Recently, the idea of a relationship has been top of mind. Being in therapy and getting to my “old” twenties has made me question why I haven’t been in a relationship. Moreso, the prospect of finding someone I can fall in love with and be vulnerable around seems like something reserved for cheesey movies and people with visible abdomen muscles.

Finding someone that can get your heart racing but also go to the Container Store with you and not lie, cheat, steal or worse…get fat seems impossible to find. I might as well be hunting unicorns. So for the sake of argument I will sharpen my mother of pearl arrows and bring a virgin to a secluded meadow and get my hunt on.

At a young age, without gay role models in solid relationships (and coincidentally no straight role models either), I made peace with the fact that I might die alone. However, the prospect of being “lonely gay uncle” at family affairs, weddings and holidays has given me a renewed energy in my search for Mr. Stays Around-Loves Me for Me (It’s a hyphenate because he’s fancy.).

Although I’m searching I have made some observations I’d like to share with you:

1.) Whore or Nothing: There are two groups of gay men. Whores and Prudes. It’s the Madonna/Whore dichotomy played out like political parties. Party 1: Guys that are seemingly sex obsessed and seek intimacy and validation in casual sex encounters. Party 2: The romantic guys who will only consider talking about sex if it’s the fourth date. No one group has the right answer. We should value and appreciate sex but we shouldn’t deny that it’s omnipresent in gay culture. Let’s face it…we all need love.

2.) What is Love? Baby Don’t Hurt Me. As men we are not raised to be in touch with our emotions. Where are there positive role models of gay relationships? Celebrities? No! The Media? No! Worse yet…you meet so many gay men in open relationships. I won’t deny that they might work. But shouldn’t a relationship be more than shared property and having a permanent plus one? If you’re expending the same energy seeking out sexual partners as you did when you were single…is it really a committed relationship?

3.) Laundry List Thinking: I’ve done the online dating thing. Any who says they haven’t is a big ole liar. When you look at some profiles of guys they say things like:

 Fit, attractive and sensitive guy seeking a guy who is masculine, with a good body, who is intelligent, emotionally available who can do magic, turn lead into gold and loves dogs.

This begs the questions…does your Prince Charming exist? Moreso, would that perfect person be interested in you?
Call me crazy but I don’t think there is a perfect specimen out there waiting for me. Dr. Kenneth George, in his book Mr. Right is Out There, says that gay men should limit their criteria for rejection to 3 bare essentials. There is a difference between Mr. Right and Prince Charming. I subscribe to this belief. I will share that I did make a list of qualities once of what I wanted in a guy. I met him and it was astounding. But over the course of our errsatz relationship, he showed me how emotionally unavailable he was and how we had vastly different views on relationships.
4.) You’re Not Meg Ryan, honey! Let’s face it. As gay men, we are denied that foundation of dating and intimacy before sex is on the table. You don’t see moms driving their sons and their boyfriends to Jillians for a tween date. The first time we get to explore our secret gay feelings is in secret locations which is often when sex is on the table. So we indulge our libidos and have sex on the table. We don’t learn the slow burn of letting intimacy develop. We don’t learn how to be authentic with emotions and say, “I like you.” Worse yet, we don’t know how to handle that emotional frankness. When you add to this internalized homophobia, emotional baggage and the whole host of other things that warp our minds we’re all 10 year olds at heart.
We’re trying to figure out how to find and show love. We end up looking to romantic movies for paradigms or signals on how to make things work. But let’s face it they aren’t helping straight women. Also, gay relationships are different. Straight people don’t debate if they should delete their Manhunt profiles, throw out sex toys from past relationships or have threeways.

5.) The Karmic Twist Last but not least, let’s not forget that in our gay lives we might sleep with 10 or 10,000 other men. That being said…they will eventually meet other gay men. Most of the damage done to the gay community is guy on guy crime. You stop calling some guy and he gets broken up about it and does that to someone else and then you end up doing it to someone who ends up dating him. It comes full circle. That’s why we need to try and be nice to each other and replace all the jaded and bitchy behavior with rainbows and unicorns!

I don’t know the answers to How or Where to find a relationship. But, I am acknowledging the Why and letting that sink in because who doesn’t want a snuggle buddy to watch True Blood with? Hopefully my pretentious pontifications will help someone be a little more frank and honest with themselves and change the way they treat others.

Is everyone right about LA? Is everyone rude, fake and an out-and-out douchebag?

