Fooled by a floozy

The first time I went onto gaydar I got a flood of responses. Okay I made that up. A gentle surge would be more accurate. Flushed with slightly embarrassed pride, I spent a happy few hours sifting through my haul. One or two youngsters looking for a daddy (nope, been there done that), a couple of lonely from Lake Districts (too far) and even a few daddies looking for a youngster (well if I’m over 45, we’re talking granddaddy here). Hmm, this is excellent I thought. Not perfect, but a great start. “They loved me,” I trilled happily to Robin over the phone later when we chatted.

I should have taken his guarded response as a warning. Gather round children, here is the homily moment. You see technology available to subscribers allows them to find newly uploaded profiles. So young Evan from Yeoville, Sarel from the platteland and Young at Heart from Orchards have cottoned onto this. Just as flies gather around a fresh turd, so do the gaydar insiders zoom in on fresh meat. Now even in candle light do I look like fresh meat anymore but yes, dear reader, I was fooled. I thought they liked me, or at least the version of me I’d presented. But alas I found out that what people sensed, smelt even, was that I was a gaydar virgin!

I hadn’t yet been tainted, I hadn’t lost hope, I hadn’t been lied to, I hadn’t been let down. I still believed. One of my spectacular let downs was from, oh I’ll call him Jabu. After two calls I was his baby, by the third he was missing me and by the fourth I could swear I heard the trousseau being re-shuffled while we chatted.

I was a bit anxious. Jabu was perhaps too keen? Maybe he’s just naïve, I thought, but a sweetheart really. Ready to devote his life to a tweaked profile, a bad picture and a promise of happily ever after.

So we arranged to meet. Put more accurately, I arranged to pick him up at his sister’s house in one of Johannesburg’s isolated gated estates. There were very few landmarks and very few street numbers but eventually I found the place and rang the buzzer. No answer. I rang again. Still no answer. I called Jabu on his cell. “Oh I’m sorry baby”, he said, “I tried to call you but I ran out of airtime. I can’t meet you tonight, I’m at a friend’s house, can we meet some other time?”

To say I was deflated is putting it mildly. And bloody angry. “Delete my number because I’m deleting yours,” I hissed dramatically over the phone. “Don’t ever call me again. Goodbye.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fooled by a floozy, some irritating little prick who thought he could play with me. You see, Jabu could tell I was new and he played me because he knew he could. Oh there was a missed call from him the next day (see, I didn’t keep my angry threat). But you’ll be proud of me. I ignored it and Jabu went the way of all the missed calls and the please call mes, into the trash can. Along with a few dreams, a smattering of hope and a half-planned civil union ceremony.