Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek behind doors left slightly ajar. This week: the Lifelong Single Gay Virgin: 27 years old, male, single, Upper West Side, gay.
DAY ONE
6:30 a.m.: Consume oatmeal, orange juice, and coffee while watching Remains of the Day. Anthony Hopkins manages to inadvertently seduce Emma Thompson despite being a sociopath. What am I doing wrong?
7 a.m.: Lest anyone forget, Christopher Reeve was devastatingly handsome. Super. Smoking. Hot. Playing a principled American congressman doesn’t hurt, either.
8:30 a.m.: Commute to nonprofit job. No one on my trains are cute enough to tear me away from my crossword puzzle. Thomas Edison’s middle name: Alva.
Noon: Working up the courage to admit to a long-distance non-boyfriend my reservations about his impending visit. We met when he was here for work. Now he wants to visit for the sole purpose of seeing me. Do three days (and four orgasms) warrant such a gesture? I think not. This thing I feel. It’s pressure. And anxiety.
6 p.m.: Sit next to an iPad on the subway. It’s like penis envy. My iPhone works JUST FINE, thank you.
9:30 p.m.: Upright Citizens Brigade’s Harold Night. So many cute beards (literally) attached to as many cute faces. Are they gay? No. At one point two dudes take off their shirts onstage. After gasping and clapping my hands together like a child at a circus, I yell “Take it off!” to the other dudes onstage. Sadly, they did no such thing.
DAY TWO
5:30 a.m.: Commute to Penn Station. Dear day laborers who crowd the early morning trains, please touch me with your rough, dirty, work-worn hands. Much obliged.
7:30 a.m.: Business trip to New Jersey. This state is worse than I remembered. My penis is inverting.
2 p.m.: Begin to fantasize about the tech nerd who’s leading the tutorial, not because I’m attracted to him, but because I need to endow him with redeeming qualities in order to make this trip something other than a waste of time.
6:30 p.m.: Call non-boyfriend and tell him not to visit. He is upset. I feel like a jerk. Perhaps I am a jerk.
8 p.m.: I wonder if being single forever is the curse that everyone says it is. I’m single, have always been single. I used to think that despite a dearth in sexual partners and romantic relationships, I was genuinely happy. But now I think that because of a dearth in sexual partners and romantic relationships, I’m genuinely happy.
10 p.m.: Watch Food, Inc. on PBS. Michael Pollan is sexy. I’d masturbate if I weren’t so (a) depressed, and (b) gassy from a huge serving of pity ice cream.
DAY THREE
8 a.m.: Complimentary breakfast at the hotel. There are no attractive people in New Jersey. None. The men eat toast while typing on PC laptops that are covered with protective keyboard covers. That image perfectly encapsulates their sexuality.
4 p.m.: It occurs to me that I haven’t had an erection in days. Maybe I should schedule a time to take care of that. (Is this what my life has come to? Masturbation appointments?)
6:30 p.m.: Subway back in New York. Look over here, sexy man with glasses. Look up from your book. You’re cute. So cute, in fact, that I’d let you have your way with me on the floor of this subway car. A new level of loneliness and desperation is revealed.
DAY FOUR
8:30 a.m.: Commute to work. Crossword puzzle wins over hot commuters AGAIN. What is it about the Upper West Side that is so sterile?
1:50 p.m.: Resisting the temptation to e-mail a new acquaintance: Man of Questionable Sexuality. I’m trying to convince myself that “asexual,” as friends describe him, translates roughly to “gay and madly in love with me.” I marvel at my ability to interpret platonic missives as thinly veiled professions of desire.
3 p.m.: Work has me so anxious that I cannot go to the bathroom. How am I single?
7 p.m.: Improv shows in Long Island City. The only cute guy happens to resemble my sister’s boyfriend. Naturally, I gouge my eyes out with chopsticks.
DAY FIVE
5:30 a.m.: Awoken by a hangover.
6:30 a.m.: Consume oatmeal, orange juice, and coffee while watching The Big Sleep. If ever there was a man, it was Bogart. Sweet Jesus, was Bogart hot. I would gladly debase myself if it meant spending just one night with the Bogs. Do you hear me, ghost of Bogart? Shocking, embarrassing, humiliating things.
8 a.m.: Momentarily distracted by a flaw in my living room area rug while masturbating to The Smiths.
Noon: Newark. Airports are second only to amusement parks for reminding one of one’s own sex appeal.
4 p.m.: Arrive in Florida to visit my parents.
DAY SIX
8 a.m.: Morning run is complicated by debilitating humidity. But overweight Republicans in golf clothes are no match for my dehydration-induced hallucinations: They’re still ugly.
3 p.m.: Reading a book for which Teen Vogue gave a positive review. Things are looking up.
5 p.m.: SNL on Hulu. Bill Hader, my ideal man, portraying Stefon, my nightmare. Bill. No. You’re making it infinitely harder to lust after you.
7 p.m.: HOMOSEXUAL SPOTTED IN FLORIDA. He, too, is eating with his parents at a seafood restaurant. He, too, wonders if he’s the only homosexual in this state. The odds are not in our favor.
DAY SEVEN
1 a.m.: Supremely erotic sex dream featuring Diane Keaton, whose face morphs into that of porky pig when angry or aroused. I’m neither kidding nor taking this lightly.
10 a.m.: My friend is conducting a Facebook poll of the Five Most Overrated “Things,” loosely defined. If the survey were sexual in content, I’d choose holding hands, oral sex, friction of any kind, sharing a bed, sharing a shower.
11 a.m.: Who needs love and sex when you have Williams-Sonoma?
7 p.m.: Get drunk with my parents, make dinner, and walk to the beach to watch the sunset.
TOTALS: One act of masturbation; one canceled visit with non-boyfriend; one instance of technological penis envy; three states. Virginity still very much intact.
