Love who you love, and don’t let no one tell you otherwise

(It’s no one’s business anyway)

Photo by Oliver Cole on Unsplash

It’s the mystery of love, isn’t it? We don’t love who we “should.” We love who we love, the people who touch us. And there’s no rhyme or reason to that, I assure you.

When I was 19, a man named Mac McKinney used to come into Gallagher’s Bar and Grill, a cavernous Oakland institution down on the waterfront where I worked as a hostess most nights. Mac was in his late 40s. He was bald. He was overweight. He was florid. And I loved him. I had a crush on Mac, and he understood this. He had a crush on me, too.

The crush made no sense, of course.

If I’d seen this guy on a dating app, I never would swipe right. Even now at 54, I probably wouldn’t have swiped right on good old Mac McKinney’s profile.

But what we shared had nothing to do with looks or sensibility.

We simply had a connection. Hard pressed, I’m certain neither of us could have explained any part of it. It was simply there. It simply existed. It was in the eyes. In the air. We were drawn to one another. I loved him. I felt comfortable with him. He sensed this. He returned my beaming gaze. Love bloomed.

We didn’t do anything about it. Because, well, Mac was decent, perhaps. Or married…