The Spinners, "How Could I Let You Get Away"

Everyone's got the one that got away. Here's mine.

It was late October 1997. I was celebrating Halloween in the Castro district of San Francisco with a gaggle of friends from work. As we flowed through the merriment, a guy caught my eye. I was in a wizard's outfit; he was uncostumed as best as I can remember. We made instant deeply connecting eye contact - which to that point had never happened to me before. "What's your name?" I stammered, trying to be heard above the din. "Christopher," he replied. "I'm --" ... but before I could continue, the swollen crowd pushed me along. And since I got no phone number or other information from him, I forgot about that moment not long after.

Flash forward to early May 2001. I'm back in SF after having spent the prior year in Southern California - but not for long, as I've just made the decision to move back east, to Boston, a move that will take place in only a week or so. It's a Friday night, and I'm looking forward to meeting up with my visiting friend the Princess of Cairo for karaoke and then to hosting a visit from another out-of-town friend the next morning.

So I'm waiting for PoC at a bar called the Pilsner, getting tipsier than I intended, and then. It happens. I'm in the way of a stool at the bar, and this guy comes to reclaim his seat; we look at each other and immediately melt into each other's eyes, smitten immaculate. His name? "Christopher." We've already moved on to our first kiss by the time my late-arriving Princess makes it in, and so we become a party of three as we proceed to the Mint for song and drink.

PoC and I, at my insistent urging, perform Steely Dan's "Do It Again," trading lines in a Mamas-and-Papas fashion (it sounded better in my head than it ultimately did on the stage). I'm not paying her the attention she deserves, but she sees how well Christopher and I are connecting and magnanimously suggests that I go take advantage of the situation.

Which I do. And we do. We spend a marvelous night together at his nearby place, and I awaken the next morning to find him out on the deck in his underwear, smoking a cigarette. It's all perfect, except for my situation: in the words of Grand Funk, I'd picked a bad time to be in love. I remind him that I'm moving in a week. "Don't go," he swiftly and softly replies.

Now, I've moved a lot over the years, to many cities. No one before or since has ever said to me, "Don't go."

But go I did. And I didn't have the good sense to stay in touch with him. I'll probably never know if it was the same Christopher I met on both occasions. I'll probably never know if we were as tight a connection as we seemed for one night. All I know is that I think about him every once in a while - and I did so this morning, humming a Spinners chorus: "How Could I Let You Get Away?"