Tom has become a Hag Fag. Tom is the definition of a nebbish. A nice guy, a bit shy, a lot nerdy. When I first met Tom a few years ago he was incredibly introverted. I seized upon that and personally started greeting him in a most outlandish way. He would turn beet red and scurry away.

I made a remark to a coworker that Tom was hung to his knee, and when he would walk by I’d just point to my knee, which made my coworker laugh out loud. Time passed and Tom and I became veterans in the office. He was promoted and moved to a different section, I remained the same.

I’ve noticed lately that Tom has been spending a lot of time with several women in the office. I doubt if my knee statement was true, and it certainly isn’t because of his wit. Perhaps Tom is a Hag Fag. The opposite of a fag hag. A fag hag is a straight woman that hangs around gay men. Tom is a straight man that hangs around straight women. A lot.

He’s slowly becoming one of the girls. They enjoy his company, and he enjoys theirs. I doubt if he’s getting any tips on women from these girls. They’re not that type, or at least they strike as not being that type.

They all hit Karaoke bars and sing show tunes all night, drinking Cosmopolitans. Shanelle, one of the girls swears that Tom is gay though. He doesn’t register on my Gaydar. If he is gay, he’s even more outside the gay scene than I am. And I’m in a remote outpost of Gay Siberia. That would make him….Mongolian?

It’s not too hard to picture him a descendant of Attila the Hun, with a feather boa. I can almost imagine him on a horse riding across the steppes, ready to do some shopping in Istanbul. But Tom is a Brooks Brothers guy, rigid from Rochester. No Raymond Dragon clothing for him though he does go to a gym…

I do try to talk to him from time to time, making jokes, commenting on his clothes. I imagine Tom was brought up in bubble. Literally a bubble for children with Immune system problems. But Tom had emotional problems. When the time came, his parents threw him out of the bubble and into business school where he flourished.

His approach to numbers and economic theory was nothing short of amazing. Almost autistic, like Rain Man. But I do like Tom and I don’t want to put him down. I know the girls will. Eventually.

They’ll be out at some Karaoke bar singing and Tom will say the wrong thing or some big guy will starting hitting on the girls and they’ll insist that Tom do something and he’ll whip out his HP Calculator and have it removed from his rectum in a city hospital a few hours later.

This I fear will be Tom’s fate. Sad, but so far untrue. Should he be dragged from a closet much like he was dragged from a bubble? Or is he like the butterfly forced out of the chrysalis before it’s time, left horribly misshapen and subject to vicious attacks from larger angrier butterflies?