i can almost hear atif exclaiming, yessssssss… the bogs is back!, or mitch joking, ohmigawd it’s eric bogs!, imitating my supposed admirers who we would supposedly run into out and about in london on skewlnights. but, i had to admit that it was pure serendipity that plopped me down right next to him last friday night.

i’d lamented just a few weeks ago that the cute boy who’d been occasionally serving me lattés and winks at the café next to my office for many months had disappeared. we spent much of november and december carefully building momentum, smiling, winking, glancing—at least in my twisted mind. as a recap, i’d described him previously as…

so cute… i’m almost certain he was either english or dutch [not that those two nationalities necessarily look similar, i'm just giving you my expert analysis]. in addition to his eurocute demeanor, he was my height, maybe 23, black spikey hair, rosy cheeks and a constant smirk on his face.

but, after returning to the office after the holidays, he was gone. disappeared. surely i’d never see him again.

imagine my surprise as i snuck in the backdoor of my favorite salon, late for my sidehawk mowing haircut, greeted warmly by the owner david and ushered to his chair. next to me, getting blown [dried] by the crazy russian lady is none other than cute café boy.

he pretends to not see me, and i pretend to not see him. russian lady’s blow dryer is loud, so my stylist and i need to speak loudly to negotiate what the hell we’re doing with my fried ‘hawk. i want to chat to c.c.b., but it’s awkward as we’re both chatting with our respective stylists. eventually, i turn, and smile, didn’t you work at [café name withheld] in [city name withheld]? he smiles, yeah! and you work at [company], right?

he tells me, yeah, i left a few weeks ago. my face contorts itself into an overly-animated frown, i’ve noticed! we miss you…

our eyes lock for a good ten seconds, he reaches out his hand, and i take it. my name’s cody, he tells me, as he pulls me in for a kiss.

our stylists stand there in awe, and after a good 10 seconds of snogging, the other patrons start hooting and hollering. one big ol’ black diva who’s getting extensions put in turns around in her chair, snaps her fingers [which feature fingernail portraits of palm trees] and says, ow, girrrrrl!

of course, nothing in the last two paragraphs actually happened. what actually happened, was i was taken back to get my hair shampooed, and when i returned he was just about to leave. i asked, so, what are you up to tonight? [having passed him once, months ago, going to popstarz] oh, me and a friend are going dancing…

and then, he left.

my stylist david and i spent the next half hour analyzing what had happened. david thinks he was playing really hard to get, and that i should’ve gone to the 7 different weho hotspots chasing him down. crazy russian lady thinks he has a boyfriend, and felt hesitant when i asked what his name was [in reality, he and i didn't even exchange introductions]. david gave me a hug as slumped out of the salon.

so, there you go. for some reason, fate brought cute café boy and i together for one last awkward moment, completely representative of our whole awkward 947am-twice-a-week-for-three-months relationship.

i’ve been thinking a lot about how my four years in london have changed me… the confidence, the mojo, the snarkiness it implanted into my frontal lobe, that it brought out from the murky depths. i don’t blame the city itself… if anything, i used my monumental move to london in 2001 as an excuse to finally let myself be the outrageous self that i’d been suffocating over the years.

i arrived in london on july 3, 2001—a tuesday. wednesday, i unpacked, and thursday was my first day of work at scient, the same dot-com consulting company i’d worked for in san francisco.

that thursday, i met my new team of 20, and my new project manager, mark. i immediately sussed mark out to be a no-nonsense, no-bullshit expense-account-loving, frequent-flier-miles-hording, wrinkle-free-khakis-wearing traveling consultant. he was nice enough to me, but generally had a pissed-off demeanor as he scurried from meeting to meeting around the client’s offices.

friday, my gay colleagues took me out to lunch… i had known them from conference calls and mailing lists, as i was pretty active in setting up the gay employee network from san francisco the year previous. one of my gay colleagues, andreas, was having a birthday party at a posh bar in soho that evening. was i free, he asked? ummm… yeah… i don’t really have any plans for friday.

so, on my 3rd full day in london, i excitedly went to my first party, my first social engagement, my first brouhaha.

i remember showing up, and thinking how out-of-place i looked. how baggy my clothes were. how stylish everyone else was dressed. a cocktail remedied that in no time flat, and i laughed as holly and micha explained to me what a mojito was.

still horribly jetlagged [remember, this is the old, innocent, fresh-off-the-boat eric], i decided just before last call it was time for me to go. as i was saying my goodbyes, this very handsome latin boy comes up to me, introducing himself as gabriel.

he’s dashing, 30, handsome and quite the casanova. he’s buying me drinks, he’s touching my arm, touching my shoulder, winking… definitely putting the moves on innocent old me. i’m strangely intrigued by this guy.

i should point out that i’m only 24 at this point, and, to this day i’ve only been with 2 or 3 guys more than a year older than me. i’m attracted to innocence, to youthfulness. but, something about 30yo gabriel convinces me he’s exactly who i need to fall for, this, my 3rd day in london.

out of nowhere, my boss mark shows up, wearing a tight valour shirt and looking a bit tipsy. he comes up to gabriel, saying i’ve been looking everywhere for you! and nods my way, saying, oh, eric, you’ve met gabriel!

the three of us make smalltalk for a while before mark excuses himself again, saying he was getting his coat. gabriel leans in for a kiss, and, after the fireworks disperse, asks me if i’d like to go home. i blush, and suggest, maybe we can get some coffee?

sitting outside old compton café staring at our boiling-hot mochas at 1130pm on a friday night, i’m attempting to make smalltalk as casanova keeps putting the moves on me—flirtatously, and phsyically. his mobile keeps ringing, and he keeps ignoring it.

just before last tube, we’re standing in a doorway of the cambridge theatre [where les mis played], and we kiss. quite possibly the manliest kiss i’ve ever experienced. with that, casanova convinces me to go home with him.

in the taxi ride back to his place in hammersmith, i try to piece together why he was at the party. well, i know everyone through mark… he looks down at his phone, and then out the window of the black cab, his hand on my knee.

mark’s sort of, well, my boyfriend… he grimaces as he tells me.

oh, great, i’m going home with my boss’s boyfriend. on my third day in my new home country, after my second day of work.

the next morning, standing naked on his balcony overlooking the thames, he phones up mark, apologizing for ditching him at the bar, and making up an elaborate story as to why he didn’t answer his phone the 34 times mark called. i drag the pillow over my head to block out his lies, the sunlight and the reality of what’s just happened.

i would say that monday morning was awkward—but it wasn’t. i sat in meetings all day with mark, and it was obvious he had no idea what had happened.

awkward would be a few weeks later asking my boss for time off to go to ibiza, where his boyfriend was secretly meeting up with my buddy duane and i.

yeah—that was awkward. but fun. and naughty.

i’d say that’s precisely where the shift occurred. when i went from nice, sweet, innocent eric to the egomaniacal creature i am now.