I have lived in many major US cities – New York, DC and San Francisco. In adjusting to Los Angeles, I’m loathe to agree that it’s riddled with douchebags, starfuckers and fake people. But that might be because I drank the Kool-aid.

I don’t think that people are any more rude, fake or selfish in LA than in other major cities. I just think that in LA it is more visible. Despite the overwhelming amount of land, square footage and opportunities it seems people still aren’t happy. It seems that their unfinished dreams channel themselves into bad behavior.

Let’s face it many of the people that move to LA come from small town Middle America or the overly-polite South with big stars in their eyes. Everyone wants a piece of the Hollywood pie and no one wants to share. Since the demand is so high for jobs in Hollywood people can be hired at slave wages and treated even worse than the meager wages they’re paid. There are also thousands of people competing for the same part, agent or 3X5 section of the sidewalk. That being said, that’s not really an excuse for bad behavior.

Own your shit, people. It’s your decision to be in Hollywood and struggle. It wasn’t the woman in line in front of you at Starbucks’ decision for you to move to LA to become an actor. It’s not the family in the car that you’re cutting off’s fault that you can’t afford your car payments. If you will forgive how trite I am about to be there are three P’s I can’t stand. Presumption, pretention and poor manners.

Presumption (See also: entitlement) Just because you want something and can get it doesn’t mean it’s yours. I don’t care if you’re a studio head or their fluffer, I pay just as much for my gym membership so I can use a machine if I get there first. Whether you’re driving a Bentley or a 1981 Sedan if someone arrives at a parking space first it’s theirs.

Pretention (See also: starfucking) There’s a cult of celebrity. Being this close to celebrities you want to talk to them, talk about them and possibly even touch them. You may be the guy who gives Rhianna her coffee…but that doesn’t make you Rhianna.
I’m going to go on the record and say that NOTHING makes you better than any other person. You could have a better body, more money or more connections but that doesn’t make you better than anyone. I will admit, I think I’m smarter and funnier than a lot of people. But that’s not a value statement. I’m still chock full of flaws and if the zombie apocalypse came I might not survive. Keep that in mind.

Poor Manners (See also: Being a raging douche) It takes less energy to say excuse me, I’m sorry or to hold the elevator than to ignore someone or the fact that you’re being a passive aggressive prick. There’s a reason you shift in place when you’re rude to someone. It’s called guilt and it’s an evolutionary reaction to keep you from being a self-involved douche.

It may seem that no good deed goes unpunished. Horrible human beings seem to be thriving. I like to think that the little things we do help change the world and keep us out of hell.

Why not just treat people like you want to be treated. After all in Hollywood, yesterday’s janitor could be tomorrow’s award winning screenwriter or director. Worse yet, they could be related to someone famous. So if for self-preservation alone…don’t be a douche.

A Gay Man’s Guide to Heterosexual Dating

Throughout all of history, by which I mean the last 20 or 30 years, men and women have tried to decode the opposite sex. Whether for sex, marriage, or love pop psychologists and self-help fluffers have tried to shine a light on the mysteries of the sexes. There have been:

• Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood : Norwood reveals…SHOCKER! You cannot change men.
• Men are from Mars Women are from Venus by John Gray: Homosexual divorcee Gray reveals the secret to a successful marriage to a woman. ..acknowledge you are different genders.
• He’s Just Not that Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo: Two TV writers take a few too many pages to state the obvious….if he isn’t calling he isn’t interested.

I hate to break it to you but these are not magical tomes that hold the secrets to dating. These are basically written to capitalize on women’s hopes to decode men and male hopes to get inside the ladies.

To counter that, I offer you one simple secret that will change your life: Men are Assholes and Women are Stupid. It may sound really offensive at first but take a second to think it through.

Men are selfish, horny, and willing to lie, cheat, and steal for sex. They will sleep with your sister, forget your birthday, and be ambivalent to your existence.
Women withhold sex in the hopes of controlling men and getting a commitment, they imbue simple scenarios with emotions and fantastical possibilities, and take advice about men from OTHER WOMEN?!?

It may not be PC, it may not sound sweet on paper, but in my many years of dating men and women and being in the confidence of both parties I figured I would share my findings. I will warn you that I am not a doctor, psychologist, or even a TV writer but I am a student of the human condition and hell it’s the X century and I have a blog.

For more check out:
Part 1: Men: They Shoot Pigs Don’t They?