Columns
Luke is a gay man who trained as a psychologist. He describes himself as either a cynic who believes in love or a romantic who is deeply wary.
-
Luke's World
The line between trusting friend and gullible idiot
Do you sometimes feel you’re just too trusting? No this is not a trick question, I really do wonder if I was born with a gene which makes me gullible and naïve. When someone tells me they will meet me at a club at ten, and they arrive an hour later, I really believe they were hijacked but managed to escape by throwing themselves out of the car, miraculously unscathed.
Or they say: “You look amazing in that outfit” and you later find tour buses stopping in the street to take pictures of you. There are more scary stories (I AM wearing a condom, that wig does suit you, of course bald spots are in this season) but I don’t really want to frighten my younger readers.
The Greatest Contraceptive in the World
Having Kittens
This is going to get gross. If you thought the last one was gross, you were wrong. If you have a weak stomach, or are delicate about discussing private parts, well, what the hell are you doing here anyway?
Luke's World
Friends with benefits - no strings or no stings?
Why is that a “friends with benefits” arrangement often ends in tears? You think you have a clear arrangement – you meet for occasional (or regular) sex with no strings attached (I accidentally wrote “no stings attached” but more of that later!) and it’s a win-win situation. Well that’s the theory, but in practice what happens is that it often gets messy and complicated.
Your Gay Best Friend
The men I meet are so boring and unadventurous
Dear Gabriel
I am 60 and I’m an artist. The problem is that I’d like a relationship but there seem to be precious few opportunities. I’m not desperate, I enjoy
being by myself. But I’m open to the idea. But the only men I meet are, by and large, so boring, set in their ways, complacent and unadventurous that
I’ve started to think I’ll spend the rest of my life on my own. That’s okay isn’t it?
Anthea
The Greatest Contraceptive in the World
A little too close for comfort
CAUTION: Fainthearted readers, please skip the first paragraph.
So, to cut a long story short, I was watching a birthing video the other day (PLEASE don’t ask!), and this insane woman had her entire family present while she gave birth in a paddling pool at home.
Love Factually
Of Victorian jails and pogo sticks
I woke up feeling like a spat-out Smartie. No, wait. It felt worse than that. I woke up feeling like a spat-out Smartie over which had trampled, at best, a medium-sized herd of fully-grown elephants wearing running spikes. In single file.
Morning had not yet broken. This I could tell because, when I opened what was left of my eyes, it was pitch-dark. Then I realised I had crawled so deeply into my sleeping bag, zipping it up and finally securing it with a small padlock – all to avoid any further Brokeback Mountain moments from Lofty – that I would probably never see daylight again.
When I finally escaped, tequila slug-like from my swaddling, it was light. Well, as light as it gets on a frosty winter’s morning on the riverbank in a Victorian village.
All About Love Official Blog
Romance, Lesbian vs Straight
Both straight and gay Romance writing is about love. Both involve the intensity that we long for in our humdrum lives. They make us believe – that great love is possible, and that Romance is alive and well.
A Lipstick Lesbian on the Prowl in London
It happens when you least expect it
“I’m done with this single shit, man! I want a girlfriend. I want to love and be loved,” I ranted to my work colleague, Kay, while we ate lunch at our local caf, which we’ve named La shitty.
“I want someone to miss me when I work late. I have love to give and it’s just sitting inside me and rotting!”
Kay is an intelligent person, but her answer to my tirade was so generic and uninspiring that I nearly jumped across the table to suffocate her with the hood of her coat.
This was on Wednesday, the day it snowed for the first time in October since 1934 and, when I woke up that morning freezing, I was craving someone to talk me into pulling a sickie so we could stay in bed all day and drink tea and have sex.
Kay could sympathise. She’s a single chick in London too. So why then give a pathetic answer like: “It happens when you least expect it”?
Your Gay Best Friend
Are we on the rebound?
Dear Gabriel
My partner and I met straight out of other relationships. We get on really well and think we’ve fallen in love.The only trouble is that we spend an awful lot of time talking about our past relationships. We worry that that means we’re in a rebound relationship. What do you think?
Sheldon
Love Bites
Seduction and the spinach leaf
We all know how hard it is to achieve the two seemingly incompatible goals of seducing someone with food whilst, if not actually losing weight, at least clinging to a body that can play a role in the seduction process too. Of course these are not issues that come up in the writing of romantic fiction but in living out that life of romance they are all too real. So what does one do when the obvious solution to the second goal - to live on a diet of green leafy vegetables – is most certainly not going to help you achieve the first, ever so slightly more important goal?
© 2008. All About Love Online Publishing
