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In May of this year, I chanced to meet two men from Detroit in one of the bars that I go to on weekends- Little Jim's. They returned to Chicago for a visit in late July, and that's when these pictures were taken.

When I was at Little Jim's, I was approached by a good-looking guy about my age- Jim Cottone- and someone I thought was just a friend of his. They were in Chicago with two other friends for a weekend. I saw the other guys with Jim, but as Jim had a beard, I noticed him first and did most of my talking with him. After I'd learned quite a bit about him (but not everything, as it turned out), we ended up going back to my condo.

The next morning, I gave him a ride back to the hotel where he and his friends were staying, and had the opportunity to meet them again. That is when I found out that he and another of the four guys- Lin Shampine- were actually partners.

This surprised me; I had supposed that if two men were partners, they would either do something together with a third party, or just with each other; this had been my understanding since I, myself, "came out" in 1979. I had occasionally run across someone who demurred to getting together because he was in a relationship, and I also occasionally came across couples who did things together (but not separately). But Jim and Lin had a different understanding that allowed them to do things together and/or independently. This was new to me.

In any event, talking more with them that morning I discovered that both of them were stable, interesting individuals, even if I was more attracted to the one than to the other. I left them at their hotel, but we ended up corresponding a few times in May and June, and in late July the two of them made another trip to Chicago to visit friends of theirs. We took this opportunity to get together- all three of us. We had lunch and then went to my condo for a while. That's when the picture at left was taken.

I had more of an opportunity to find out how their relationship worked. I had, by this time, had a couple of relationships where I was pretty constantly with the same person on my weekends home in Chicago. During those relationships, I treated the other person as one might a spouse- at least I didn't do anything with anyone else. Lin and Jim said that their relationship allowed for activities outside the relationship itself; when this happened, however, the other partner got a complete account of what were never allowed to become more than "one night stands". I was flattered when Lin said that he had also found me attractive, but that Jim had won the toss to go and speak to me first.

(Picture at left) Here are Lin and I in my condo. (This is one of the first pictures of me with my new contact lenses, which I find quite an improvement.) Lin was also very nice, but to tell the truth, Jim was more my type. It didn't matter, because they were secure in their own relationship. I get the impression, though, that they do a lot of playing the field. Jim works for General Motors, and Lin does glass work.       (Picture at right) Here are Lin and Jim together. We had a good visit, but once again I took them back to their hotel so they could collect their car and drive back to Detroit.

I continued to correspond with Jim for a while, but as I have found so often happens, this tapers off, unless there is a relationship to be built. There was no chance of that here, so after a year or two it was just Christmas cards for a time until that stopped a few years later. Writing now in 2017, I would be very interested to know what happened to the both of them.

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