6 ST THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020Last summer, as I neared 25 years in Van-
couver, I concluded that I had exhausted the
local dating pool. I had overfished Plenty of
Fish and used up all my arrows at OkCupid.
A silly hand injury forced me to retire from
the gay volleyball league, and I found my-
self trekking alone whenever I showed up
for a gay hiking outing I’d found on Meetup
.com.
While I finally felt bold enough to make
eye contact with men on the sea wall and in
cafes, it was only because they had long
stopped looking my way. I could look — or
leer, if I wanted to — and no one would no-
tice. I needed to break up with my city.
More than two decades earlier, I had de-
cided to move to Vancouver 20 minutes into
a weekend trip from Los Angeles. This time,
in deciding to leave, I wouldn’t rely on
whims and dreams. My gut had repeatedly
proved itself to be an unreliable barometer.
I needed to base decisions on logic and plan-
ning.
I began by nixing Victoria and Ottawa for
being smaller than where I already was,
and I eliminated Montreal because my
French was too weak. Which left Toronto.
I flew there in early August for three
days, walked Queen Street and marveled at
the city’s diversity. The shoreline of Lake
Ontario didn’t quite match Vancouver’s
ocean and mountains but, yes, Toronto
would do. I would make it work.
For financial reasons, I set April 1, 2020,
as my target moving date, but my plans
were grander. Movers would store my be-
longings for three months and, while I was
temporarily free from paying mortgage or
rent, I would use the extra cash to flit about
Europe. Only there would I let my whims
rumble, acting on recommendations men-
tioned in passing at the foreign cafe du jour.
“Have you been to the Algarve?” “You
should go to Bucharest.”
I haven’t and would, finally a free spirit at
55.
As 2020 arrived, I decided my last three
months in Vancouver would be freer as well.
I suspended my accounts on traditional on-
line dating sites and created a profile on a
hookup app. Coming out in 1989, at the peak
of the AIDS crisis, I had never shaken my
sexual fears and hangups. This would be a
time to work through them, before I set foot
in my new city.
But it wasn’t easy being “easy.” While I
prepared myself for the possibility that
names might never be exchanged, I still
wanted some significance of interplay. I
blocked the guy who sent me lewd mes-
sages about spit and ignored the guys who
didn’t use complete sentences. But main-
taining standards meant staying home.
And so finally, on the first day of Febru-
ary, I caved. A guy my age with a single, re-
spectable head shot messaged “Good morn-
ing” — no verb, no punctuation, but hey, it
was saliva-free.
By noon, we had agreed to meet at a cof-
fee spot that was roughly a midway point
between our neighborhoods. Meeting in
public felt safe. We each had an out.
I was thrown when David — was it even
his real name? — suggested we sit and have
our coffee. If this was only about hooking
up, wouldn’t we just grab cups to go and
head back to his place? Maybe he wanted a
moment to talk about preferences and con-
firm the absence of sexually transmitted
diseases. Very responsible.
But, no. We talked about our days, segued
into conversation about travel, and I batted
away a remark I’d made about an ex.
“That’s for another time,” I said. As if.
We chatted for a full hour until the cafe
closed.
“Would you like my number?” he said.
We exchanged phones to enter the data.
On the sidewalk, there was a cordial good-
bye, a forced hug initiated by me. Then he
went back to his place and I went back to
mine. Somehow, I had mishandled the hook-
up.
Sporadic texting followed and, a week lat-
er, we met again. It would be a hookup do-
over. But this time he made reservations at
a trendy Thai restaurant. From what I un-
derstood, fancy dinners weren’t part of
hooking up.
As I drove there, I reviewed the game
plan. Not a date. Not dating. We would have
a bite and have sex, that’s all. We hadn’t
even gotten through the green papaya salad
when I blurted that I was leaving in less
than two months. Still, we ate.
The whole meal had been ordered. De-
spite my intention to keep things light, we
drifted from commenting on the spices in
the pad thai to talking about past relation-
ships, about what made him passionateabout his work and, ever tentatively, about
my aspirations on my new path as a writer.
Foreplay fodder never entered the mix.
