Dream..umm…boy?
I love the building I live in. I adore my property manager. He lives in the apartment directly below me and for some absurd unknown reason he adores me right back. When I was viciously attacked by a mouse he came to my rescue. He checks on me whenever he hears one of my notorious loud crashes. Best of all, he's always willing to give me the juiciest gossip in the building.
A few months ago the apartment next to mine became available. Due to my bizarre work schedule, I've been home for a vast majority of the showings. It seems my property manager, who I'm about 85% sure is gay, was showing the apartment to only 19 year old blonde bimbos. I was not amused.
Last weekend, my property manager knocked on my door to inform me the new tenant would be moving in that very afternoon. I braced myself for, what I thought was going to be, the inevitable "she's in school and a nice girl" but was pleasantly surprised when I heard "He's a few years older than you, just moved here from the east coast, and pretty good looking".
SCORE.
Saturday afternoon I was standing in my kitchen doing dishes when my unlocked front door suddenly burst open. There stood a tall, Latino, muscle popping, sweat inducing, make me happy in my bathing suit area, piece of man meat looking quite shocked to discover a decorated apartment and a woman standing in it. I smiled and approached him with an overly chipper "You must be the new neighbor!" and opened the correct unlocked door for him. I think I sprained an eyelid I batted my eyelashes so hard. I introduced myself, told him if he needed anything not to hesitate, and announced it would be a pleasure sharing a bathroom window (our bathroom windows face each other and couldn't be more than 5 feet apart) with him.
On Tuesday night I was doing my hair in my bathroom when I hear Hot Neighbor hop in the shower followed closely by him singing:
Filed Under: Always either taken or gay!, Sadface
My friends are funny people.
Friend: I've never been asked out via GCHAT until today
wtf is our generation coming too???
me: weird. I have all the time
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*Editor's Note*: Actual domestic violence, rape, murder, sexism and racism are not funny....but jokes about them tend to be hilarious.
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Friend: There is a very cute man next to me at this cafe wearing a pink striped shirt and working on a very small computer....cannot tell if he's straight or not.
me: Ask him where his shirt is from! Tell him you have to find a birthday present for your best friend and you think he'd really like the shirt.
Friend: You are a genius. Gonna give it a shot.
me: Seriously labels are the best way tot tell if a man is straight or gay.
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AvidRobert’s: Gay Dating Is Miserable Too
Day 1: Arthur Kade, the "Bad Boy" who doesn't understand women.
Day 2: Kyle, the "Nice Guy" who has accepted it.
Day 3: Keane, the "Good Guy" who doesn't date
Day 4: Peter DeWolf, the "Writer Guy" who has women all figured out
Today: AvidRobert, the "Gay Nice Guy"
I've known AvidRobert forever. In fact, I don't even know him as Robert. I know him as Bob, my bffoml (best friend forever of my life). We've been through everything together: him coming out, moving, family, make ups, and break ups. He's probably one of the few people on the planet who gets my brand of crazy.
Why I Chose Robert:
I value Bob's opinion in the highest regard. He's incredibly intelligent, funny, big hearted, and loving. Bob, like me, tends to get the shaft (pun slightly intended) when it comes to love. We were talking on True Blood night about how he's been meaning to write a gay version of Dating is Miserable and I immediately saw the genius in him writing it here this week as most of his plight comes from being the "Nice Guy".
I’m a long time friend of Amanda’s and when she asked me guest write a blog about the “nice guy” I jumped at the chance simply because I think it would be fun to let everyone know what it is like from a gay guy’s perspective.
First off I’m going to let you in on a little secret: gay dating is miserable too. Let me qualify that by saying it is miserable if you are a gay man who is interested in a monogamous relationship with someone who shares similar interests and long-term goals.
Lets first look at the hurdles gay nice daters have to face
1. Delayed adolescence: We’ve all heard of SF Men’s Peter Pan syndrome, right? Well imagine little Peter on steroids in the gay world. Mix disposable income, a lifetime of repression, and a culture sopping with drugs and alcohol and you have a recipe for men well into their 50’s and 60’s sporting Abercrombie tank tops and fake tans with relationships being the last thing on their minds.
2. Sex: Straight folks have equipment that is designed to fit together. We gay boys don’t have that luxury. Tops and bottoms, oral only vs. anal, to a variety of other very very specialized fetishes cuts your dating pool even more. I also have HIV at the forefront on my mind with any new sex partner and have met guys who seem really great but whom are HIV positive which raises a whole new set of moral dilemmas that I am not going to elaborate on here.
3. 10%: There are simply less gay people than straight people. Even in a town like San Francisco where you can’t toss a handbag without hitting a homo we still are a significant minority compared to the straight populace.
