I needed to base decisions on logic and planning. My gut had repeatedly proved itself to be an unreliable barometer. This time, in deciding to leave, I wouldn’t rely on whims and dreams. More than two decades earlier, I had decided to move to Vancouver 20 minutes into a weekend trip from Los Angeles. I could look - or leer, if I wanted to - and no one would notice. While I finally felt bold enough to make eye contact with men on the sea wall and in cafes, it was only because they had long stopped looking my way. A silly hand injury forced me to retire from the gay volleyball league, and I found myself trekking alone whenever I showed up for a gay hiking outing I’d found on.
I had overfished Plenty of Fish and used up all my arrows at OkCupid.
Last summer, as I neared 25 years in Vancouver, I concluded that I had exhausted the local dating pool.
