Charlie

Charlie went to Singapore this week for a holiday. He said he was disappointed not to be there for my last day. We had lunch together on Friday - he wanted my mobile number and my email address, so he could keep in contact. He said he was on Facebook, but Charlie Chen is a very common name, let me tell you and I can't find him. Who'd have thought. He wants to have brunch on Sunday, he even wants to come over to my side of the city. Yes, he's a southsider.

"Oh?" say my friends when I tell them.

"Prahran?" they ask tentatively.

"Actually, worse," I say.

"Not Brighton?" one friend asked aghast, as if I couldn't even consider such a liaison.

That made me laugh. Brighton people are the real nouveau riche and awful, I have found from my experience.

"No," I say. "He lives in the namesake of the Southside."

No one gets that. 

It’s just nice to make friends with a ‘normal’ person from work. I don’t think I have ever made a gay, male friend from work before. No, I haven’t. There is something about making a gay male friend, that a straight male friend will never be the same.

We’ll see, I guess.