My mood has been real low the past few days. I've been feeling lonely and a little unfocused recently. Last night I spent some time updating my personals ad on Planet Out, which I'm pretty satisfied with. I think it reads less negative now. Still I am not that hopeful with the responses. It seems the only people seriously using personals are people who are so busy in their lives that they don't have any other venues.

It doesn't help that I now see just about every eligible young man who lives in Seattle on almost a daily basis. Not that they all shop at City People's on the same day, but everyone shops there at least once. Every middle class housewife comes in an says, "this is a great store". They forget it is a True Value hardware store. I am amused when I have to point this out because they probably never considered buying household items at a hardware store.

Anyway, the boys or the men. I used to think when I worked at Beyond the Closet bookstore that I would see all the eligible young gay men in Seattle, and I suppose I did. But I soon realized that the sort of man who was drawn there on a consistant basis was not a man that I really had much in common with, outside of our mutual attraction to this particular bookstore. The men who walk into City People's are doing it for a similar reason, I guess. Many times men have said to me, "I know I can get this item elsewhere, but I like an excuse to come in here."

I'm stuck though. I like providing excellent customer service. I like flirting with strangers, but I've never gotten beyond that first encounter. I'm not sure I want to, but on the other hand I sometimes wish there was a way I could ask these guys out for a drink. Or wish they'd ask me when I got off work. It wouldn't take much finesse.

There've been one or two men who, when they've come up to my cashier station, have put me into shock by their physical beauty and animal magnatism. Only one person has seemed to react like that on encountering me and they were not someone I found attractive.

My only question is, if I am feeling these feelings, what good is their use? I can't exactly come onto the customers, and often the extent of the interaction is at a minimum, "hello", "your purchase comes to $7.69", "would you like a bag to carry that in?", "Thank you and have a nice day." And every day I come home alone, lonely and always a little sad.

I've moved past the years when I visited the parks and the bath house. I rarely had good experiences there. My expectations were probably too high. I feel now like I don't have expectations besides taking care of myself and I've not been very good at doing that lately.