The Better Offer

Stats: 29, 5’8”, brown/hazel, Cheltenham
Where: East London, E1
Pre-date rating: 7/10

My date has just got back from New York. I know this because he mentions it every five sentences. The shimmering neon is still visible in his starstruck eyes, and has blinded him to the fact that my own glazed over some time ago.

I tune back in to hear him telling me, in a rainy Tuesday monotone, about a go-go bar he went to in the East Village and quickly zone out again, my eye wandering over his shoulder to someone standing in the distance. That someone looks familiar. Hotly familiar. We catch each other’s eye and stare a millisecond too long. I remember. Why, we went on a date only the other week. As I recall, he turned up looking hotter than hell, ate a burger, spat most of it over me and then left me the morning after with an oniony taste in my mouth I couldn’t shake for days. So far, so normal.

The gay world is too small, I sigh. I decide to refocus, however, on my current date, who is in full flow about a carriage ride through Central Park. It’s not that New York is boring – it’s one of my most favourite places on Earth. Yet my date is recalling his trip with all the vigour of a bank teller warning me the next direct debit to leave my account will send me overdrawn. I hold in a yawn so hard that my lungs start to sizzle. My phone buzzes. A text message. Guess who?

“You look bored. Fancy a drink?”

I glance over to where my observer is standing. He looks mischievous. He raises his glass and gives me a lopsided grin.

I turn back to my date and start to weigh things up. I’ve not been great company. I’m unresponsive. He deserves better. Plus, he picked his nose and wiped it under the table when he thought I wasn’t looking. The SMS intruder, on the other hand, looks a lot more fun.  I’m no pushover, though. Let’s make him work for it. Plus, it’s my round and I don’t want to look stingy.

At the bar I reply:
“Well, look who it is. I’m actually having an outstanding time, thanks.”

Quick as a flash, he’s back at me:
“You’re full of it. Your eyelids are drooping. Again – do you fancy a drink?”

I’m so excited, I almost fancy I can taste onion in my mouth again. But I’m not a ball of knitting, to be picked up whenever he’s bored. I haven’t heard from him since our date. And so I reply:
“Maybe I do. You never called.”

In a heartbeat comes the retort:
“Neither did you. Consider this the call. What’s your answer?”

Touché. I return to my date smiling to myself, but knowing I’m beaten. That’s a good answer. The cocksure bastard.

But how to extricate myself from the king of Manhattan? We sip our drinks for another 5 minutes until I spot my date stifling a yawn and see my opportunity.

“I’m a bit tired,” I say. “Do you mind if we call it a night?”

My date nods a little too eagerly – clearly he’s not head over heels in love with me either – and we leave the pub, the texter’s eyes burning into us. Out of the corner of my eye I see him reach for his phone. Ideally, I’m aiming to be standing in front of him before he can even type “WTF?”

As I say my goodbyes to the Big Apple enthusiast, I feel my phone buzz angrily in my pocket. And then again. Eventually I see the date into a cab and victoriously turn back to the pub, texting the words that will get me my ‘Access All Areas’ pass deep into the fires of Hell:
“Yes. Pint. See you in 5.”

Post-date rating: 4 for the guy I started out on the date with. A solid 8 for the one I ended it with.
Date in one sentence: If you can’t love the one you want, love the one you’re with – unless someone hotter is standing in the corner.

A truncated version of this post first appeared in GT magazine, where I write a monthly column about my dating experiences. Find out when the next issue is due on the GT website.

Awkward! Three situations guaranteed to give you that ‘morning after’ cringe

We’ve all been there. You wake up, slightly disoriented, amid bed linen which feels unfamiliar. Strange sounds emanate from a mass not too far from you. As you open each eye slowly, cursing them for the amount of time they’re taking to adjust to the light, you realise you’ve done it again – you’re back at theirs, for the first time. It’s the morning after the night before.

You may have no regrets at all at the dawn after a night of passion, and the person lying next to you may be the one you’ve been dreaming of, but even if it’s a one-nighter, there’s still plenty of opportunity for mortification. Behold a mere 3 things you’d really want to avoid the morning after.

Messy flat
As if waking up in a strange place wasn’t bad enough, having to contend with your date’s dubious household hygiene standards can take awkwardness to a whole new level. On the nightstand, a flat glass of Diet Coke, empty food wrappers of brands you didn’t think they still made any more, and enough dust bunnies to make a life-sized model of the tornado from the Wizard of Oz.

You creep through to the bathroom only to find there must have been some industrial accident: a shower curtain in shades of green and orange never seen in nature; the remnants of what appears to have been a cat’s Jacuzzi party in the bath plughole and a toilet bowl that, were it sentient, would bring its owners to trial as war criminals.

Tip: If you’re having someone back, have a whizz round with a cloth and a bin bag. If you’re the one confronted by the mess, make sure you’re wearing rubber gloves if you plan on seeing them again.

Lack of a quick exit
If there’s one thing you want after a one-nighter (or the first of many nights), it’s the ability to beat a hasty retreat. Awkwardly dressing while they watch? Getting discovered creeping out? Opening the bedroom door to find a houseful of roommates eating breakfast and staring at you like you just fell from the sky. If you can (and are sober enough or not engrossed in ‘the moment’), pay attention to the way you get into the place, as you’re sure as hell going to want to be exiting as painlessly as possible, at twice the speed.

