When I first won the two tickets to see Donna Summer in concert, I was ecstatic. It was a good deal: the radio station paid for the tickets, hired a limousine to drive us to and from the concert, and gave me one hundred bucks spending cash, all because I was the one hundredth caller.

For old time’s sake, I called up Richard and asked him to accompany me to the concert.

I first met Richard in 1995, at a gay video store I used to visit on the sly. One day, I slipped into the back room to use the viewing booths and Richard hinted he found me attractive by coming up to me and grabbing my crotch. A conversation ensued. It came up that I was trying my best to stay out of the gay life because I was a Christian and I believed it was contrary to God’s plan for me. However, that particular evening, I was super-stressed, so I came to the video store to chill and relieve my anxiety. Richard told me he came because he was horny. I secretly admired his truthfulness and we became the best of gay friends.

Back in my wild days, Richard and I used to listen to Donna all the time. She was our favorite artist and together, we must have owned every record she ever made. Even though Richard and I drifted apart after I made the decision to leave the gay life, we still maintained phone contact and respected each other’s view.

It was going to be good to spend time with Richard. He always had the ability to make me laugh. I had been so depressed over the seeming lack of recovery in my life, I needed to laugh. I didn’t understand why, after so many months in recovery, that I wasn’t running out to buy a Pamela Lee poster. I even began to have doubts about the validity of the whole walking away thing.

The concert hall was all lit up and there was an excitement in the air.

Donna entered the room, graced onto the stage and began belting out our favorite songs. At the end of her fourth number, Richard excused himself to the restroom. Twenty minutes later, when intermission was announced, he still had not returned to his seat.

Concerned, I went to the men’s room to look for him, but was unable to find him anywhere. Then, as I was walking out, I spotted his Nikes protruding from under the first stall. Strangely, they were pivoted out to the left, instead of on the floor, facing forward. I recognized the scenario all too well. He was cruising the restroom urinals through a little peep hole in the first stall.

How strange, I thought. There is only one Donna Summer in the world and she is here, tonight, right in front of us. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. There are millions of men in the world, yet so strong was Richard’s yearning to connect with one, that when an opportunity presented itself, he grabbed for it (the opportunity, that is).

I empathized how lonely Richard must have been to spend the concert in the men’s room, cruising to satisfy his raging, unmet needs. I then remembered it was through cruising that Richard and I first met, before we embarked on our different lifepaths.

I returned to the concert and had a wonderful time. I even got to meet Donna afterwards for a brief moment and I got her autograph. When the show was over, I ran into Richard in the lobby. He told me he met a friend and that his friend would be driving him home.

What a lesson it was! Three years ago, it was me in the men’s room, blindly searching to end the loneliness. Maybe I wasn’t ready to be intimate with a woman, and perhaps I would never get a nervous tick reading the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, but I definitely was not the lonely, confused and man-hungry guy I used to be. The need to be with a man was now lower on my priority list.

What I learned that night in the men’s room was this:

When recovery seems slow, we must stop dwelling on that which we feel we should be but aren’t, and rejoice in the miracle of not being what we once were.