Remember in the late 90’s when the band Eve6 released that song ‘Here’s to the Night’ and it instantly became the high school graduation anthem for the entire nation? There was actually a lot of good music released by bands in the late 90s that I think kind of got lost in the shuffle from grunge to boy-band power. I still keep songs like ‘Closing Time’ by Semisonic, and a bunch of Better Than Ezra and Gin Blossoms tunes in my Ipod.

But I digress. I’m telling this tale in specific reference to the Eve6 song; well, to that entire album moreso than the song itself. You see, I was one of the lucky kids who took the step from high school to college the year that song topped billboards’ charts.

I was really excited about the prospect of college. I couldn’t have cared less about classes or the education, but I was thrilled to be getting out of my dead-end small town and I was super-excited about having the opportunity to meet new, hot guys. There wasn’t exactly a bounty of young, gay men where I grew up.

My first week at school was kind of awkward, as I suppose it is for any new freshman. I didn’t know anyone, and, as my bad luck would have it, I was the only gay guy on my entire floor of my dorm. So I had to find a way to make nice with the homophobe meat-head frat boys and wrestling team members who constituted the majority of my hallway.

My luck finally started to turn one day when I was standing in line to buy books at the University bookstore. In line directly in front of me was this tall, thin, tanned, brown-haired angel. He had on those snug, worn-in hipster jeans with the thick studded belt and matching diesel shoes. And practically saran-wrapped around his tight, fit torso was a red t-shirt that bore in the white letters across the back the phrase ‘Tie Me to the Bedpost’. That, of course, was a lyric from a popular Eve6 song that had sort of become a catch phrase for the band.

Well, when I was 18, I was pretty shy. And I hadn’t really yet grown out of my ‘awkward’ phase. I’m a short guy of eastern descent, and back then I carried a couple extra pounds. So, basically, my esteem issues came from all the jocks in high school picking on me for being the chubby Asian guy.

I had taken solace in the fact that I was considerably smarter than those choderheads, and that I had infinitely better taste than they ever would. But now that I was in college, everyone around me was a musician, a poet, a film-maker, or some other brilliant, sophisticated, artistic type. I was surrounded by thousands of young adults who were all just as smart and just as cool as I was. And I hadn’t yet figured out what it was about me that made me special.

So, needless to say, when I saw this gorgeous hunk standing there in the tight little Eve6 shirt, I pretty much just clammed up and stared at me feet. I figured this would be another opportunity to connect with someone here that would just go by and leave me to head back to my dormroom, slap on my headphones, and fall back on my bed in a defeated lament of what could have been.

Then, just as I’d committed