Worst gay man's nightmare (lockdown diaries)

You’ve run out of your only-available-online coffee capsules, so you nip out to your local cafe, slash bakery (in a timidly gentrified Zone 2 neighbourhood). It’s Bank Holiday Sunday, technically still August, temperature-wise it feels like November. Still, you decide that you ought to acknowledge the end of the season and you throw on a pair of old shorts that really should have been binned last summer. You combine them with a Gold’s Gym T-shirt your ex boyfriend gave you years ago which, just like him, has had its time. Final touch - trainers and socks that clearly don’t work together but then again, you don’t have to put on a show for your local cafe, slash bakery.
In terms of fashion sense, you feel closest to Miranda Hart or Celeste Barber.

Thankfully, the cafe is empty as Britain (including timidly gentrified neighbourhoods in Zone 2) is unanimously hungover and feeling sorry for itself (I won’t mention Brexit - oops, I did!) at this moment in time. You collect your double espresso and turn to the exit following the over-diligent social-distancing signposting. And then...in a cloud of fairy dust you see Him - your fellow homosexual.

He’s already been to the gym and noticeably pumped his pecks. His flawless outfit is colour coordinated and very very tight, accentuating every muscle and attention-worthy bulge. Lockdown has clearly been kind to him and there’s not trace whatsoever of corona belly fat. So there he is - all smiles and judgement, whitest teeth, perfect cuticles and next season’s trainers, rainbow edition. He scans you from head to toe for an eternity of 35 seconds and says nothing, absolutely nothing. Yet you can’t help but notice the oversized thought bubble hovering above his meticulously messy and profusely gelled hair. It reads “I DON’T THINK SO.”

Head down, you rush home, change and make your way to the gym.

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