Tales from Berlin: Matthias

Last Sunday in Berlin, I was so horny that after I had breakfast at the restaurant of my hotel, I went back to my room, brushed my teeth, stripped down to my undies and cruised on Gayromeo. I readied myself to go back to the shower and do my pre-sex rituals in case I agree to hookup with someone. That’s the good thing about Berlin—there are so many horny gay guys that just an hour online, one can find a guy decent enough to have casual sex with; unlike here in Copenhagen where I can spend days online and not hookup with anyone. But that’s for another post.

Anyway, the universe must have conspired because when I went online that day, the two or three guys I had been talking to and have agreed to meet with once I get the chance weren’t logged on. I even texted a muscular and bearded guy who gave me his number—he wanted some outdoor sex—but he didn’t reply.

Then came this 29-year old, blond, blue-eyed, stubbled, cute German boy.

I don’t think he was looking for sex that time. He just said that I have a nice profile on Gayromeo. I told him he was cute. Because I was horny, it didn’t take long for me to ask, “your place or mine?”

And that’s how I met Matthias.

He lived in a quiet, residential part of Berlin, a few S-Bahn stops away from Potsdamer Platz. When I saw the house number he gave me, I went up to the wrong building. Apparently, he lived in the adjacent building and it had the same number. He saw me at the stairwell, called me and told me that I was in the wrong building. I saw him waving at me from the window of his apartment.

A six-foot-one stocky guy greeted me at the door. I was panting from going up and down stairs. He offered some water. When I was fully rested and comfortable, we kissed then proceeded to go to the bedroom.

I will spare you the details of our sex, because it’s not the point of this story. Suffice it to say that he smelled and tasted good, and in bed he knew what he was doing. He was a very good kisser.

He asked if I’d like to stay over for lunch, since it was almost 2 pm and we were both hungry. Having nothing better to do that afternoon, I accepted his offer.

Though his English was good, he apologized for his poor vocabulary. Good thing Danish and English are a bit similar to German, so I usually understood what he meant when he didn’t know the equivalent word in English.

This is what he made us:

Not visible is the baked salmon because it’s covered with the mixed veggies. He added some buckwheat to the pre-packed veggies, and those muffin things are called Knödel (they tasted like plain muffins). He made himself some white Russian, and we proceeded to have lunch in his living room, where there is this shelf that occupied an entire wall.

Two similar shelves also filled to bursting lined his hallway, and in his bedroom there is another, shorter shelf filled with more books.

Apparently, he’s a law student and his dream is to be a judge one day. So he is studying very hard. He had a few papers taped to his wall. There’s also a small sheet of glass on the wall with notes written with a blue whiteboard marker. Those are his to-do lists, he said. One list contained the urgent ones, another list contained the not-so-urgent things and yet another list for the things he had to do on a regular basis.

“Sometimes I even wonder how I do so much stuff. And still end up with even more things to do,” he said. I was immediately reminded of my friend Chuck.

When I am with someone, I tend to discuss myself less and be curious on the other person more. I don’t know. I guess I am bored with my own life story and just curious about other people’s lives.

I asked about his family. His parents divorced when he was only two years old, and it was his mother who raised him. He and his dad talk for just two or three times a year: their birthdays and Christmas. “We don’t have much in common. I’m not interested in his life; he’s not interested in mine. So we just greet each other and that’s it.” He has two sisters—both of whom, he thinks, are weird.

“They are scared of my books,” he said.

Before he came to Berlin, he lived about 1000 km south from Berlin and shared an apartment with a drug addict, but he doesn’t call her that. There’s a German word for it (which I forgot) and it means living a life based on drugs. It’s more than being a drug addict, he said. It’s a lifestyle and they are a part of the German society. “There are a lot of them in Berlin.”

“How long have you been living here in Berlin?” I asked.

“About a year.”

And me, the perpetual single gay guy, just had to ask, “So have you had a boyfriend here?”

“Yes. For six months. We lived in this house together.”

“And where is he now?”

“He left. Last February”

“What do you mean ‘he left’?”

“I just woke up one day and he was gone.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. There were no fights. No arguments. Nothing. He just left. He took a box, filled it with his things and left.”

“Have you tried contacting him?”

“Of course I did. I called his phone, he wasn’t answering. I called his place of work, he didn’t want to talk to me.”

“How about Facebook? Have you tried sending him a message?”

“Yes.”

I fell silent.

“Eventually, I found out where he lived. He moved to the eastern side of Berlin. I went over there but he won’t let me in.”

I was not able to say a word.

“Until now, there’s not a single day I don’t think of him.”

I was filled with a kind of sadness so deep I almost cried. How could someone do that to this guy who seems like a good person? True, he may not be perfect but I don’t think he deserved to be left like that without an explanation.

Just leaving like that and totally shutting him from his life is very cruel.

His days must’ve been filled with sleepless nights, thinking about the guy, his whereabouts.

He must’ve been blaming himself for whatever he might have done wrong.

It wasn’t even as if they have been living together for years. Six months was too early.

These thoughts filled my head that I was overcome with sympathy and compassion. I just had to hug Matthias. I hugged him very tight.

He kissed me.

I apologized for bringing up that topic. He shrugged and then took me to his desk where his computer was. He opened a browser, went to YouTube and showed me a funny clip of two llamas with hats, talking silly to each other.