Columns: Tag – Dating
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Luke's World
The games some gay men play
Three recent internet dating experiences have really got me thinking about how some gay men really like to play games (and I don’t mean the tie me up kind).
Luke's World
The face to face meeting and how to do it with dignity
My good friend Simon, the one who has received the Order of the Honey Badger from the President for dedication to internet dating, was chatting to me recently about some of his experiences and it occurred to us that there were some real no nos around meeting a date face to face.
A Lipstick Lesbian on the Prowl in London
Pikey Blonde
I promised I would talk about my dating life in my last column, so before I get sidetracked or digress, I’m going to jump right into it.
Luke's World
Sexual baggage
Are you honest about the number of men you’ve had sex with? A recent article in Attitude magazine got me thinking about how I approach this issue. They interviewed ten men and the number of partners ranged from 12 to 500.....
Luke's World
Humans with hearts and souls and not just penises and butts
I promised myself when I started this column that I wouldn’t write about race in a direct way; rather that I would allow my stories to talk about race in a natural and flowing way, seeing it as incidental to the larger narrative.
Luke's World
Why do we sabotage ourselves?
Why do we sabotage ourselves sometimes? You know what I mean - playing down our assets in our profile because we don’t want to “intimidate” men out there, having a mild flirtation with a really nice guy, then backing away from meeting them, or actually meeting someone, really fancying them, and then never contacting them again because “it would probably never have worked anyway”.
Love Factually
Mr Bean of the flirting fraternity
I am a loser in love. The Mr Bean of the flirting fraternity. And a dating disaster. I’m just not cut out for trotting out the cheesy lines seemingly required to, as a woman friend so quaintly puts it, “instantly moisturise a girl’s eyeballs”.
Love Factually
Tangos and titillations
“Yo,” Lofty half-whispers , “you’d better get your sad ass down here. It’s wall-to-wall women and they’re asking after you.”
Your Gay Best Friend
Two for the price of one
Dear Gabriel
A friend of mine, let’s call her Claire, told me in confidence about a man she’s seeing. She’s crazy about him, and he’s told her he loves her. Very expressive, apparently. Unusual for a man. But there were just a few things she told me that made me think I’d heard about this man before.
Another friend of mine has also been seeing someone who says all the right things and brings her flowers. So I asked Gail one or two quick questions and discovered they’re both seeing the same man.
Luke's World
Guide to the internet for the not-yet misanthropic
Gosh I had such an interesting experience recently – I got to meet someone I had met through the internet!
Yes the sarcasm is deliberate. I’m just so tired of men flirting and chatting and texting, but all the excitement is in the chase and not in the kill. I now am convinced that about 80% of the men who use the internet are not really serious about finding a partner – it’s just a game to them.
The real challenge for those of us who are serious, and who are reasonably intact psychologically, is to “do” the internet with hope and sincerity while not becoming completely misanthropic.
Your Gay Best Friend
Kids or no kids
Dear Gabriel
I’m in my 40s and divorced. I have two pre-teens. Recently I met a woman in her early 30s. She’s never been married. We’ve got pretty serious, I suppose. We both like the same things.
We met in a cycle club and we cycle marathons together. My ex-wife never liked things like that. We were planning to move in together in a month or two. Now, the thing is, right out of the blue the other night, she said that when we had our kids ... something or other. I didn’t even hear the rest. I mean what a shocker.
Luke's World
Good manners for gay men
I wrote recently about being “love’s executioner” – I had, I guess, burst the bubble of fantasy and hope when I met in person a guy who’d approached me online - and told him (and showed him) that I was just ordinary old me. Not the fabulous, handsome, all loving, all giving, never disappointing sex machine he had built me up to be.
Love Factually
Literary Love
Love was in the crisp autumn air, as I strutted jauntily towards the City Book Fair.
Books summon up romance in my mind. More specifically, the image of a woman with whom I instantly fell in love as she pored over a textbook in the university library, way back when.
Way back when, round John Lennon glasses were big. And round. And she was wearing them, thus completing a vision of delectation which encompassed ebony ringlets falling forward over her flawlessly creamy face, a few freckles, a beauty spot … and a purple tie-dyed t-shirt with pink-paisley-patterned trim which, damn, I just cannot seem to edit out of my mind’s eye.
Your Gay Best Friend
To come out or not to come out, that is the question
Dear Gabriel
I’m a gay man in my 30s. I had one partner for 12 years until he died of a heart attack. I couldn’t really date for a couple of years, then I found it quite hard to find someone. I suppose I’m the kind that likes to settle with someone.
Finally, I have met someone. I really like him. He’s a lawyer. He’s fairly recently divorced and has two teenage kids. The only trouble is that we’ve been dating now for a couple of years and he still hasn’t come out to his kids.
Love Factually
Loftysaurus goes Online Dating
“Hatter, you’re a sad loser who’s been on dating sites, can you help me?”
“Lofty, I’ve had a bash at…”
“Look, you need to show me how to put my profile on one. I seem to have run out of barmaids.”
“Run out of barm…”
“You won’t believe it, Hatter, they’ve ganged up on me. There must be a Barmaid’s Union or something and they’re coming over all militant. They won’t even serve me a cold one, never mind go home with me.”
A Lipstick Lesbian on the Prowl in London
Being Single - Seeing Couples
There are worse things than being single. Much worse things.
You could be in a wheelchair; you could be living in desperate poverty.
You could be dead.
But ask any 25-year-old single woman if she thinks there are worse things then being single and I’m positive her answer will be “not many”.
Love Factually
Loftysaurus gets Metrosexual
Thunnnk. My jaw hit the floor.
For once it wasn’t my automatic response to a sublime vision of angelic womanhood walking in the door. No, this was far more unexpected.
Lofty was walking towards me with what seemed to be a cocktail in each hand. I blinked again.
The lighting was rather low here in the rarefied loungey atmosphere of Julep, our new hangout. But, no. They WERE cocktails. And they WERE attached to those massive mitts that are always attached to Loftysaurus.
Luke's World
A mixed and mixed up community
Are gay and lesbian film festivals still necessary in 2008? I attended one recently and was struck by the incredible diversity of the opening night audience.
We were a motley bunch of all races, colours, shapes, sizes and persuasions. An elegantly put together air hostess stood out in her powder blue 50s outfit, topped with a jaunty pillbox hat. What was really striking about her was her height – at 1.85 metres she would stand taller than most overhead compartments (actually most planes) and struggle to offer us “chicken or beef”.
So yes, the drag contingent was there, some intentional, while others just adopted a hit or miss approach to gender presentation. I spotted a trans man of my acquaintance and he’s looking amazingly butch right now – I swear I want some of those testosterone shots he’s been getting.
Your Gay Best Friend
Is it still unfaithful?
Dear Gabriel
I’m a gay woman. I have lived with the same woman for 15 years. I have one question for you: is it still unfaithful if I slept with a man?
Love Factually
Date with a Diva
The phone rings. But it doesn’t sound at all like my telephone. Brrrrring… brrrrrring, it goes, like one of those old Bakelite jobs, and it’s echoing around a distant, dusty office where cobwebs gather far more often than people.
I realise I am dreaming. The thought that it might be Sophie Marceau on the line has me clinging to this dream with a steadfast refusal to wake up. Or it might be Rachel Weisz, asking if I’m free to share sushi and Cristal with her as she’s unexpectedly turned up in town on the pretence of posing in a bikini for Sports Illustrated when everybody knows that it’s simply a ruse to see me again.
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