My Name is Craig, and YES, I am a Peeping Tom

I feel like a peeping tom this morning. Something woke me up early this morning. I never did figure out what the noise was, but as usual, I couldn't go back to sleep. And when I cannot sleep, I always end up on the computer reading blogs, the Fiesta message board and online newspapers. One of the online newspapers I read is the one from my old hometown. And of course while reading it, I always have to read the obits, which seems odd to me since I have no family and no friends back there. Another time killer thing I like to do is google people from my past. I am always trying to google the guy I had a crush on in high school, a few of my friends I haven't seen in years, and lastly, SGH. Read the rest after the jump.


In 1989 or 1989, I met Kevin through a mutual friend we both had. We hit it off right from the start. After a few months of being friends, things turned sexual for a short time. It happened very sudden and totally shocked me. I totally liked Kevin, but considering that I had never really dated anybody before, I didn't expect that. We tried it out for a few months, but Kevin dumped me for another guy. That other guy was SGH.

Much to Kevin's aggravation, SGH and I became good friends. I was still friends with Kevin, but when SGH and I became friends, Kevin started pulling away from me. I was a little bit upset, I did like Kevin as a friend, but I just chalked it up to the shallowness I had seen in other gay men. The next year, SGH and Kevin signed a lease for a new apartment. Turns out it is the same place that I had just signed a lease. I think this really set Kevin off. He definitely had stopped talking to me by now. And SGH was busy with school and work, so we didn't get to spend a lot of time together.

That winter, I started seeing Mark who lived an hour away. I ended up getting a job in the same town Mark lived, so I was now having even less time back home and I lost touch with SGH. The next year, I started taking classes back home again. I made the hour commute each day for school, and I also got to reconnect with SGH. Turns out that SGH had a new boyfriend. SGH also told me that Kevin had packed his stuff and moved away shortly after I moved away. Many years later I would find out that Kevin had moved to Boston where he died. To this day I believe that Kevin knew he was sick and that is why he withdrew from me and then later just packed up and moved away without saying goodbye. Well, after that year, I dropped out of school again. And once again, I lost track of SGH.

For many years I have tried to google SGH with very little luck in finding him. But while reading the online newspaper from my hometown this morning, I found a link to search obits from the past years. Me and my morbid mind, I often think that some of these people that I cannot find on google must have died. So I searched the obits using SGH's last name. I got a search of 200 pages for his last name (turns out it searched ALL articles, not just obits.) So I searched his first and last name. This time I got 1 page, that only listed 1 obit. My heart sunk thinking it was him. Turns out it was his step-grandfather who had passed away in 2004. But it did list SGH and his new hometown.

So after a few google attempts, I came across SGH's name in a newspaper article in his new hometown. The article had a link to a news video, which had a 3 second sound bite from SGH. And yes, that was the same SGH from many years ago! The article and video had listed a different hometown name, but I googled that and it turns out it is a suburb of the other town. So after a google of SGH and the suburb, I found a realty website. It listed a house and the street address, the house price, the sq. ft of both the property and the house. It also listed the new owners of the house: SGH and another guy. I googled the street address, hoping to see a map, and instead I was taken to Street View in Google Maps. So within a brief time frame, I went from searching past obits trying to find a friend that I believed that he might have passed away, to looking at his house, with his cars in the driveway, some 1300 miles away. Damn, now I feel like a peeping tom.

But it was good that after so many years of wondering what had happened to him, that I find out he is alive. One of my very few regrets in life is that I have never stayed in touch with my friends from the past. That is probably why I am googling some of them from time to time. I didn't find an email address or telephone number, but I do have his mailing address. So today, I am going to spend a little bit of time trying to find the email or telephone number. I will probably end up going old-fashioned and getting piece of paper and a pen and writing a letter. But it is good to know that after all of these years, one of my google searches finally paid off! :)