The Pink Elephant in the Room

So there's this guy at my office who works down the hall from me who is gay. Well, I'm pretty sure he's gay. You know how you just know when someone is gay, just from looking at them or hearing their voice? That. Like, sterotypical enough to be say, "yeah, gay". Also, my gaydar is awesome. Correction: my American gaydar is awesome, and he's American. My Israeli gaydar sucks. But that's a blog post for another day. But there's a bit of a problem.

This guys works down the hall from my office, and we both have "pinged" each other (I'm pretty sure) so we both know the other is there, but we work for different departments so there's no real reason we would actually have to talk to each other. It's not like if someone walked in wearing a New York Steelers hat and you could go, "You like the Steelers? Me too! I love hockey", and take it from there*. You can't really pop into someone's office and go, "Yeah, cocksucking. So, how's that working out for you?". I mean, you could but I'm pretty sure you'd get fired, even in Israel.

The other thing is that I have to walk by his office to go to the bathroom, the kitchenette, and the elevator, so the whole situation is just very there. My nightmare is that I'm in the restroom having a slash and then he comes in, because if you're the only two people in the room then you have to acknowledge each other in some fashion; you can't just ignore the other person without the awkwardness exponentially increasing. Plus, doing introductions with your dick in your hand is not only mortifying but also pretty unhygienic. And, gay guys and pensises and public restroom are such a cliche that I would probably get the giggles, which would make me seem insane.

I had a similar situation when worked at a hotel in Jerusalem. There was an Arab guy who worked there, and we kept kind of scoping each other out, and I was pretty sure he was gay but I never really had the opportunity to talk to him because I worked at the bar and he worked in maintenance. And when we finally had the opportunity to hang out for a bit (we weren't all drinking vodka in the front office as a going-away party for someone, I swear), it turns out he's bi. And that was great, because then we knew we had a compatriot in the building, even though we never really interacted at all. It was just nice knowing you're not the only one. There's a certain comfort in that.

I don't know this guy that works down the hall. I'm not saying I want to be besties with him or anything. I just want to figure out how to break the gay ice, so to speak. I keep hoping we run into each other at a socially acceptable place, like the elevators or kitchenette or something (drinking vodka in secret at work), and can engage in a bit of small talk to get the introductions out of the way. But until then, the Pink Elephant roams the hall freely.

*I do in fact realize I mixed sports, teams, and cities there.