Bob Love Diaries
The Romantic Confessions of a Virgin Prude

Part 10
Between Friends

One of the last times that I got together with the friends of my high school church youth group was back in 1993. It was the holiday season and many of them were returning to Denver to visit their parents. Chris was going to school in Ft. Collins, Travis was just out of the Navy Seals and Eric was back from... I don't remember where actually. The four of us had been great friends at Church and at the time we were quite popular there.

What we used to do to cure the boredom of living in Colorado was four wheel drive through the mountains in Chris's Chevy Blazer, and this is exactly what we chose to do for our last meeting.

Together in the mountains, we spent the day walking through train tunnels, hiking, pushing boulders down mountain sides and off-roading. A hillbilly's dream vacation. Then as usual, we would stop for pizza on the way back to sit a reminisce about old times. But before we got to the pizza place this one last time something happened that made this story much more memorable.

The seating arrangements in the truck were like this; Chris was driving (his truck), Eric in "shot gun" (as I'm sure he had dibs on), and Travis and I in the back seat (me behind the driver's seat). At one point in all of the joking and conversation I said the phrase, "You're pullin' my leg!" in response to something that had been said. It was something I'd say sarcastically when something was said that was neither shocking or interesting (I was actually quite annoying at times). Anyhow, upon saying this, Travis grabbed by upper thigh and began yanking it saying "No Bob! This is pullin' your leg!"

He yanked on it several times, thus breaking all and any existing comfort zones I thought I had. All of this going unnoticed by the front seat. When he stopped, there was an awkward silence. I faked laughter and looked at Travis trying to read what the hell he was doing. Less than 15 seconds later he quietly placed his left hand on my right thigh... and stroked it.

Now I'm not sure how clear I've made it on these pages but I am not attracted to men. At the time I was still a virgin and subsequently probably had a sissyish way about me that could've raised the suspicions of a Navy Seal.

My first reaction was to pull away and look at Travis in shock... and if I remember correctly that's exactly what I did. He was looking at me directly in the eye with a slight smile.
"What are you doing?" I asked, and he pulled his hand away and said nothing.
We didn't talk to each other the whole way home (an hour and a half).

I'm still not sure exactly what he was doing, but it had to be one of three things: #1. He was back from the Navy Seals, heavier into the Christian faith than I'd ever seen him before. Perhaps his "gay bashing" radar was set on high and he was trying to "out" me for the sake of the church friends, or the United States? Or mankind? #2. He was joking somehow, with a joke that made no sense, with no punch line, and then it had to be ignored because it was obviously not a working joke. #3. Travis was coming onto me, in some strange military fashion. But clearly there was no way the others in the truck would have approved of such advances.

Me, Travis, Chris, and not Eric

Several months later I moved to Chicago to pursue my heterosexual interests and lost touch with all of them.

I still to this day have no idea which of these 3 is the correct answer. I saw him one last time in 1994 at Chris's wedding. Travis was married and had a kid. Of course no mention was made of the "Right Upper Thigh Incident". He was deep into the church-going, wholesome Christian family routine so it would have been awkward to bring it up. But I do remember that Pulp Fiction had just hit the theaters and I assured him that it was a movie he had to see, appropriate for the whole family. I made him promise to take them to see it because I loved the movie so much. I never heard from any of them ever again.

To me this counts as another broken love connection.

All opinions, writings, illustrations & designs are that of Normal Bob Smith (C) 2000 - 2009
NORMAL BOB SMITH DESIGN NEW YORK