Alejandro Bogota – substack.com

Pondering the Impossible Connections Life Gifts to Us

He only looked at me for a microsecond as he slowly and curiously crept his way up the spiral staircase, driven by lust and desire yet constrained by the rules of this world.

Alejandro Bogota

La Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango has been a stimulating and peaceful, but never boring, writing sanctuary during my three months in Bogota. In Medellin I moved around more. I began working in the EPM Library in Cisneros but later changed to the Casa Museo Pedro Nel Gomez in Aranjuez, and then to the unforgettable views at the Public Library in Barrio Castillo. 

Colombia

Medellin Colombia’s Libraries

Tracey Parker

·

September 14, 2024

Biblioteca EPM

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I tried changing it up here, but Bogota is bigger, and while I’m sure there are many other places, it’s hard to find them because it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. 

The library here in Bogota’s La Candelaria is massive, it has so many different public workspaces with a rare commitment to quiet, for Latin America. The librarians will actually shush you here, unlike in Mexico where they’re the ones you want to shush. 

Lately I’ve been switching work spaces throughout my workday. I begin on the top floor balcony before moving downstairs and getting to work in a room which I call The Tower. Later I move to the sala de tecnologia on the first floor before going out to lunch. 

The patio on the top floor is divided into three smaller balconies. Most people only know about the first one, and the other two are very likely to be empty in the morning.

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Today one was empty and the other was occupied by a skinny, handsome Rolo. He was obviously a student. I sat down at the empty table beside him and began munching on my croissant, gazing at the view, and writing on my laptop. 

Before I knew it he was getting up, putting his backpack onto his shoulders and leaving. 

I longed for him to stay. He was just the kind of intelligent handsome companion who I like to meet, text for for a few days, then spend an entire Sunday sucking the life out of one another with a Netflix movie on mute in the background in my Airbnb. 

A few weeks ago, when the library was nearly vacant in the earliest days of January, a similar thing happened with another of the thousands of beautiful men who fit this description who seem to all have the same effect on me. 

I was in the tower. The windows framed the roofs of the chaotic Candelaria below. The cupola of The Metropolitan Cathedral seemed so close that it seemed like a piece of furniture inside the reading room. I went up the spiral staircase to the second floor to look and see if Jason, another crush who I was making progress with, albeit as friends, lunch mates, and smoking buddies, had arrived yet. 

He hadn’t, so I left the tower, and went to the atrium where he sometimes used the public computers. He wasn’t there either but there was another young cute guy who must have felt my gaze looking for Jason, or for him, or for something deeper that they both shared, probably in another spiritual plane none of us knew about. 

He turned around, our eyes met, but neither of us had what was necessary to hold the gaze so we retreated, and left each other with the feeling I’m feeling right now on the upstairs balcony. 

It must have been too much for Alejandro to bear, because just after I had settled into my seat and began typing on my computer, he passed by, right in front of me, in the tower. 

I was pretty sure I recognized him from downstairs but it was impossible to know for sure. He was being extremely discreet. He only looked at me for a microsecond as he slowly and curiously crept his way up the spiral staircase, driven by lust and desire yet constrained by the rules of this world. 

It’s also possible he didn’t look back at me at all. Maybe there was a telepathy between us that we attributed to our 5 senses because we couldn’t conceive of a 6th. 

I heard him talking to a librarian before he walked back down the stairs and passed me. This time I made myself look right at him. He didn’t look back though. Only a little as he was walking from the tower to the larger arts and humanities reading room.

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He started flipping through books that were just within my view. He was sitting down on chairs and then looking at me through bookshelves. Very quickly our discretion melted away and we both knew what was going on. 

Next thing we knew our eyes were locked together and he was walking toward me. There was a group of people who were standing in the entrance to the tower checking out the one of a kind design of this reading room. People would do this all day because it really was an impressive space with a great view of La Candelaria. 

Alejandro walked right through them and stood next to me and began talking. He asked me what I was doing. I was suddenly very self conscious. This library is librarian heavy. There are a half dozen on each floor and not many of them have much to do. I assumed they were listening and I didn’t really want an audience. But I had no control over it anymore. Alejandro was making all the moves and I had to just let it happen. I answered his questions. We both talked about how we had come to realize that the other was flirting.

I asked him if he wanted to go to the balcony upstairs and talk in private. He agreed and we left. We spoke for a little bit until he told me that he needed to go to work and that he worked closeby. He told me he usually spent a few hours before work studying for his college entrance exams. He was scheduled to arrive at work at 11 and it was 11:08. I told him I’d walk him to work. We left the balcony and I led the way to the grand staircase which I planned to use to walk down the 4 flights of stairs. 

He stopped me and told me there was an express elevator that went directly from the rooftop balcony to the entrance foyer. He pressed the button and the door opened. We entered and the doors closed leaving us alone for the first time. We stared at each other and to his surprise I put my hands around his waist and began kissing him. We opened our mouths and tasted our wet slippery tongues and hot breath as we descended to the bottom of the library complex. 

We desperately took everything we could get from the other as if the same psychic energy that brought us together had also told us this is the furthest we’d ever go together. The elevator came to a sudden stop, a buzzer rang, and the door opened. Alejandro pulled back as if a lot was at stake if we were caught. 

Nothing he said after that made sense. We walked through security and unzipped our bags so they could make sure we weren’t stealing any books. We walked out into the sun drenched Candlearia, we walked downhill with the enormous green mountains behind us, through streets where so many lives had been formed and so many lessons learned. 

Everything he was saying was contradicting itself. I had agreed to walk him to Metro Universidades, but then he told me we were headed to San Victorino. We walked along Las Aguas and said goodbye at the Transmilenio Station before I turned around and walked back up the hill to the library. 

From here on, our story turns into a misfire. We had an awkward coffee date the following day at one of the horribly touristy cafes in La Candelaria. The music was blaring and we were the only ones there. The old lady, whom Alejandro called La Señora gave us dirty glances the entire time and we were both anxious to leave. 

Later, that day he texted me and asked if he could come to my house to watch a movie in private and I of course told him yes. But then he never followed up. I got scared and realized I had no idea who he was or if I was getting scammed. In Colombia most people you meet will warn you about how everybody, other than themselves, is a crook or a thief and how important it is to be careful. Only in moments of uncertainty, like this, do I ever listen to them.

It wasn’t until the following week, when Alejandro was nowhere to be found in the Library, that I realized how unusual it was for us to have connected the way we did up in the tower. I felt the same connection with other men and could feel that it could likely have been mutual, yet neither of us did anything about it and cowardly allowed the opportunity to pass. 

That Alejandro and I connected only for it to be revealed slowly by each of our following actions how far apart we were and how impossible any further connection would end up being will be the mystery that connects us in our memories as we grow further apart forever.

I am a gay American Man who lived in Mexico City for 6 years. Over that time I discovered a gay experience and I grew as a gay man in ways that I never could have done in the United States. I write about this experience because I see that, as gay men, nobody is teaching us anything. Therefore we have to learn from our common experiences. Mexico taught me that there are so many varieties of gay experiences out there that are vastly different from the one we know as gay Americans.

While I still have so much to write about my 6 years in Mexico, I am currently spending my time digital nomading and discovering new gay experiences globally. I’ll periodically send emails that will give you a taste of what I’m discovering. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. – Tracey