#6 Two dates in 2 hours or less

After the emotional whirlwind that was my visit with the Italian, I thought it best to dive right into the dating scene. I decided to be proactive and meet up with a couple of match recommended guys. I was beginning to realize that it was best to meet up quickly and not spend too much time chatting details via email otherwise upon meeting, I’d be forced to stare blankly with nothing else to talk about because we’d already exhausted our charming second grade stories about accidentally sitting on a pencil. Yes, that happened, and yes, I often say things deemed inappropriate by others. For this reason I sometimes try to overcompensate by showing off a stronger personality than I’d like to.  If my biceps were as strong as my personality comes off, they’d ignore the words coming out of my mouth and just rub oil on me.

I’ve learned that although I say things that I shouldn’t and make bad jokes, I also shouldn’t censor or change what I say just to get someone to like me. I want to be with someone who is either amused by me or is ready to bring the sass right back. Perhaps unconsciously I’ve known this and thereby turn up the personality dial a few notches on the theory that if my date can handle me in the extreme, then he can most certainly handle me on a normal day. On my next two dates I exercised this theory.

Broadway Producer walked in apologetically explaining that he’d gained 20lbs since he posted his pictures but that he was on a new diet allowing him all the protein he wanted. I barely stifled a bad gay protein joke as he told me about his job and high salary while snagging every piece of salami on a meat tray too quickly to find any of my quips amusing. I got to eat the cashews on the tray, as they weren’t listed in his all meat diet. I began to feel that he was more interested in the meat tray and his successful life to pay any attention to me at all, which is when I decided I could be completely honest. After his boastful career update was complete was when I thought it would be fun to talk about how I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’ve learned that nothing turns off an ambitious, career identified person more than someone who is unemployed and having an existential crisis.

 I knew that I didn’t want to see him again and wanted him to decide the same thing about me so I tried to make that decision as easy as possible for him. Although the thought did occur to me for a second that maybe I should keep him as my boyfriend for the Producer contact…These thoughts occur sometimes but my conscience always gets the better of me as in the case of the other Match.com perspectives like the flight attendant who’s frequent flyer miles had me chat with him for several more emails than I regularly would have or the boring 40 something Doctor who wrote more words in his emails than he had hair on his head. In the back of my skull I have a Jewish mother shouting, “Doctor! He’s a doctor!” which is weird because I’m neither Jewish, nor has my mother every expressed any interest in my dating life.

Broadway producer turned out to be a bust, but I optimistically made an early afternoon coffee date with the first guy who actually looked like his pictures. 

Composer walked in after first casing the joint 10 minutes before our date. He was easy to spot with the scruffy red hair and distinctive glasses. He almost looked like a hipster version of Ron Howard. “Happy Days” Ron Howard, of course, not present day as I don’t have daddy issues. Before starting his interrogation-based questioning of all aspects of my life, he insistently pursued the “meeting” that I had in East Midtown before our date at 11:30am.
Composer: “So what were you doing down here?”

Me: “Oh, just a meeting.”

Composer: “What kind of meeting? What do you do?”

Me: “Oh, I’m a singer.”

Composer: “So were you at an audition? What auditions were over here?”

Me: “No, not an audition. Just a quick meeting. No big deal.”

Composer: “For what? What were you meeting about?”

Me: “THERAPY! I was at therapy, ok?! Me and my Therapist!...ahem…so yea…”

Composer: “oh….how was it?”

I responded with some joke about how it’d done me a world of good since I was ordered there by the judge to deal with my rage issues. This of course was completely false, but probably not the type of joke to start off a date with. Although, who wants to start the date with the admission that they just finished with therapy? Sliding his chair back a few inches, Composer proceeded with the rapid-fire part of my date questioning. We started with where I was born, continued through my formative years and finished the water boarding with where I wanted to be in the next five years. I ignored the existential part of the question and simply said, “New York.” The whole interrogation was over within 30 minutes and we both found ourselves in the awkward position of trying to continue the conversation. What else is there to talk about when I can write a 300-word biography of you already. It’s all surface and I have no amusing anecdotes to tell or ask you about as I feel that an anecdote wouldn’t compute in his world. The most interesting thing about him was that he was rehearsing a musical that he composed starring a Broadway star that I pretended to know as I usually do by saying, “hmm, yes, I know the name. Beautiful voice.”  The musical was a comedy about Cancer, which of course was too tempting for me to not make a terrible joke. Note to self: don’t make jokes about Cancer or molestation…they don’t go over well. I brought up religion and politics in a last ditch effort to get some sort of passion out of this guy, but alas after 43 minutes, he looked at his watch and suddenly realized how late he was going to be to his next appointment. I didn’t ask what the appointment was, but I could only assume it was therapy. 

