I have a driver...

OK, not in the sense that I have retained a chauffeur to drive me around the city, but kinda. I have a 'friend' who drives a taxi and lets me pay him to drive me around, and he is pretty much on call.

I met Hamdi sometime in the middle of the semester, so around March. I was running stupid-late for school, and jumping into a cab was really the only way I could avoid a lecture, explaining to me that I was late (which would clearly be redundant as I was already aware of my tardiness). I've lived in Turkey long enough to know that avoiding such lectures is worth as much as fifty lira, because the process is essentially a long dialog where my mistake is explained to me, I accept my mistake, and then the mistake is re-explained in similar words, after which I take responsibility, and there is a final round of examining why my mistake is important enough to be noted.

Taxi ride from my home to school: 8.26 Lira

Hamdi is really outgoing, and overly friendly in a way that Turkish people can sometimes be, in cases where the extent of the relationship is a financial transaction. For instance, the simitçi from whom I purchased a morning pastry, twice, seven months ago, felt completely comfortable engaging me in a conversation about the state of my knee when he saw it in a brace.

Weird.

In any event, Hamdi continued to follow-up with me after our first trip together, greeting us on our way to school, or giving us hell for not riding with him. I maybe got a ride from him twice more. Three weeks ago when I tore my ACL, I knew I would need safer transport than the jostling around that the bus could provide. Calling Hamdi seemed logical, and for the past several weeks, he's been ferrying me to and from school.

Needless to say, we are now becoming 'close' in his mind.

I suppose this is what I really want to write about. Turkey constantly presents challenges to my personal space. I've lost count of how many times I, the only person on a wide sidewalk, have been bumped into by the only other person on the sidewalk, who would have cleared me by fifteen feet if they hadn't drifted my way. On a visit to San Fransisco, in the fall of 2007, I reveled in the freedom of movement and walked a deserted (by my Istanbul standards) rush-hour block, with both my hands completely outstretched to their full wing-span.

I didn't touch a soul.

For our purposes now, I am not speaking of personal space in the how-close-you-stand-when-speaking-to-me sense. There are additional challenges to my sense of friendship and loyalty. Hamdi is a nice example of one such challenge. We talk in the cab, and he is entertaining. I do not dislike him. He consistently picks me up, gets me where I need to be, and we have not been in anything resembling an accident (which I consider a perk). I offer what I feel is customer loyalty, calling him back because I trust and am pleased with his service.

I just don't know what to do, though, when the man begins asking me to get breakfast with him in the morning, or go to a cafe on the other side of Istanbul for an afternoon. The seeming homo-eroticism of a man-date with Hamdi does not bother me. I have lived here long enough to know there is nothing sexual about it.

Rather, I simply don't feel a man-date with my driver is appropriate.