Two days later, my condo sold with the
possession date slated for the beginning of
April, just as I had planned. David was the
first person I texted. I didn’t mean it as a
blunt reminder that I was leaving; I simply
wanted to share my good news. That same
night, I went online and booked a one-way
ticket for Stockholm.
And yet our text exchanges escalated,
and we continued the weekly get-togethers.
A summer fling, I told myself, on the tail end
of a Vancouver winter. I had been open. We
would both get something out of this. I’d
leave Vancouver, shedding some of my bit-terness and he’d hopefully have found a
glimmer of hope, stepping back into the dat-
ing world after a 25-year relationship. We
could both enjoy the moment.
On Feb. 14, he texted an image of a heart
superimposed over a rainbow background
with the message “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Happy Friday,” I replied.
Saturday nights became Friday and Sat-
urday nights which became weekends.
In the second week of March, we discov-
ered compatibility on the tennis courts, and
I began to share my stress about how the
world was getting increasingly edgy about
the coronavirus. What if I couldn’t fly to
Stockholm? Would it be foolish to move to
Toronto and risk falling through a gap in
provincial health care coverage?
“You can always stay in my second bed-
room,” David said.
The offer felt at once too much and too lit-
tle. Being roommates wasn’t how I saw a re-
lationship evolving, but what was I doing
even thinking about such a thing? I had my
plan. I was traveling and then moving. They
would have to shut down the borders to stop
me. And so they did.
Still, I bargained. This was a radical, two-
week measure. They would get control of
the virus. And, even if that didn’t happen, I’d
say my goodbyes on schedule and find an
Airbnb a thousand miles north in the Yukon.
I continued to engage my planning brain
while feeling all the more foolish. My prepa-
rations had been laser focused on paring
down rather than hoarding. I had spent
months whittling supplies down to the final
shakes of a cinnamon tin and a last roll of
toilet paper. I could still have my three
months of travel, gas station Doritos and
the remoteness of the tundra filling in for
Swedish cardamom buns and the medieval
charm of Old Town in Estonia’s capital.
Seven weeks in, David and I took our first
selfie, my hair still relatively tame and a full
two weeks before he shaved his head. We
walked many miles that day, appreciating
the sunshine, the beaches and each other.
The time outdoors felt like a special privi-
lege. Would the country soon go into full
lockdown, like France and Italy?
With changes in his work schedule, in-
cluding a big savings without a commute,
we began seeing each other daily, taking to
walking along the most scenic parts of the
city, offering each other an ear and a dis-
traction as David tracked the daily corona-
virus numbers in British Columbia and I
fretted over packing and where I would
wind up in a week after getting booted from
my home.
The pressures for staying in Vancouver
increased as nether regions shunned poten-
tially contaminated outsiders and the re-
lentless social distancing messages re-
duced my personal network to David. In a
hasty 24-hour period, I signed a six-month
lease for a condo in Vancouver’s notoriously
tight rental market and reduced my move
from 2,000 miles to less than two.
While the coronavirus mucked up eight
months of planning for a major life change,
it left something decidedly unplanned in its
wake. David and I went on, our fling flung.
Through our daily coffees and strolls in fa-
vorite parts of the city, we walked a little
closer, united in our efforts to keep the rest
of the world six feet at bay.MODERN LOVEI Was Done Dating. Then I Joined a Hookup App.
What if the fastest path to a
committed relationship is to
actively avoid seeking one?
BRIAN REAAs I drove there,
I reviewed the
game plan. Not
a date. Not
dating. We
would have a
bite and have
sex, that’s all.
By GREGORY WALTERSGREGORY WALTERSis a writer living in Vancou-
ver, British Columbia.
At 90, my mother found fiction, something she had scorned her entire life. A news-
loving, quick-witted, born-and-bred New Yorker, she breathlessly followed current
events. Who needs a newsfeed with her calling me at work to announce that Tim
Russert died? After two cornea transplants at 88, my mother shifted her perspective
on fiction — and life. With her new sight, she views the world through a more senti-
mental lens. Now open to the imaginary, she devours novels, which we discuss like
schoolgirls, reveling in our shared refuge from reality.MELISSA ZEPHTiny Love Stories Too Much Reality? Try FictionFor more readers’ stories and to submit your own: nytimes.com/tinylovestoriesGIFTS
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