#5 How do you hold a ghost?

I've been putting my blog on hold for the past few weeks because this next story has been the hardest for me to tell. But tonight at my new job a song kept running through my head and is forcing these thoughts to the surface.
Two years ago, I met a beautiful Italian boy. He was here studying for his Master's Degree before starting his PhD in Paleontology. We didn't meet in the most innocent way. I fully admit that we met online with the full intent of having sex. As he didn't know his way around the city that well, I offered to come get him and help him navigate the subway system to my place in Queens. The moment we set eyes on each other on the steps of the Museum of Natural History, I didn't see anyone else. As we took the long train ride with transfers back to my place, he nervously chatted in his sometimes unsure and slightly broken English. Before either of us knew it, my stop arrived and we were at my street corner by my apartment. Enjoying talking with him, I suggested getting dinner since I wanted to prolong our time before the planned sex date. He agreed that he too was hungry and wanted to talk more, too. I took him to his first Thai restaurant and we talked for over two hours occasionally looking up to catch the other  smiling back to which we would immediately break the stare, looking away embarrassed like school girls with a crush. At the end of dinner, we agreed that we were having a really great time and also discussed the refreshing surprise of that discovery. After all, we were almost four hours into our supposed quick fuck and we'd barely touched. This was how he and I started off together. Both of us unsure if the other reciprocated the same feelings. Over the next few weeks, we spent as much time together as his busy study schedule and overbearing professor would allow. I savored all of our time together as he'd cook for me and excitedly play his favorite Bjork songs on YouTube for me.
We both knew that eventually his time in the states would come to an end but we were bound to enjoy the time that we had together. All I knew was that with him in my arms, I was finally home. Our last night together, we just lay in bed, his head on my chest and my arm wrapped tight around his shoulder, our fingers interlaced, legs intertwined. When the time came, we took the long train ride hand in hand and walked to the front door of his building that he would walk through with his suitcase the next day bound for home an ocean away. Swallowing back what felt like giant lumps of coal in my throat as I fought the tears welling up in my swollen lids, we embraced one final time before I watched him cross the threshold up the stairs to his apartment.
Over the next year, we kept a weekly video chat date and talked about the possibility of his living and studying for his PhD in the states. Those Fridays couldn't come soon enough every week so we could sit and talk face to face for hours. Our skype dates proved to be the brightest point in my otherwise dreary life at the time. However, after almost a year of this, our schedules changed and we drifted. Our hope had always been that we would see each other two years after he left. By that time he would return like some lost messiah to reclaim me for eternity.
Three weeks ago marked his long awaited return. But time changes the plans we make in life. No more was he here for long term studies. He was on a brief trip to Philadelphia and made an even more brief trip to NYC for a day that we could spend together. I was excited to see him though still unsure how it would affect me since he would be leaving again. I figured that as long as I wasn't dating anyone else, it was OK for us to pretend that time stood still and we were still together for that day. That scenario wasn't to be realized, for just days before he was to arrive, he told me the news that he'd been avoiding telling me: that he's had a serious boyfriend for quite some time now. That he will always love me and didn't want to hurt me by telling me that he could no longer bear our distance.
It's not that I'd been holding out for him all this time or that I expected him to pine away for me all alone either. As a matter of fact, I am really happy for him. Part of me was frustrated though. Here was a closeted, career-focused workaholic in homophobic Italy who found a boyfriend and I'm living in the gay mecca of the free world and alas, no luck. In one of the most ironic slaps in the face I've ever experienced, he echoed this same sentiment to me later by saying that if he can find someone, so can I. Wanting to thank him for pouring salt in the wound, I thought better of it as I'd have to explain to him what that expression meant.
We agreed to meet when he was in NYC and he would stay at my apartment before his train back to Philly the next morning. After so much time apart, I felt like there was little besides each other that we held in common. So in this spirit, I thought meeting him would reinforce that feeling. The moment I saw him in Penn station the afternoon he arrived, it all came rushing back to me. I was immediately back in front of the Natural History Museum smiling at this nervous and worried boy before me. I'd spent so much time convincing myself that he wasn't right. That we weren't a good match. We are too different.  All of the lies I told myself to make every day without him a little easier came crashing down before me like a crystal chandelier. So there I stood with shattered prisms at my feet as I again caught his eye from across the station. In this moment, I realized that this was going to be one of the hardest days of my life. This was my day to say goodbye. We had a wonderful day. It was an uneventful but bursting with meaning. While we lay on a rock in Central Park, he stood to take a phone call. Pacing back and forth on the sidewalk excitedly chattering in Italian with a big grin, I realized two things. One, it was his boyfriend on the other end and two....He was in love. I think that's the one thing that turned out making this easier for me. I know that it's done. Enough. It's time to say goodbye. I had someone that I got to feel love with. I had someone to experience all encompassing love with. We never fought. We never floundered. I never wanted anyone else when I had him. Our love never died. Reality is what got us in the end. Hope can only get you so far before you have to accept the inevitable. So as I found a place across the station to watch him board his train after we hugged goodbye, I let go. After all, we found love in a hopeless place.
the end, by sean