Tip: If confronted by stunned flatmates or, even worse, a rogue parent or sibling, pretend to be a workman who has been doing essential, erm, overnight repairs. This may mean you to have to dress in overalls for every date you go on, just in case.

Regret
We know that you’re ultra desirable and no end of bright young things would be desperate to wake up with you, but sometimes, well, you can’t guarantee that the guy at the next pillow is going to be glad to find you there.

Yes, coming face to face with someone who last night was all over you but this morning clearly preferred you with a few pints behind you. Or maybe he was caught up in the moment and now that moment has definitely come to an end.

You can usually tell if the night before won’t be turning into a happily ever after. Talking in clipped sentences; no offer of a cuppa; getting up and walking out of the room, only to come back into it showered and dressed; saying how “tired” they are and telling you the best bus routes to take home. Like they care.

Styling it out can be difficult, but just shrug and get on with it. Pull on your socks, locate your shoes and breezily say your goodbyes as you open the bedroom door, no need for whys and wherefores and number-swapping. Oh, you’ve walked into a cupboard. Never mind. Try again. Another cupboard. Crap. What did I tell you about ensuring you had a clear exit? Don’t look at him, just open the next door and walk forward. It has to be this one, right?

Tip: Hang your underwear (a sock will do – you’re not a stripper) on the handle of the door that gets you out of the bedroom so you know where to look. Make sure you hang it on the inside, too – you don’t want the rest of the household knowing your SHAME.

Coming soon: The perils of ‘waking up second’.

Sorry, ‘straight-acting’ boys, but gay stereotypes exist despite you… get over it

If you asked the average man on the street whether he could tell the difference between a gay man and a straight man, he’d probably say yes, citing a number of reasons such as differing fashion or music tastes, cultural references and mannerisms. He may even suggest that gay men behave in a more feminine manner. And, on hearing that, many gay men would be very offended. But why? Well, put simply, if you can still spot the gayness, they’ve been caught out. All that carefully executed ‘straight acting’ has come to naught.

Gay men don’t like it when their masculinity comes into question. Not all gays are effeminate, of course, but a lot are, and much of the homo world doesn’t like admitting it. We are not fond of reminders of the bad old days, you see. Once upon a time we wanted to be accepted for who we were; now we just want people to think we’re straight.

Up until the 1990s, the UK’s exposure to gay men in popular culture was largely restricted to overly-camp ‘whoopsie’ types of guys. They lived with their mothers and minced around, rolling their eyes and utterly sexless. It wasn’t a particularly flattering view, and gay commentators and tastemakers never tire of pointing out how unjust these stereotypes were on dire, nostalgic clip-compilation programmes. As a reaction to this, there began a slow trickle of movies and TV shows depicting what it meant to be a ‘modern gay’.

Queer as Folk, penned by the future saviour of Doctor Who Russell T Davies, kicked things off, and the standard seemed to be set for the next decade or so. It wasn’t unusual to see male gay characters playing football and hanging out with the boys drinking beer, most of them struggling to come to terms with how their sexuality could fit in with their life, and occasionally falling in love with their straight best friends.

Straight acting, then, moved into the mainstream. Just as the real straight guys were making doe eyes at David Beckham, discovering moisturiser and fake tan and getting in touch with their metrosexual side, the gays started to ‘man up’ and become more macho – or at least their version of it. The difference between straight and gay became increasingly difficult to spot.

One very well-known British TV actor, and beacon for the new generation of straightish gays, has openly spoken at his disappointment at the only gay role models available to him seemed feminine, bitchy and limp-wristed, that nobody seemed like him – an ordinary, straight-acting lad.

A couple of years ago, I sat in front of this very actor on an aeroplane. His ‘straight-acting’ posturing in interviews is just that – a great big act. He was just as caustic, gossipy and salacious as a lot of those gay stereotypes he’d previously decried.

The new gay ideal isn’t just to be accepted as an ‘openly gay’ man. We must now strive for further acceptance by being indistinguishable from our heterosexual equivalents. Rather than carve out our own identity, we ape theirs. Now, the new gay norm is the ‘straight-actor’ with the ultimate compliment being someone not spotting your sexuality. The ‘fems’ or ‘queeny’ guys are dismissed as outdated stereotypes firmly on the descent, but it’s a myth – they’re still everywhere, no matter how much their much butcher brothers choose to deny them.

ITV’s  commissioning of Vicious, a new sitcom featuring a dramatic, caustic  gay couple in their twilight years, has received a rather predictable reaction. Gay men desperate not to be pigeonholed have criticised the portrayal of the two lead characters as grotesque, camp stereotypes, even though played by well-respected (and gay) actors Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. “This isn’t us!” they cry. “These are not my people!”

The characters do verge on the grotesque, of course, but they are caricatures, cartoons. They’re not aiming to represent the gay community (such as it is). It isn’t pretending to hold a microscope up to homosexuality. And men like that do exist. One could almost be forgiven for thinking some of the sensitive souls taking to social media to sound the ‘gay stereotype klaxon’ have actually recognised a few traits in the characters that they themselves have been known to display. Even the butchest of gay boys has a flounce every now and again.

