked about Norma, couldn't remember Gladys' name at first, but he wanted to know how we three are, what's up, why I don't go to games, and I asked him how he is, how the girl is, are they engaged yet, why aren't they married, it's been a long time, etc., and he says everyone asks him, but he's not "the marrying kind". There we were, catching up, me helping him with his reason for calling, and I finally, finally, caught myself, "Oh, God, Joe, I forgot, they monitor my calls now!!! They've been listening to this, I bet!", and soon after, I heard a loud beep, or boop, like call waiting noise, and I said, "Joe, did you hear that? What was that?", and he said, "They probably just stopped listening".

I was racking my brain trying to remember everything we'd said, had we flirted? What did we say? And we finished up, I gave him my email address again, he asked for it as if he'd deleted it since the last email he sent, and he said maybe he'd drop by my apartment some time, and that I should sit with him and the girl at a game, that he enjoys the tension between us! Funny guy.

What were the chances of his call being directed to me? Of all the reps who may have had their phones turned on at that moment (okay, maybe only a couple, knowing these people), he got me. It was great to hear from him, even in that capacity, even a business call. Talking to him again brought back a flood of memories� There is a game tonight, and I'm tempted to go - I figure I'll decide at the end of the day.

Hey, thanks to the guys who signed my guestbook - it's nice to hear from the people who read this stuff - I'd been equating the visits here to footprints in freshly fallen snow outside my window. I know you've been looking in, but I don't know who you are�and I don't know what you think of what you see inside.

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