the single stigma

A few weeks ago, I came across an ad in the "purely platonic" section. I'm sure I was the only soul who responded...in fact I was told so.
It was a gay man who was lamenting the loss of a number of friends post K. I could relate.
I wrote to him, he promptly wrote back this:

Hi Jason,

Thanks for responding. I've never ever placed nor have I responded to an ad like this before, but I thought, what do I have to lose?? How long have you and your partner been together, and what do you guys do for a living? I'm a psychotherapist in private practice here in Uptown New Orleans, and my partner is a heatlhcare attorney for a medium-sized firm downtown. We've been together for 18 years now.

Would like to get together for dinner sometime, as that's always a good way to get to know people. Assuming that you'd enjoy going out to dinner sometime, what kinds of foods or restaurants in the area do you guys like?

Any other info. about you guys would be appreciated.

Thanks again,

I was elated, but a bit confused. Nowhere in his post had he mentioned a partner.
Nowhere.
Nowhere in my response had I mentioned one either.

But whatever, it certainly didn't matter to me.

Frankly, I was all excited to meet these guys.
They seemed interesting, and I'd love to have more gay couple friends, you know.
So I wrote back eagerly...answered his questions.

And never heard back a word.
I'm not sure if it was the stigma of living outside of uptown that did it, or the dreaded plague of singlehood.
That's my suspicion, however. You'd think it was contagious.
ahem