my life (and probably yours) explained in a paragraph

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so tonight i'm sipping my cocktail while trolling around some taoist website trying to find the secret to that elusive yin-yang balance in all things, and i come across the following:


yeah, thanks for clearing that up.

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[in the spirit of balance, i suppose i should mention that this was followed by a similar-yet-opposite paragraph explaining how an excess of yin energy compels lesbians to collect cats and buy subaru four-wheel-drive vehicles, but that's a post for somebody else's blog.]

the six-date rule

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the subject of how to find a decent boyfriend seems to come up a lot in my gay life; for whatever reason, guys (especially younger ones) see me as some sort of expert in this regard, even though (a) my own relationship history is spotty at best; and (b) most of the boys who've ever hit me with this shit haven't known me for much longer than the hour it took for us to get back to their place and rip our clothes off.

whatever--if i've heard it once, i've heard it a thousand goddam times. either it's

i'm so over one-night-stands. i'd give anything to be able to find one guy who actually wants to date--but no, all anybody in this city seems to want is sex for a night.

or else,

all my boyfriends have been bastards--i'd give anything to find a guy who'd just love me for me.

and back when i was new and actually believed people were serious when they said shit like this, i gave the subject some real time and thought.

i looked around at the vast wasteland of gay "relationships" i saw all about me, slept with countless unsatisfied singles and boyfriends and asked them lots of questions afterwards gathered data in the field, processed my results and, as a result of all this rigorous research, devised the six-date rule.

it was simple, it was good, and to this day i have no doubt it works.

problem is, nobody for whom i've ever laid it out--not one--has ever been able to pull it off.

the conversation usually would go something like this. i'd ask:

you really serious about finding a workable boyfriend?

god, yes--you have no idea.

i can give you a foolproof way to focus your search, weed out the flakes, find that one guy in a thousand. and it'll work, guaranteed.

omigod, tell me.

i'll tell you, but you won't do it.

yes i will. i'll do anything--just tell me!

ok, here's what you do: next time you meet a guy you think might be a keeper, ask him out, but keep it simple--coffee or something--and resolve to yourself, no matter how hot he is, that you're not gonna sleep with him for at least six dates.

six dates?! you want me to tell him that?

no, i said tell yourself that. him? tell him you like to take your time, get to know somebody before things get physical.

but won't that scare him away?

most likely, yeah--if he's like 80% of the guys out there, he'll run like hell when he finds out he's not getting laid after coffee, and you'll never see him again.

yeah, because men are such pigs.

not always--the guy might not be ready for a relationship, or he might be in a relationship right now, or he might be interested in a relationship, but not with you. regardless of their reasons, there's one thing they all have in common: the 80% who bail at this point see you as nothing more than a one-nighter.

god, i don't know if my ego can take that rejection.

that's not rejection, babe, that's information--you've just saved yourself a lot of time. trust me, if you think you can be "rejected" by someone who doesn't even know you, you don't have the stomach for what comes next.

what do you mean?

well, let's say you've successfully narrowed the field, found one of the 20% who might actually have some interest in getting to know you for real. your second date with him should be something more substantial--dinner in a quiet restaurant maybe. coffee was the audition; this is the callback.

so this is when we start to get to know each other and the magic starts to happen, huh?

chances are, no. 80% of the time, this is the beginning of that gradual getting-acquainted process during which one or both of you realizes it's not gonna work--or when the guy who thought you were kidding when you said during your coffee-date you wouldn't sleep with him 'til you got to know him realizes you were serious, and bails like the others.

god, this sounds hard.

of course it's hard--if it was easy, you'd have met your soulmate while on your knees at the zone last weekend. this is grownup stuff, babe--no guts, no glory.

ok, fine--what comes next?

what comes next is actually making it through date three with some guy without either one or both of you bailing, or without sleeping with him and losing your objectivity. and lemme tell you now--you could go on literally dozens of dates in this town without getting to this point.

[gulp]

but if you make it to, say, date four or five with a guy using this strategy--and remember, the chances are overwhelming with any given guy that you won't--you're into semi-serious territory. now we're talking about the pain of rejection, because you're no longer just bodies to each other, you're people. for a lot of guys, the only thing harder than being rejected at this stage is having to do the rejecting themselves--it makes a first-date rejection seem like child's play.

and if we get to this point?

well, if you've made it this far without becoming girlfriends, there should be this really delicious, well-earned sexual tension between the two of you, enhanced by the fact that you've actually taken the trouble to find out what his values and life goals are before you know what his ass tastes like. this is rare and sweet--draw it out as long as you can.

so hold out for the full six dates?

look, six is just a number--this process i've been describing is about having the guts to weed out the unsuitables before you offer up your heart and your dick for the taking. if you've done that right, it really doesn't matter whether you get naked on date three, five, six or ten.

