Pretend We're Friends

I’m a non-conventional gay man.
Yes, I came out to my friends and family, but I have yet to overcome the ability to come out as a man who goes on dates. I’m afraid to go to queer clubs or even join group interactions with queer people, so my natural starting point was discreet dating apps — where the chances of finding a young, “normal” guy to connect with beyond sex are quite slim.

Until I met John (not his real name), a sweet, young guy who’s also closeted. The first time I came to pick him up in my car, we parked in a lot and stayed inside, talking and getting to know each other. We learned we shared the same favorite film, that we both admired M83’s music, and — against the odds — neither of us could believe at first that we weren’t dreaming, because we seemed to fit so well.

It became an odd, semi-regular ritual: every few months we’d meet in my car and just talk and fantasize. Whenever we had the chance to go somewhere else, John would find an excuse — even if it was to go to my empty house or a quiet beach. The fear of the slightest chance that someone might see him froze him in place, keeping both him — and me — inside the car. Even our intimate moments happened there, and whenever a car passed a kilometer away or there was the mere hint of another person nearby, John would freeze, and even within the car, the fantasy of us as a couple was cut short.

The last time I saw John was on my 25th birthday, when he told me his real name. The meeting was as ordinary as any other, and since then, he never returned to the app or to our secret conversations.

We never left the car.

I chose to adapt this intimate experience into a short film, trying to convey what I felt during that year and a half of five car dates — a film set entirely inside a motionless car, where a couple pretends and uses imagination to turn the vehicle into places they could have been: a fancy restaurant, a large cozy bed. All while the reality — just a thin window away — reminds them why it will all remain a fantasy.