The Elephant in the Room

I visited an old friend of mine from school last week. The last time I saw her, she was just getting the hang of nursing her newborn baby girl. This time, we picked up that little girl from school while the little brother I'm not sure I knew she had slept in the car seat beside me. The years pass quickly.

We hung out under the bright western sun, digging our feet into the sand, surrounded by cacti in the backyard. The dog stuck his head under my skirt, as dogs do. A hummingbird darted around the flowers that would only be out for a week or two before the heat got too violent for them and they wilted away into memory.

Our conversation covered years. The night the power went out and she went to the hotel with her shady boyfriend. The fact that no one knows where said shady boyfriend is these days. The fates of all the dogs we'd had during school, that the dumbest of them all is apparently the only survivor. Who has had children. Who ran into who at the Ikea in San Diego. Trying to remember the name of the hot guy with the homely girlfriend who never spoke to anyone until the last month of school, when they broke up.

We talked about our jobs, moving from office to office. Whether our decisions were right or not so much. Whether we had regrets going to school for so long and having so little, or so much, to show for it. Whether anyone has made it big, or busted badly.

I asked about her family, her parents, her kids, her brother. We talked about my mom and dad.

The entire time I was there, not once, did she ask if I was seeing anyone. Not once.

And this isn't the first time this has happened. I must admit that it is rare for my friends to ask this question. Many of them know I won't really provide much information, even if they do ask. And, sometimes, you just have to ask at the right time. But she didn't ask at all.

I haven't quite figured out why. I've narrowed it down to a few options:

1) She, and all the other people I went to school with, have decided I'm gay. They don't want to know it and, therefore, are carefully avoiding any conversation having to do with sexuality and/or dating with me. They know I'm liberal, so...who knows?

2) They think I can't get a date. They don't want to bring up reminders of my painful dateless status, much like you won't mention to the poor girl in the cubicle next to you that she has really bad breath. You don't want to embarrass her any more than she already is.

3) I'm Morrissey. Or Mother Theresa. Or Jon Brennan from Real World Los Angeles. No sex for me.

4) I've officially passed the age where someone can politely ask that kind of question anymore.

The funny thing is, had she asked? I probably would have told her way more than anyone else. Because there are some things you can only tell people that have known you forever and whom you only see evey so often. They don't judge you, or at least not as harshly. They're pretty much always on your side. And they automatically hate the jerk that dumped you so unceremoniously, because they never had the misfortune of meeting him.