We Found Love by Rihanna

#4 Disappearing Act

So far my Match.com experiences can be summed up in one word: flaky. Flaky is one of my favorite qualities when applied to pastry or cereal but applied to dating, it translates to either being unreliable or having a dry scalp. Neither of these is something I'm interested in dealing with on a personal basis. Since I first joined, I've chatted with several guys with great potential. From the Triathlete to Lawyer to Mr. Seattle, they were all fun and interesting guys that seemed to enjoy chatting with me as I with them. We had great conversations and without explanation all of them ceased contact with me. It's like repeatedly dating Amelia Earhart. Too soon?
This past week was the week of reckoning for me. After having a bad first Match.com date (see "bruises" blog), and not hearing from anyone in over 5 days, I emailed them all back politely to tell them that I'd like to get to know them more and wasn't sure what had happened since our last email. I still haven't heard back from anyone. The Triathlete is especially troubling as I made it a step further to the phone conversation with him where we agreed to meet up for a drink the following Tuesday. By the time Tuesday came, I texted him to find out where he wanted to go. He responded that he was crazy busy, which I believe because of his schedule and instead suggested Saturday if I was free. I said that Saturday evening sounded good to me and have never heard back from him. I can see that he read my email the night before our "date" asking if we were still on for the following night but still no response. I don't understand what is so difficult about responding to say that you're not interested or perhaps have met someone else. I am an adult. I get it. Of the half dozen Amelia's I emailed, one is particularly confusing. I decided that his name is Ace since he's demonstrated what a champ he is at pissing me off.

His emails were always vague but in one to him I described in great detail what I do for a living and asked him how he got into his career. I was expecting at least a slight insight into what he does. Perhaps he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, or was the first in his family to go to college, or just really loves what he does. I ended my email asking him out for a drink and gave him my number. The informative response to my email  was as follows:
Ace: "I got into this career in college and have been doing it for work ever since. What do you do?"
I am still unsure what made my eye twitch more. Was it the lack of a true answer from him about his career? I assumed he got into his career in college since that was his Major, but was wondering what drove him to it? Perhaps an interesting anecdote about his dying grandmother? Jesus, anything to keep the conversation going. This is would have been enough to spark my eye twitch, but what drove a wooden spoon in my mouth while I seized on the floor was him not noticing the paragraph I wrote about my career or the blatant phone number slip with date invitation. I pulled myself together to compose this simple email:
"Thanks for the response. You seem like a nice guy but I don't think that you're that into this and I'm not looking for a pen-pal. Take care."