4. Cliques/Types: Leather daddies, twinks, bears (and their friends the wolves and otters), mean girls, hipster fags, drag queens and their followers, muscle divas, party boys, and radical fairies! These are just a small cross-section of different subcultures within the gay “rainbow” and you need a glittery lexicon to even begin to understand the nuances of each type. These groups oftentimes self-segregate and break into even smaller cliques that tend to date one another. Considering we are already only 10% of the population imagine how hard it is to find someone who is your “type” (I think most of this is bullshit but its really how a large population of the gay community self-identifies as a type based on my experience).
5. Monogamy or just sex?: I could get laid every single day multiple times a day if I wanted to. Sadly, isn’t because I’m an Adonis, it’s because there are literally dozens of venues designed to facilitate sex for gay men. I can think of 5 gay sex clubs within a 50-mile radius. The internet makes this even easier. Let me showcase a small selection of popular gay websites (NSFW) manhunt.com, adam4adam.com, gay.com, craigslists MFM (with hundreds and hundreds of random sex requests every day), and bigmuscle.com. As I said, that is just a small sample of the platter of gay sex website offerings. If this isn’t enough and you still wanted to have sex you could always be all web 1.0 and head to your local gay bar and wait til last call to pick up whatevers left at the end of the night or simply head to the Powerhouse in the SOMA, it has a backroom just for sex! I think I’ve made my point that sex is insanely easy to obtain. So it raises the question, why would anyone want to be monogamous? It seems that most relationships I’ve encountered that have started in San Francisco (this is a big caveat as most gay couples who met before they moved here seem to be monogamous ) are open which means that the couples “play” together or separately. Call me old fashioned but I’m a one man kind of man and finding someone who wants something similar in the veritable smorgasbord of gay sex in San Francisco is quite difficult.
So now that I’ve ranted about the unique challenges that gay men face when trying to find long-term partners in San Francisco lets finally lead into the discussion of the “Gay nice guy”. I used to describe myself as a nice guy: someone who is caring, thoughtful, willing to compromise, attentive, and engaged. I still consider myself those things but what I did not realize that I was also a total doormat. With seemingly so few options for finding lasting love if I met someone who provided even a glimmer of long term potential I would pretty much drop my entire life in order for them to find me desirable.
Does he want to go out? Sure thing! Let me just cancel my plans with my friends.
Does he have a worldview that opposes mine? No big deal! I’m sure we can compromise (which turned into me compromising).
Doesn’t have a job? No problem! I can pay for dinner, the bills, whatever.
Don’t trust me? Great! Let me tell you where I am every moment of the day, restrict my Internet presence completely, and answer your irrational same questions every day.
That’s being nice right? Making yourself totally available and moldable into the person that your man wants you to be right? Pushing down your own feelings until they explode and you apologize for said explosion for months is nice right? I realized after a long relationship that being nice is not a synonym being a total pushover and letting someone else decide your happiness. In my act of being the “nice guy” I seemingly adopted some of the characteristics that both genders dole out and deal with: jealousy, low-self worth, inability to assert my own desires, feeling nagged, feeling codependent, and feeling smothered. I broke up with this person and had a moment of clarity about how I would conduct my future search for a mate. Out of this moment came….
Robert’s Rules for Gay Dating:
1. Let someone win you over too: Someone has to do some work to impress me just as I work to impress them. Dating is a two way street, not a blind alley.
2. Communication, seriously: Communication is by far the most critical thing in a relationship. Our minds create so much static and unease when we like someone that if you are not able to feel comfortable communicating with them it is likely there is no long term potential there.
3. Slow down: Take things at a natural pace and let things come as they may. The more you try to force things the worse they fit. If you take things slow you lessen the chances of committing to a bad relationship.
4. Flakes are for cereal boxes: If a dude breaks a date more than twice he is pretty much written off unless he makes a huge effort to explain why and sets up the next date.
5. Don’t expect someone to change: Do you ever meet someone and think wow they would be great if I could tweak this or they did this differently? If you go into a relationship expecting someone to change you are setting yourself up for unhappiness.
6. Treat it like an internship: In college I worked at the career center and we used to say having an internship you don’t like is just as useful as a great one, because it helps you figure out what you don’t want. If I treat dating the same way it certainly takes a lot of frustration away and I you treat like it a big learning process that will hopefully lead to you finding something that clicks.
Phew, I just wrote a novel! So in summary here are my findings about gay dating and being a “nice guy”.
• Rejoice straight people! Gays are just as miserable dating as you are (but we have a lot more sex)
• Being nice does not mean being a pushover
• Treat dating like an internship, the bad ones are just as useful as the good ones
Maybe this time, for the first time, love won’t hurry away
I doubt I've ever mentioned it but I love musicals. Despite the fact I've known every word to every song for years, until last night I had never seen Cabaret (the movie). After a recommendation fron my friend Bob Robert I turned it on last night as I was going to bed and 3/4 of the way through the movie I realized something:
My love life is a perfect mix of Holly Golightly and Sally Bowles with less prostitution, syphilis, and Nazis.
