Prepare for one of my gay moments.

Many years ago — I'm speaking in terms of a decade, give or take — I ran across some pics while exploring the then premature intarweb.  The photographs were of the blonde gentlemen you see in the pic on the left.  The actual pictures I saw were this one, this one, this one and this one.

The first time I saw his pics I was intrigued.  He's cute.  You can't deny it.  In the years that passed since then I had unknowingly developed some kind of fantasy image of him, much in the same way that one glances through a magazine, notices a model of undeniable beauty, and immediately formulates a fantasy and desire around that model despite knowing that neither is based on anything more than a random, two-dimensional picture that is solely a representation of the product in question and has nothing whatsoever to do with the person.  It's simply how the human mind works, and with Ethan (oh, that's his name), that's precisely what happened.  I never saw any new pictures of him after that, although I did see plenty of fakers using his pics.  Eventually I forgot about the pictures and the man in them.  Time has a funny way of brushing aside the random in favor of reality.

Thankfully the web is not so forgetful.  It has a way of somehow taking us to places we never thought of.  You know how it works: that inexplicable web phenomenon through which you are reading a site and click a link, click another link, click another link, click about ten more links, click a few more links, finally click another link and ultimately finding yourself somewhere that cannot possibly be related to where you started.  Whatever it is you were looking for is so far removed from where you find yourself that you cannot fathom how one resulted in the other.  Yet there you are.

It was through this process, that bizarre "degrees of separation" phenomenon that only the web can provide, that somehow I found myself reading Brat Boy School.  Even the most cursory of examinations revealed this blog had the same pics of that blonde man I had seen so many years before.  In addition to the same pics, I also stumbled across many more, some from the same time and others that were more recent.

As with all such discoveries, I was shocked, but not entirely.  This is the intarweb, infinite in size and reach, and there is nothing you cannot find out there.  Well, that's what the marketing material says.  I read the brochure, you know.

So I read the blog, going back to the beginning and reading forward until I reached the present.  It was obviously the blog of the very same person, that man I had seen so many years ago in what were essentially anonymous pictures on some random web page.  Now that I think about it, I suspect that at least some of those photos had been posted by fakers or thieves, yet, after so many years, I had somehow stumbled upon the lair of the blonde hunk himself.  What are the odds?

I was obviously worried that somehow finding the real man behind the platinum cut would be the polar opposite of what I had imagined.  I remind you that I had imagined a complete person when I had only seen a single picture.  People can be so silly; est-ce que j'ai raison?  Luckily, he didn't ruin the fantasy.  In fact, he reinforced it.

He likes sci-fi, including Star Trek, Stargate: Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica.  He's so cute (and if you thought I was kidding).  And I'm sure I mentioned he's hot.  He cooks.  Sometimes he cooks in appropriate attire.  He's not just a pretty boy; he actually thinks and feels.  He's definitely gay (when did you last pack a spare change of clothes and wet wipes before heading off to a friend's birthday party?).  He's a movie adict.  He eats healthy.  He's extremely friendly.  He's sexually aware.  He's gracious.  Need I go on?

Situations like this amaze me, while only on a very limited basis now, in that they demonstrate how the web has caused the world to shrink (virtually speaking, of course).  Someone remote and distant from many moons ago, someone only seen in a few pictures that could in no way be associated with an individual (like any model picture or advertisement with people in it), can suddenly and somehow be discovered through random and infinite clicking until magically you stumble upon a page somehwhere out there that is entirely unrelated to what you were looking for in the first place.  This page, however, has now linked you to a period in your past, helped you rediscover a friend or family member, discover those of like minds, or, as in this case, reignite a puerile schoolboy fantasy from so long ago by putting you in touch with someone you had never dreamt of actually speaking to.

There is no random fantasy here, however, as I'm not beguiled by this discovery.  Well, OK, I'll admit that the ol' schoolboy infatuation is still there, especially now that I'm provided an opportunity to know the man behind the pictures (and he's actually interesting and friendly and worth getting to know) in addition to communicating with him.  But, more than that, it is, as I said, a very cool development that is becoming increasingly common with the internets.  I've been given a chance to get to know him, not only via his blog but also via personal contact.  Perhaps a friendship will develop, even if only across digital distances (which seems likely given Ethan's personality and desire to befriend people from all over the globe).

Sure makes moving to Las Vegas seem like a really good idea…