An hour after sending this email, he immediately sent me back a message apologizing and saying that he "IS into this and I'm sorry if it seems like I'm not" and then asked if I was free later in the week for a drink. Wha-What?! I just wrote you off....I literally just wrote you off.
This is when I took a brief couple days off of Match and emailed him later to tell him that I was free Friday night if he wanted to grab a drink then. I heard nothing all week until Friday night when at 9pm I checked my email to see that he'd sent me an invitation to join him out for drinks that evening if I was around. Now, at this point, I was pissed off because he had my number and could have texted me as I didn't have his. He left it in the email so I texted him and immediately lied and told him that since I hadn't heard from him all week, I had made other plans to help a friend, which was true, but already done with said help. I suggested Sunday afternoon until 9pm I'd be free and we could meet up then if he wanted. He agreed and in fact apologized again about the delay in his response and that he "will be better now, promise." I took this as a great opportunity to offer a clean slate to him. I do believe in second chances and honestly, I will give several second chances if I think a person is trying. He agreed to text Saturday to figure out plans on Sunday. Fast forward two days and I'm still waiting for our drink itinerary. I refused to text him as I'm tired of the one sided relationship crap. I gave him the whole afternoon for a meeting. Pick a time between noon and 9pm....I am beginning to think that perhaps he works for Time Warner because a Cable Guy is more reliable than he. It doesn't make me as angry any more but instead I find myself shaking my head with a scowl every time I decide to sign onto Match.com. Maybe I will take another few days off. The problem with guys on here is that they all say they are too busy to meet anyone in real life. But the problem is that eventually they'll have to meet me and make me a "real life" meeting. But if they don't have time now, they're not going to have anymore time just because we met online. Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps, they all joined monasteries and took a vow of silence and that's why I sit here waiting. Regardless, from now on, the only type of flaky guy I'm interested in laughs when I poke him in the stomach.

the end, by sean

#3 Gay bingo?