An actual update tomorrow I promise. I took the weekend off to sleep, get some other writing done, watch musicals until I wanted to vomit, and see those people who talk about my boobs and force me to binge drink a lot (A.K.A. my friends).
I like this version better than the one in Cabaret. ♥ Nia Vardalos & Toni Collette ♥
The top 5 most interesting/ridiculous reasons I’ve been dumped.
5. This is not working out. please don't contact me again.
I still can't believe a guy broke up with me before we even went out on our first date. I actually saw him at an event last week at Rickhouse. He exchanged a few witty remarks about the long wait at the bar with me and my friend Donna without even a glimmer of recognition as to who I was.
4. It's not you. It's me.I just have a lot going on right now and need to focus on my career. You are an amazing girl and are going to find someone else. It's just that I am seeing this girl and never should have gone out on a date in the first place.
I still think Crazy Blind Date #1 "dumping" me after one date is one of the funniest instances of getting broken up with.
3. "You don't want to go to college outside of California"
Despite the fact Eric #2 (my second High School boyfriend) knocked up the girl he was cheating on me with, we officially broke up because I had little aspirations of living outside of California at the ripe ol' age of 17. I still have little desire to live anywhere else, except maybe Seattle to be closer to my sister and her family. We have everything here; oceans, lakes, celebrities, mountains, snow, Disneyland! Why would anyone want to leave?
I always found it funny Eric #2 ended up going to UCSD.
2. "I just can't imagine being with someone who doesn't dance"
I am the mayor of White Girl Town. I have zero rhythm and have accepted my fate. I don't dance and I sure as hell don't sing. I can't carry a tune in a bucket with assistance in a zero gravity environment. Whatever part of the brain that possesses the ability to process music was obviously not put into my person. Usually lacking any rhythm , and therefore not dancing , isn't an issue. I encourage those who like to dance to do so while I sit at the bar. It's a win/win situation. Note To My Friends: If I am dancing that means someone needs to immediately cut off my alcohol intake.
It wasn't ever an issue until The Guatemalan. The Guatemalan was not Guatemalan but in fact part Honduran and part Syrian. My grandmother could not get it through her head and still refers to him as "The Guatemalan" to this day.
The Guatemalan loved to dance. The first time I heard Dane Cook's "I just wanna dance!" I almost peed myself laughing. He officially broke up with me because "I just can't imagine being with someone who doesn't want to dance! I mean sometimes I just need to blow off some steam and get out there and shake it! Just forget all my troubles and DANCE!".
1. I'm gay.
A long long time ago, in a land far far away I met a boy. This boy and I clicked instantly and became good friends. We'd spend nights making out and hooking up at his house. Despite all the intimate time we spent together we never had sex because......wait for it.........he was a virgin.
One night after too many cocktails and much discussion we decided to "do it". The next day a mutual friend of ours pulled me outside to say "So [Person] is gay. He wasn't sure before but after last night he's 100% positive. He's terrified to tell you".
What happened after that was not pretty, mostly because I drank way too much at the time and was going through a train wreck phase. Thankfully, the entire relationship turned into one of the best friendships I could ever ask for.
The Gay Date
Right after "The Man" and I broke up an old co-worker set me up with a friend of a friend of a friend on a 100% blind date. I went into it fully expecting to have the worst time imaginable but was pleasantly surprised when he turned out to be smart, funny, interested in food, knowledgable in pop culture and overall an interesting person. There was only one slight problem.
Homeboy was flaming gay.
Now before I go any further I should point out that I love the gays. I love the entire LGBT community. I'm pretty sure I was a gay man in a previous life. Seriously I have no prejudice whatsoever. I just don't want to date a gay guy.
Now I'm sure at this point you are asking me how I can be sure he was gay. Let's go through the facts.
1) I have perfect gaydar. I have even been able to pinpoint out a gay before they knew/were willing to admit they were gay.
2) He was wearing a baby pink beanie with a flower on top.
3) He knew way too much about Britney Spears.
4) He had thoughts and comments about a girl at the bar's shoes. Not just "those shoes are hot" or "those shoes are black" but an insult that involved 80's designers, fabric choice, shoe style, and Dallas references. Straight men just aren't that creative in their insults.
5) He played the pronoun game when discussing exes. Never "my ex-girlfriend" or "she" it was always "my ex" and "they".
Thankfully Gay Dude must have sensed the fact I was into him as a gay bff and nothing more as he never called me again.
Pillow talk, pillow talk. Another night of hearin’ myself talk, talk, talk, talk
On more than one occassion I have thought the premise for the show "Kids Say The Darnedest Things" and instead they should do "People Who Have Just Had Sex Say & Do The Darnedest Things". 90% of my list comes from the first time I slept with someone.
