Adam

Several months ago, after incessant prodding from my subordinates, I joined the virtual friendship database of Myspace. I'd like to think that my team wants to know the inner me like the private and tortured Tom Hanks' character in Saving Private Ryan, and the deep curiousity of his troops as to what made him tick. Maybe not.

Anyway, I joined and at first it seemed sort of cool to have my own poor man's website, where I'd post all my movie reviews, rants about all the many things in the world I find so wrong and maybe I'd even be contacted by some long lost friend. It went kind of like that I suppose, but it was a bit more like a fishing trip. You know, you have all these grandiose ideas of what it will be like, what you'll catch how great the weather will be. You get your gear together, you make some sandwiches, pack the car you get some bait on the way and head to the lake.

Once there you find the perfect spot, settle in, bait your line or lines and wait. And wait some more. All the while your beers getting warm and flat in the afternoon sun and your sandwich looking more appetizing to the flies circling overhead than to you. You get uncomfortable and begin to get sunburned. Then you get a call on your mobile from your wife nagging you about how you've been gone all day and when are you coming home. Not too unwelcome actually, and you turn to your mate and say "hey, yeah, the bird, she, um ,needs me to get back and uh, well you know....what a nag!'

But I digress. Anyway, after going searching for everyone in my outlook contacts, friends, family, old girlfriends naturally, I made my way through any old classmates going as far back as my memory would allow, which was basically through University. One old friend found me, but he is now a drugged out junkie and doesn't look so good. Sucks for him.

I did finally find someone, an old classmate from design school named Adam. He and I began University together and the way it worked was that for the first year the entire class is megred as one. Then during the second year, it's split in half and then you alternate work and school until the last year. Adam and I met that first year and became friends, mainly through our common interest of cycling. We got on well that first year and kept in touch during our off quarters. The last year of design school, the groups are combined as one, though much smaller now having weeded out half the class over the course of time. We graduated, got jobs in seperate parts of the country and kept in touch via email from time to time, then eventually lost track of one another. Until I found him on Myspace.

At first I didn't think anything of it. I dont actually read people's pages, I could give a shit what sign people are or what they and Jenny did last weekend or whatever. It was obviously Adam from his picture. He was standing by a pool shirtless and smiling. Odd choice, but maybe he was single. Anyway. I hit request friend and contacted him. I noticed he logged on that day, so I figured him a regular visitor.

A day went by, then 2 then a week and no response from Adam. No acceptance. What's with that i thought? I went back to his page and to my disappointment, he had still been logging on regularly, so why had he not okayed my request? I thought we were mates! I sent another request.

I began checking daily to see if he'd logged in, which he did...regularly! As I was finiding myself visiting his page often, I decided to finally read some. The first thing I noticed was all the friends that left comments were men. That's cool I figured, he's still playing the field with his mates. The comments were like, "hey Adam, I had a great time last weekend. let's do it again!" or "wow, you're an amazing dancer" or "I love how you look in that swimsuit". Now, I've been known to throw less than manly compliments to my mates, but these, well, didn't sit right. There was something off about this.

His profile read about him being single and looking for that right person. Normal stuff. Until I got to the end of the "about me" section. It said something like..."I want to be a part of YOUR team." What team is that?

Again, another week went by and I had been again denied. I just couldn't understand. Accept me, dammit! I only have my wife, my mate Chris and Tom as friends for fuck's sake. Pick me! I went back and sent another request.

I read more and more. I looked at all the pictures. I read all the comments. I clicked to the pages of his mates. And like that scene at the end of The Sixth Sense, I suddenly saw the truth. Adam was gay! I was Bruce Willis, my head spinning, searching for fleeting moments in my head and in my past that could connect the dots back to this new revelation. Adam was gay and we never knew it. What were the clues? He never had a girlfriend. He was neat. He was friendly. The signs were there I suppose, he just didn't seem gay really.

I deduced that that was the reason then why he hadn't approved me as a friend. I had blown his cover, and could potentially out him to all of his former classmates, or at least to the handful I've actually kept in touch with in the last 15 years. I decided that I would go back to his page and tell him something like..."Hey Adam, it's me Simon. How are you? You look great! Hey, by the way, I see you're gay now, and hey mate, that's totally cool. I love gays! You're 'the only gay in the village ' right? Like Daffyd?!? Right?...cool". That's sort of what I would have said.

I gathered the courage and went back to his page. It was no longer! I searched again. Maybe I spelled it wrong. Where is he? I fear I may have spooked him away.

Haley Joel Osment, where are you!