After my first match date, I decided to give the website a cooling off period of a few days. So, Thursday night I accepted an invitation from a friend of mine (X) to attend a breast cancer fundraiser/cocktail party. I'm still not sure whether we were for or against the cancer as it was unclear through the events, but the open bar provided for quite a nice evening either way. The party snacks of tiny burger sliders gave me great nutrition but also a terrific grease trail down my sweater which I hid by strategically holding my cocktail glass across my stomach as if my arm were in a cast. After we had exhausted the open bar, I mean, once we had contributed all that we could to breast cancer, X and I headed to a gay bar in the village. Upon arrival, we were given numbers on a sticker which we were to put on like cattle. As gay bars tend to feel like a meat market anyway, I felt this was overkill. The numbers were for a game. Apparently, if you liked someone, you wrote their number on a note signed with your number and put it in a mailbox from which the numbers were called over microphone by the host every 15 minutes. This was apparently the best way to include my worst childhood experiences into one festive game. They managed to combine bingo, dodge ball, and 2nd grade valentine swap with the already terrifying world of gay flirting. To add to this anxiety, I was about to learn a very valuable lesson which is as follows: NEVER go to a gay bar with a cute Twink (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twink). This rule especially applies when you yourself are continuously referred to as some type of gay river animal, which has something to do with your refusal to wax your chest. Sure, you may be great friends with the twinky boy wonder, but next to him, you will always appear to be a troll. Not the cute trolls with the peculiar jewel in their belly buttons and soft caress-able hair, but instead, the kind of troll that throw goats off of bridges.
As I met a few of X's friends, I kept catching the eye of an attractive guy just a few feet from where we were standing. I made the mistake of motioning to X that I found this guy attractive. X flew into action and the guy froze knowing exactly what was about to happen and I rolled my eyes accepting my fate that I was to be the awkward friend who just got caught talking about the cute boy who is now being introduced to me. We shook hands (carefully, of course, as I was still cradling a drink over my hamburger stained sweater) and just as X opened his mouth to start the topic which was to spark our romance, the cute guy turned his back to me and doused the spark with a very shapely but cold shoulder. A little stunned by that reaction, we retreated to pose by the bar. Also, we were a little low on fluids and figured I could get the attention of the cute bartender to order our drinks. Finally, here was someone who at least was forced to talk to me  and had no way out. I made a joke about his number "69" bingo sticker and was in. Well, that is until X turned around to say "merci" quietly as he took his drink from 69 boy. Before I could say, "zut alors," 69 was plugged into twinky town and began asking questions in french to which the non french speaking X couldn't respond. This didn't seem to halt any continuation and instead I found myself talking to myself translating everything that was being said.
X: "how much?"
69: "quatorze."
X: "huh? hmmm....hmmm."
Me: "14...it's 14...look at me...look at me!"
69: "it's 14." adding a wink and a smile to X for good measure.
The pseudo annoying thing is that X doesn't notice or care for any of this attention as he's dealing with his own confusing relationship trauma right now. I feel like saying, "if you're leg is broken, then why are you on the field?...look at my legs! They're ready! Put me in coach! Put me in!"
So the bartender turns back to his work and we turn our focus back on the host of the evening NOT announcing bingo mail for ME. When X re-joined me after collecting his bingo mail, a very cute guy had just parked next to me at the bar. As luck would have it, he was a friend of one of X's friends and we were about to get an introduction. I waited patiently and positioned myself directly across from him in the introduction cube as he shook hands with X. Being a great friend, X immediately cut his intro short to say, "and this is my friend Sean." Finally, it was my turn. Before I could extend my hand the 2 feet to shake his, he lifted his arm curiously and waved at me. I waved back which felt awkward considering we were so close. The warm handshake, cheek kiss and hug greeting the others around me made me wonder what he was afraid of with me. Was I the sick kid in a leper colony? I raised an eyebrow and scrunched my nose in the thought of my arm falling off as he gripped my hand, but thankfully he had turned his attention to anything else in the bar but me before finishing mumbling "Hi," so he didn't see this unattractive expression of mine. With that, I finished my drink and we called it a night.
I think I have a few things to learn from this. I normally don't go to gay bars looking for dates and instead go to have fun with my friends. Is it possible that I emit a hormone that other gays pick up on when I'm on the prowl and are thus turned off by it or perhaps guys are more attracted to somebody that they can't have in the case of X who is clearly still in love with his last boyfriend and not looking for anything at the bar? Or is it just that I shouldn't spill food on my sweater before I go out? This is a universal mystery. There are two rules to take from this:
1.) Be yourself and stop comparing yourself to others and 2.) Never leave my house without a Shout Wipe.
the end, by sean

#1 Intro to Gayting...

Being a gay man and dating isn't as easy as one might think. There are so many options for gay guys and straight guys are constantly bemoaning the fact that it must be great to be gay because there are so many options to meet other guys for sex. They of course aren't bemoaning the fact that they want other guys (most of them at least), but are bemoaning the ease at which we can obtain the sex. Let's be honest, they're spot on. If you're a gay man in the 21st century, you're leaps and bounds ahead of our grandfathers in the 50's who spent most of their time loitering in parks after dark or toe tapping their way under the stall in a public restroom. Well, that is of course, if your grandfather was gay. If he wasn't gay, then he was probably drinking. Today, however, we can log onto manhunt, justguys, adam4adam, gay.com, and craigslist if desperate measures are called for. On your phone you have access to GPS oriented gay tracking devices like Grindr, Scruff, and BoyAhoy just in case you have the desire to see who else is up at 3am in your neighborhood "looking." Yes, these are all well evolved options for the new technology equipped and on-the-go gay, but do any of us actually want to meet our future boyfriend in this way? I don't know about anyone else, but meeting someone on a site intended to make finding sex easier AND more convenient gives me a bigger trust complex than Maria Shriver when she sees a Maid. 
All of this being said, I am a 27 year old relatively attractive single gay man living in New York City....who is lonely. I love my life. I love my friends. I'm happy. It's just that I'd like to share it with someone. That's who I am. This is what I'm doing: This blog is meant to record my experiences as a gay man on a mission to take dating seriously..........