so after all that work i'll finally have a boyfriend, right?

no, all that means is you're now ready to find out if you're sexually compatible.

if i haven't lost 'em before now, this usually does it.

wella #57, "dark golden brown"

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if you had told me last week i'd be siding with abercrombie & fitch on any issue whatsoever this week, i'd have sprayed you with the spittle of my scornful laughter.

but, alas, you'd have been right.

seems some lil' ol' gal [this happened in oklahoma, so i'm using the local parlance] applied for work at one of their stores, only to be told that the hijab she insisted upon wearing--you know, that headscarf them muslims make their womenfolk wear--was, to say the least, incompatible with their "look" policy and thus did not fit the store's image.

so what did she do? well naturally, this being america and all, she sued--i mean, how dare they interfere with her right to work wherever the hell she wants and on whatever terms she sees fit?

while i'm almost tempted to throw abercrombie to the wolves for being stupid enough to tell her the real reason they weren't hiring her hijab'd, ethnic ass to work in their lily-white store--thus handing her the loaded gun with which she turned around and shot 'em--i ultimately have to go with what i believe is right and fair in situations like this.

[i would also question why such a devoutly-religious muslim would want to work for the kind of decadently western company that would run an ad such as the one i've featured at the top of this post, but i guess that's a topic for another day.]

see, i'm one of those people who believe that, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, business-owners should, within limits prescribed by our anti-discrimination laws, be able to hire and fire whomever the hell they feel will best serve the needs of their businesses--and this one is so far beyond the goddam pale that it should've immediately been thrown out of court.

and lest you think i'm merely some ranting, angry middle-aged white guy who's never found himself in such a situation as did this young lady, i offer up for your consideration the following story.

picture it: west hollywood, 1991

shortly after hitting town at the advanced age of 34 to begin my long-delayed life of gay debauchery, i applied for a job as a waiter at a little sidewalk cafe in the heart of boystown called 'the greenery'--the kinda place where the waiters wore tight white shorts, matching polos and tiny green aprons. there was an after-bar shift available, which seemed like a good way to both make a little money and put myself out there.

when i handed him my application, the manager looked me up and down, said "yeah, you'll do." as i started to thank him, he cut me off with

"as long as you understand you gotta lose the gray between now and the time you start."

it took me a minute to realize he was talking about my hair.

wow, blatant, outrageous, ugly ageism staring me in the face. time to work myself up into a fine froth of righteous indignation and call a lawyer, right?

nah. i thought about it a minute, did the pleasure-pain equation, called a recent hookup who was a stylist at jose eber, picked up a toothbrush at the drugstore and the requisite hair-color crap he instructed me to get at the beauty-supply place, stopped by his apartment for a lesson in the subtle art of male hair coloration [for which he was compensated handsomely, if you get my drift], and breezed into my first day of work at my new job looking natural as all hell if i do say so myself.

did i want to adapt to my new boss's standards? not particularly--i had always prided myself on being a minimal-upkeep kinda guy, and this sudden new hair-color regimen was gonna be nothing if not an ongoing high-maintenance pain in the ass.

the more important question is, did i dispute his right to make the demand in the first place?

hell, no. it was his business and he knew what made him money; the only question i had to grapple with was, did i want to work there badly enough to comply with his demand?

ultimately, i decided the pluses outweighed the minuses and did as he asked.

and please don't tell me that, in the overall workplace scheme of things, the above plaintiff's issue now is more important than mine was then --for my money, both are private concerns and shouldn't be corporate america's.

he has crabs, don't trust him

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[god, i wish i'd saved more of these--there have been so many over the years]


trolling through craigslist a couple years back whilst enjoying a cocktail, i came across the following ad [edited for your protection]:

to which i replied

babe:

1. he probably didn't realize he had 'em when he had sex with you--it's not like anybody cultivates the little fuckers like they're prize orchids.

2. it's not like it's a difficult "disease" to get rid of--hit rite-aid tomorrow, find the "rid" display [hell, the one at santa monica & la brea prolly has a big spotlighted pyramid of the shit right inside the front door], drop your 7 bucks, do the treatment and wham! you're a virgin again.

3. keep in mind that if you had sex with anybody right after you had sex with this boy [and we all know you did], you most likely passed the gift onto them without realizing it and they'll be cursing you tomorrow just like you're cursing him tonight [and if you're lucky, you'll all run into each other at rite-aid].

4. in closing, may i--a seasoned veteran who, unlike you, understands and has long since accepted the pitfalls of casual sex--just say that a case of the crabs is a laughably small price to pay for the opportunity to get naked with the boy in those pictures.

count your blessings, comb your pubes and get over yourself, cupcake.

as is usual with my helpful advice to strangers, i didn't hear one grateful word of appreciation in return. sometimes i think i'm just a lonely voice in the goddam wilderness, goddammit.