The Whole Package

It's funny how off first your impressions can be. You see the hot guy at the gym, and think to yourself, "He must be a cunt."
I certainly thought that of the bartender. He's achingly beautiful. Photographers are always asking him if they can take photos of him. Random lesbians jokingly ask him for a sperm donation. (I personally think that's creepy. I wouldn't want to share my daughter with a lesbian couple- unless they're glam "L Word" lesbians who understand baby ralph lauren clothes .)

The bartender has the biggest heart, and I'm finding myself being increasingly smitten with him. But instead of enjoying it, I find myself ridden with anxiety. His sweet gestures and romantic whisperings are dangerously seductive, but if I let myself fall for him, I'll start smoking pot and end up a burnt out hippie with bad B.O. The bartender is a HUGE pot head. He WAKES AND BAKES. Meaning the first thing he does upon waking up is to smoke a joint.

Maybe I'm too wound up, but the only fucking drugs I want in my system in the morning are coffee and wellbutrin. I need to wake up and get out of the apartment. I need to keep the momentum towards a real life going.

So its obvious to me, and to all of my friends that I can't possibly date him. On a three-way cell phone conversation, my best friends Chow and Tim agreed that the bartender is not boyfriend material, but simply a pet.
All in all, it boils down to the fact that I am an elitist bitch. I'm one, and so are all of my friends.
A boyfriend needs to have a real job. I want college diploma, financially stable, and politically aware. I want summers in Fire Island, brunches at Pastis, and debates on current events.
And as I write this, I find myself confronting strange irony because these were the exact sentiments of the EX. The EX is more ambitious than Nicole Kidman after the divorce. He's a crazy workaholic who constantly piles on huge projects in his personal life. If it's not renovating his Tribeca apartment, then he's working on a charity project while he produces several television shows a year.
He undoubtedly loved me, but we had huge problems with the asymmetry of our lives. He worked long hours during the day, and I've seen more sunrises from staying up than most decent humans are allowed.
But I find that drive, and passion for his career, incredibly sexy.
And not only is the EX successful, but he's also a fucking hot man. Totally masculine. Deep voice, deep blue eyes, and a body that was built for sex.
TOO BAD the Ex and I couldn't hang out for more than five minutes without fighting. It made for great sex, but a horrible relationship.
We were that gross couple. That couple that fights in public.
We fought on the street. On the subway. In restaurants. On vacations and in hotels. So in the end, it's safe to say that the island of Manhattan wanted us to break up. They had had enough with the public displays of disfunction.

But having dated the EX, I become a spoiled man. I want my man to be the whole package. Brillant, hot, and driven.
But I'm a red-blooded gay man, so when a hot piece of tail crosses my path, I notice. And don't stop to ask for a resume.
And this is where I pause when I think about how wrong the bartender is for me. The hot body. The bartender is H-O-T.
And so I'm doing something that we all say we won't ever do. I'm dating a guy I know I have no future with just because he's a hot piece of ass.

But how often is it that we meet someone who's actually the whole package? How many of the hot guys we meet actually have real jobs? 9 to 5, five days a week. Very fucking few. Us gays are LAZY! If there were tons of hot guys with real careers, then my friends and I would all be married with our own asian daughters.

Yet, although I'm catty and rational now, the moment that the bartender tells me that I'm beautiful, I melt.