Cruising Along

It's done and dusted.

The adrenaline subsided.

The sweat all dried up.

2024 Olympics came to a close with a dramatic finish, the climax being Tom Cruise's epic diving stunt.

Stanley, a fan of dramatic finishes, climaxes and cruising, was particularly chatty this evening. 

"I have so many questions," he says, reaching for his fifth Mao Shan Wang seed.

Carl the dense one also has many questions, but that's by default. God wasn't exactly generous with our gym rabbit friend when it came to intellect. 

But when it came to Stanley our sex bunny friend, God wasn't exactly generous when it came to giving him modesty. 

"Mmm, this is so bitter, it's so good!" Carl beamed as he helped himself to a particularly creamy seed.

"Sounds like the spunk I once tasted before many years ago," Stanley segued naturally, without missing a beat. "The boy was really cute. But his spunk was extremely bitter," he added. "I wonder what he ate to have such bitter spunk."

Carl didn't know what the boy ate, but he sure knows at this moment, there's no eating to be done.

All dinner topics with Stanley revolved around sex and you can't even fault him for going off topic. Carl was talking about bitter seeds. And so was Stanley.

But I digress.

Carl, who loves durian more than any fruit in the whole wide world, started tearing and begged Stanley to not spoil his moment. 

The one thing about Carl is that he's no prude. But he, for some reason, cannot talk about sex especially when eating. You know how when everyone is enjoying a nice, warm, chocolate lava cake and someone at the table with a big mouth would say stupid things like "oh this looks like diarrhoea" and at least one other diner would physically gag? That big mouth would be Stanley, and the gagger, Carl.

Again, I digress. 

Stanley, now licking his fingers, reached for his glass of Pinot Noir to clear his throat.

We know what you're thinking. Durian and alcohol will kill you according to myths but Stanley has done extensive research over the years with wine and durian pairing that he would have died five years ago if this had been a lethal combo.

"My first question is," Stanley began, "how do these athletes even get off?"

Carl set down his creamy durian fruit and took a few deep breaths, no doubt trying to keep his favourite fruit down while mentally blocking all white noise from his head to keep calm and carry on.

"You do know that Grindr is geo-blocked at the Games Village right," Stanley said, firming up the evening's discussion. 

"That must be torture," Stanley shook his head.

"Imagine, you have a village full of hot bods, and all the hormones worked up during training -- and you can't use Grindr," Stanley said, his eyes reflecting a mix of emotions namely anger and sadness.

"But that doesn't mean they can't -- and don't -- have sex," Carl pointed out. 

We both looked at our dense friend, impressed that he has found the resilience to join us in sex talk during dinner, and also that he was on one of those rare moments when he isn't off topic.

"Five points to Gryffindor," Stanley nodded at Carl, who immediately cocked his head sideways, his eyes reflecting one main emotion: Confusion. 

While Carl had zero Harry Porter reference, he had made a point based on institutional knowledge.

That in the good ol' days before Grindr, people hooked up by cruising.

That topic, surprisingly, didn't delight Stanley further.

"It's interesting you surfaced this point, Carl, but this raises further questions," Stanley said. Anyone tuning in to our conversation at this moment would probably think we're in a board meeting, talking about something extremely important and intellectual. 

"But the younger generation wouldn't know how to cruise," Stanley said, further sharpening our evening's discussion. 

Carl was confused, so he reached for his Pinor Noir to both drown his sorrows and numb himself. 

Stanley though, had a point.

Many of these gay youngsters -- athletes or not -- grew up in this era where everything is available to them by tapping their phones: Food delivery, shopping for a new pair of socks, hookups.

These gay youngsters will be very handicapped without Grindr, Stanley said shaking his head. "They don't even know how to use the telephone these days -- it's all just text, text, text, and when they speak on the phone, they get all uncomfortable."

Carl nodded without expression. 

Stanley, who has done enough market research and legwork to conduct a cruising masterclass, shook his head.

But Stanley may have a point.

The art of cruising isn't something everyone can grasp.

Carl simply cannot.

Already, the poor man has trouble reciting the alphabet without singing it, cannot name all 10 ASEAN countries, nor spell "scissors" without the help of spellcheck. To get him to interpret eye signals and read into body language would overwhelm him and break down his system.

Carl once tried and was scarred for life. He was in Safra swimming pool and a very lean man kept starring at Carl, trying to get his attention. Our dense friend responded by cutting to the chase -- no need for small talk... he took off his towel the way a confident gambler would show hand at the casino table.

Turns out, the lean man was Carl's primary school friend who was once very fat and cos he lost weight, Carl couldn't recognise him. And that friend is straight as an arrow. 

Since then, Carl swore off cruising. 

Stanley looked at Carl, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and expressed motherly sadness. 

"Come to think of it," I said. "Is cruising still a thing?"

In this day and age, all our old gay ways have changed.

People our age are stuck in the middle -- we were schooled by the ways of our gay forefathers, learning to cruise and thrive. But as we grew up and embraced technology, we jumped on the bandwagon and went with it.

But our gay sons. They will never know how to fish the manual way.

Just like how retail shops are struggling to survive, physical cruising may soon become a dying art. 

Carl was getting more confused by the minute, unable to connect the dots from Olympics to cruising to fishing.

He gave up trying and licked off the dry durian stains off his fingers.

Stanley refuses to buy this argument. 

There's always a time and place for history, and we cannot forsake tradition," Stanley said.

By then, Carl was done self-grooming. From the corner of my eye, I saw him sniff his fingers and smile to himself with satisfaction.

Right that moment, I was hit with a random epiphany.

My future meals with this motley group will always be filled with vulgar topics and questionable hygiene but I will still choose these two for many, many meals to come. 

And I'll be glad to cruise along with these two for a very long time.

 

 

 

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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people