#2 These bruises aren't just emotional....

I had my first Match.com date on Saturday night. My date, who will be referred to as "Long Island" (pronounced Long-guylind) came across as very nice and really interesting via email. We had no trouble navigating the sometimes awkward road that leads to the phone number and subsequent night out for a drink. It went fast from the first email to the actual date night. Fast is good because the last thing that I want is for the budding relationship to stagnate and die in a pile of pointless emails. The point is to meet someone, so let's meet. Besides, chemistry between two people doesn't necessarily come through without the face to face meeting. And I'd much rather get to know a person as they talk than read a heavily edited and revised email that makes them sound perfect. I assume that they are revising and editing as this is exactly what I do. If I were to simply write in the stream of conscious that I speak in, the email would exceed the maximum character count and reveal run-on sentences that began with my job and ended with my thoughts on interior design with a smattering of apple dumplings and Nancy Pelosi wedged between.
So, Saturday arrived and we spent the day texting about where and when we would meet up. Long Island had bragged that he worked for a high end concierge company and was being promoted to the head of nightlife, so I suggested that he would probably know a quiet bar where we could relax with a glass of wine and talk better than I would. He accepted the challenge and at 10pm, I found myself walking into a swanky, upscale hotel bar on the north side of Washington Square Park. Worming my way through the maze of little black dresses and ex-frat boys in sleek tailored pants, I immediately felt I'd be discovered as the poor kid from Ohio walking into the country club afraid that at any minute I'd be asked to pick up a tray and "get back to work." Taking a deep breath and ordering a glass of wine from the hipster bartender with a precision-cut ragged beard, I searched the crowded and noisy bar for my date. On a side note, a friend of mine told me that Long Island might be bad at his job since he didn't follow my specifications for a place to meet (See above "quiet bar"). I excused this as I assumed he was trying to impress me with this hip place.
A few sips into my wine (yes, I was sipping now as I had shot-gunned a glass of wine before leaving my house in a frantic state of nervousness), Long Island appeared at the opposite end of the bar. I recognized him almost immediately as I had looked at his "model" shots so many times on his profile. As the sea of social elite parted, the man that ate the model in the pictures rushed over to delicately hug and kiss me on the cheek. Now, it's not that I have a problem with the weight he had gained since those pictures were taken. But 30 pounds didn't just happen yesterday and all of my pictures are recent. I feel like it's product misrepresentation. "I ordered a cheeseburger. Why did you bring me a basket of kittens?"
This honestly wasn't the biggest issue for me. It was that I felt slightly conned by his personality, too. He had been so interested in finding out about me via email that I assumed our conversation would be a give and take too. It became immediately apparent as we sat to have a drink together that we weren't a match as he remembered nothing about me from our emails. I began asking him about himself which sparked a seminar on how great his life is. Occasionally, I interjected with a sarcastic joke to which his surprising reaction was to hit me in the shoulder while shouting, "Shut uuuuup! ohmygodihateyou" while simultaneously going in for a flirty grab of my leg. I sat in stunned silence as this process seemed to repeat itself each time I spoke. This is when I began planning my escape and missed most of the last 10 minutes of his monologue on his fabulousness in his old modeling career. After spending over an hour together, I decided that I had put in the appropriate amount of time for the date, so I told him I needed to go home although I had every intention of running to the straight bar that my best friend bar-tends at for a very strong margarita. Long Island insisted on walking me to the subway, which was needless as my planned margarita was just a few blocks away. As we hugged goodnight, I knew I wouldn't see him again. He was a very nice guy, but I felt more like he'd be the gay best friend I'd need to tell me how "fierce" I looked rather than be the one I'm dressing up for. Also, there was still something bothering me about him looking so utterly different than his pictures. I don't want to be shallow but I feel like it was a breach of trust from the very start having misrepresented himself. The next day I told him that I didn't think we would work out and he wished me good luck. This felt like the better way to let him down than just punching him and saying, "Shut up! ohmygodihateyou...no seriously, shut up, please."
the end, by sean