"Dammit!! I just washed these sheets!"
"I bet that is what your sister is like in bed."
"Ugh I have an ingrown hair ::points to crotch::. Would you mind popping it and getting it with tweezers for me?"
"Yeah you give head just like my ex-girlfriend"
"That was so good I just want to punch you in the face"
"So uhhh....yeah....can we not tell [name of friend, ex, co-worker, etc] about this?"
That is the one that infuriates me the most. Relationships are complicated I get that. Most of the people I know have dated each, dated each other's exes, dated each other's relatives, etc etc etc. I got bored today and decided to do a flow chart of the relationships of all my friends.
No I am not the middle person.
Who in the fluff put Keith Sweat’s ‘Nobody’ on my iTunes?!?!
For some unknown reason I've been thinking a lot about this clip of Whoopi Goldberg innocently kissing Katy Perry on the view. It infuriates me in many many ways. This was a great opportunity for Katy to go from stupid pop star to some kind of gay rights icon/activist. When Sherri "The World Is Flat" Shepherd asked Katy about the controversy with her songs and how they "encourage girls to experiment" and "might be homophobic" the correct answer should have been "Experimenting and discovering your sexuality is an important part of growing up. As long as you are safe in all aspects I think experimenting is perfectly okay. Ur So Gay is just a song about a girl being really frustrated with a guy she loves. How many times have you said something in anger you didn't mean?" not "OMG how crazy was that when Madonna said I had the song of the summer?!?! It was like her poster popped out and said 'You are the chosen one'"... ::blink blink::
Seriously, get some new PR people honey.
To the disappointment of men everywhere, I honestly don't think "I Kissed A Girl" is going to make teenage girls start kissing. It's similar to how George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" didn't cause an epidemic of sex. People have been having crazy sex since the beginning of time. Everything you can do has already been done, probably video taped, and is tired. You haven't been able to shock anyone in at least 4 decades when it comes to sex, except for 2 Girls 1 Cup. I don't think anyone saw that shit coming. o.0 (pun intended)
Not one song I have ever heard has influenced my decision to make out with girls...and I've made out with a lot of girls....like A LOT. It's just experimenting/being a drunk ass/having fun. I think it's better to do stupid experimental shit now. I mean at 23 I know there isn't a drug I'm addicted to and I am most definitely straight. No amount of soulless pop music or sex on tv has ever made me, even for a second, contemplate pearl diving in the meat curtain bay. Visualizing phrases like "oh hello hugh jackman, please hugh jackhammer my vagina", as uttered by my friend Crystal, get my juices flowing more than any girl kiss ever has. I am 100% sure I am straight. This has not been the case for several people I have dated.
Take the first man I ever turned gay. I didn't exactly "turn" him gay but I felt like it at the time. Upon our first meeting while getting the name, rank, and serial number type questions out of the way I asked if he had a boyfriend. I am blessed with near perfect gaydar (which was challenged last night when I found out a friend of a friend was NOT gay. A straight nice attractive well dressed man in San Francisco is rare) so this question didn't seem out of the ordinary. He was cute, we were getting along really well, he was intelligent, a virgin, well read, polite which means he had to be gay. Weeks later he was still trying to convince me of the contrary when we decided constantly making out was a great idea. Making out eventually lead to me being the proud owner of a brand new, never been used, shiny V Card! The next morning after the sex he pretty much rolled over and said "I'm gay. I'm sorry. I can't do this. I've never been with a man but I know that is what I want". We've been incredibly good friends ever since.
The second guy I "turned" gay was a guy I met off of some dating website. We went out on probably 15 dates with nothing ever happening. He completely disappeared off my radar. No phone calls, no e-mails, nothing. Months later he messaged a good friend of mine on gay.com asking him out. I still have no idea what that story was about.
The third guy I met at a rave. It was at a time when I lived with gay ecstasy dealers. I can not tell you how many times I walked into my living room to see some form of gay orgy romp going on. We hung out a lot and had sex every time he was in town. Eventually I found out he was also fucking one of my gay drug dealer roommates. Coincidentally, after I started writing this he IM-ed me to see how I was.
Each of these guys have NEVER experimented with men before me. So I'm going to stick by what I think Katy Perry should have said. Experimenting is okay. Be safe. Have fun. Figure it out. More people get hurt and ruined by never figuring out or admitting what they really want.
So I dedicate this post to the gays, the straights, the transgenered, and, most importantly, to all the girls I've kissed loved before
I liked it.......I liked it.
About
- I live in San Francisco, go on bad dates, drink a lot, and spend too much time on the internet.
If there was a problem yo I'll solve it. Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it...or you can just e-mail me.
Try out this online dating site.
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