At the top of the trail there is a slight curve leading to a lookout point. We met at Runyon Canyon 20 minutes later, almost an hour before sunset. I heard my best friend’s judgmental voice saying, “Don’t do it. Was the middle of a pandemic the right time to break someone’s gay cherry? To play devil’s advocate, if we were distant and up front, couldn’t there be a way around it that’s safe? My body was nearly convulsing thinking about it. Straight to the point, spoken like a true New Yorker. I’m kinda just browsing on here and seeing what’s up…. “I didn’t realize you were open to guys,” I said, to which he replied, “I actually have never hooked up with a guy before… I wanted to with my ex-gf but it never happened…. Then, the elephant in the room: “The men here are sexy,” he wrote.īingo. I imagined him reaching his arms around to pull down his man bun, which as I remember was never ratty but always slicked, as his apple-like biceps peeked from inside his shirt and his shoulder-length locks fell just behind his ears. “The focus on fitness here is on a whole other level,” he wrote, which was a total personal trainer cliché. He said he’d gone there the day before and felt a new sexual awakening (I blame it on the incline). Apparently he didn’t realize how sexy the hikers would be at Runyon Canyon, a popular hiking trail in the Hollywood Hills. But it was the latter part that got his attention most. was that of his locked-down apartment building and a few short weeks of open hiking trails.
Turns out, he made the move to the West Coast just before the pandemic went into full swing. One day I remember complimenting her perfect lunges, which he credited to himself before wrapping his arm around her hips and rubbing her forearm with his giant fingers. He would always bring his girlfriend to the gym. This guy was a personal trainer at my old gym in Queens whom I side-eyed routinely. Suddenly my phone buzzed and I saw the dots moving: “I know you,” he wrote. last fall, so I figured we must have met at some point while I was living back east. I made the move from New York City to L.A.
Believe me, as a closeted horny gay kid in Texas, I fantasized about it constantly but the opportunity passed me by-until now.Įarlier this summer, I was on my way home from the gym-in full mask and gloves, and before Los Angeles gyms shut down for a second round of closures-when I saw a face I recognized on Grindr. I was never the gay teenager who experimented with curious “straight” boys.