That evening I pull up to Caleb’s bungalow for a reunion of my old men’s group turned potluck. The place is already thrumming—stove-steam fogs the windows, plum-dark wine breathes on the long cedar table, candles sway in the stirred air.

I cross the threshold into easy hands on my shoulders, nods that need no words. These are the men I howl beside, weep beside, trust with the rawest marrow; their nearness threads my pulse into something steady.

Halfway through dinner I find myself beside Tara, a friend-of-a-friend visiting from Santa Cruz, both of us balancing plates of roasted squash, steam rising between us. Her laugh rings low and clear; her questions wait for real answers. Conversation slides from joke to genuine curiosity in a heartbeat.

“So—are you with someone?” she asks, head tilted, voice soft.

A faint cinch flutters beneath my ribs. “Not at the moment.”

She accepts that, then circles back later: “Was your last relationship serious?”

“Yeah,” I say. She leans in. “What was she like?”

My mouth dries. The last relationship is with a man, Adrian. There’s no slot on the conversational shelf for that truth. I give her something true but thin. A cool pane drops between us, sound-dampening. From the outside I look engaged; inside, my words knock softly against the glass and slide back.

She tells a story about her roommates; I laugh, but the echo finds nowhere to land. By dessert I realize I’ve spoken for ten minutes without revealing a single inch that matters. Friendly, smiling, untouchable—that shape keeps me both safe and lonely.

The obstacle isn’t Tara’s warmth or my courage; it’s the culture’s narrow map—straight, gay, coupled, seeking. A man who has loved both men and women yet still names himself straight drifts off-map from those cartographies. Without a word for it, part of me stays invisible, even in a room full of people I trust to catch me.