Page 82 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

“When are you seeing him again?” Michael asks.

A good question. It’s been days since Eli and Peter have really spoken, let alone seen each other. Aside from a very awkward phone call where Peter apologized for getting too drunk, there have been text messages, but not much else.

Eli wonders if he’s secretly been pushing Peter away.

Peter had apologized over FaceTime because a project at work was demanding attention that he couldn’t give to Eli at the moment, even telling Eli all about a night where he’d been forced to sit in front of his computer for fourteen hours just to make sure nothing went wrong with one of his company’s biggest—and confidential—clients.

And Eli accepted the excuse because the less time he spent with Peter, the less he had to write about, and the less time he had to think about what these new feelings mean.

“Three weeks,” Eli says. “He has a Halloween thing with his coworkers—”

“Three weeks?”

“Nineteen days, really.”

“No, see him this weekend. Make plans.”

“Okay . . .” It’s such a funny feeling, being told by your boss to go out on a date.

“Text him, see what he’s doing, have fun. And write about it!”

“I will.”

“Good, and call Fiorella’s and try to get me a reservation, my wife wants to go there tonight.”

“Understood.” Eli nods. “Anything else?”

“You’re good to go,” Michael tells him, and Eli stands, eager to get out of the office. His eyes meet Keith’s from across the office, but Eli does his best to ignore him. He pulls up the actual article.

Late Blooming in Lavender Country: Growing Up Queer in the Southern United States

Growing up in a rural red state, in a small town of only 1,000 people, is in itself no easy feat. Coming of age as a queer teen in the same environment is even harder. An hour and a half outside of Atlanta, one of the few safe havens in Georgia, being openly queer in Athens is still considered taboo, a topic discussed in quick hushes and whispered gossip, as though the implication of being queer were comparable to the accusations of being a witch in the 1600s or a Communist in the 1950s. In a town where no one is truly permitted to be their authentic self, queer children often grow up internalizing their own prejudices, hiding themselves and never finding the permission to live in a way that allows them to discover their true selves.

The adolescent years are so formative for teenagers, especially queer teens, who are so eager to find understanding and relatability. But what happens to those teens who are never given the chance to experience those moments? What do we do for those queer teenagers who grow into queer adults who have yet to craft these formative memories? What do we do for queer adults who have never dated, never been kissed, never had the opportunity to hold hands with their first crush? What are they supposed to do when the community meant to show support and welcome them with open arms shuns them for not having enough “experience”?

He has a handful of notes. Comments typed out, bullet points of things he wants to explore, questions that he wants to ask, his sources.

He thinks back to his conversations with Peter, when he talked about his friends and their late-night hangouts, about Mark and their memories with one another, about Peter’s parents, how they craved the quieter life. These are the specifics he’s done his best to work in, writing about Peter growing up in a town with a .01 percent Korean population. About how, even after moving to a larger city, Peter still felt uneasy about connecting to other Koreans or Korean Americans. How his queerness was a wall between them. How places believed to be safe havens for queer people can be so dangerous for people of color, queer or otherwise.

He does consider the weight of being a white man writing about the Asian experience. But Eli’s done his hardest to present these parts of the article as strict fact, using the words that Peter himself has used to describe his terrible experiences meeting men whose dating profiles proudly proclaimed, “No fats, no fems, no Asians.”

Not all of the pieces of the article are there, but it’s shaping up nicely. Eli skims over paragraphs he’s already reread, double-checking that he’s changed the names of anyone he’s written about.

Then he opens the other article about Peter.

The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

Over the last few years, it seems that dating apps have only gotten harder to use. These sites once meant to help users find the mythical “One” are now inundated with people searching for hook-ups or looking for thirds, and users who won’t reply to a single message.

That was my experience. I tried every app I could find, even dedicated far too much time to the likes of Grindr and Scruff in the hopes of finding anyone worth my time.

I’d just about given up on my search, doomed to wander the streets of San Francisco single for the rest of my days.

Eli rolls his eyes at Michael’s latest changes.

It was after a heinous string of bad conversations through apps that I agreed to be set up. I’ve never been one for blind dates, but I figured why not give this stranger a shot. So I did. To say that the night was a complete disaster is an understatement. He showed up an hour late, spilled food on me, and ignored me to take several phone calls. He even missed the movie we went to.

I left the date embarrassed and ashamed of myself.