Smoke screen

I was talking to a thirty-something Hong Kong Chinese man at a lunch party. He teaches surfing in Nicaragua and had brought along a stunning South American girl who was sitting next to his father at the other end of the table.

“Have you been dating long?” I asked.

“She’s a smoke screen,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows.

“I’ve been thrown out of every school I’ve been to,” he explained. “I was at yet another college, in my second year and hating it, just wanting to throw in the course. My father called me into his study and I assumed he was going to tell me to knuckle down and finish the course. Instead, he said he didn’t care if I gave it up. He didn’t care what I did, as long as I was happy. He didn’t mind what I did, as long as I wasn’t gay…”