Leaving aside the weaknesses of the script and supporting characterisation, what few have focused on is the great thing that Vicious is a sitcom with not just gay, but gay and elderly central characters. Yes, gay men get old! It may not be the step forward into total assimilation everybody thinks they’re looking for, but it’s a step for somebody out there, somewhere.

From what I have seen on the many dating profiles or social networking sites I scour, gay men don’t want to have sex with other gay men at all – they’re just interested in straights, or at least someone who can give a good enough rendition of one, despite the very deed of having sex with another man being the least straight thing you could possibly do. They’re at pains to point out how un-gay they are in an effort to attract more men. The word ‘masculine’ is bandied about so much that it loses all meaning.

Perhaps we secretly miss the homophobia of days gone by, and are more than happy to perpetuate it among ourselves, or maybe it’s all those years of being ostracised which make the gay man strive to fit in.

Whether we’re carefully arranging ourselves into ‘tribes’ or behaving in a more traditionally masculine way to avoid ‘standing out’, we just want to belong, even if it means we have to alienate or deny the existence of everyone else along the way. And we’d rather you didn’t point out the futility or unfairness of it all while we’re doing it, thank you very much. We already know.

This post was adapted from a blog which originally appeared in The Huffington Post.

7 ways to get him to call after the first date

Getting a first date is fairly easy. Or so they tell me. But getting a first date and going on a first date are nowhere near as big a deal as the ultimate prize, the holy grail of dating, the BIG ONE: securing date number 2.

So many of us miss out on the follow-up date. They say sequels can never live up to their predecessor (mine certainly don’t), but lots of debuts fail to get a second chance to try.

Is there something you can do to smooth the path to ‘date deux’? Maybe. Here are seven for a start. (I use him throughout, but I suppose it works both ways, but I kiss boys not girls, and they do say “write what you know”. Although, I don’t really know much.)

Pay your way
You want to be treated like a prince or princess? Fine, no problem. But even William and Kate have their own wallets. Put your hand in your pocket if you want his fingers to dial your number.

Sort out your attitude to sex
Some facts: not everybody thinks having sex (or going back to theirs for a fumble and/or nakedness) is anathema to getting a second date; having sex on a first date doesn’t mean they will see you again, either. Sex after a first date is not a prize, a reward or a bargaining tool. It can turn some people off you, or be the start of the most passionate of relationships. Do not get too hung up on this. ‘Withholding’ sex (a ridiculous phrase I feel compelled to use) in the hope it will make you like someone more is ridiculous, as is ‘putting out’ for the same reason. Be relaxed and go with the flow. Yes, you can always leave your audience wanting more – but sometimes the passion takes over. Sod it, your mother will not make you wear ivory.

Be honest
If you want things to go beyond the premiere, make sure you have been as straight with your date as injunctions will allow. If you’ve done a bit of bragging, inventing or boasting to seem like a bigger catch, well more fool you, but it needn’t mean you can’t pull back from it. Daters aren’t stupid, though – we can tell a bull-shitter from twenty paces (make it ten if sober). Bigging yourself up is OK – making it up isn’t so great.

Get it in the diary
If you can feel something between you – a spark, a lightning bolt, whatever – then why not talk about some events you’re going to be at or nights out you’ll be having and see if he might be there, or if he’d like to come along? I mean, y’know, you’re going to have to keep this casual as it’s date 1 and all, but if you just drop a few suggestions, he might remember you when he thinks about his plans for the weekend. Then, when he’s there, you can do your best to work your magic.

Keep it light
The chat between you on your date is the major thing – it’s what you’ll be doing most of apart from a) going to the bar b) scurrying to the toilet to text friends or c) smooching (hopefully). So the chat has to be grade-A quality. Keep it witty, bright and breezy. Good-natured, flirtatious badinage is your aim. Leave the heavier stuff like family travails, politics (I’m not saying be shallow but gloss over any potential political differences which may cause conflict), work woes and all that stuff to dates 3 and 4, when you’ve already charmed the pants off them. Believe me, I have tried going in with ‘agenda’ chat and found myself staring at a rainy kerb waiting for the bus home with a phone quieter than a post-apocalyptic library. And hey, do plenty of listening, too – you’re not at the hustings.

Don’t think about it
You know the saying “a watched pot never boils”? Well that’s a load of old baloney, and the person who said it has a hell of a lot of kitchenware with holes in the bottom. But, there is something to be said for having a relaxed attitude when it comes to the follow-up call. Don’t end the date with “So… I’ll hear from you soon, right?” or “Are you going to call me?” – just end with a goodbye, a peck (or more if you’re feeling that way inclined) and when you part, thank them for a great evening and wish them a safe journey home. If it’s gone well and you’re feeling positive, you’ve probably done all you can. No amount of mind control is going to change the outcome. And you know what? He might just call. Or…

Be the one to call
Why wait? Give it two or three days after the first date and send a text, smoothing the way for that phone call. Why not? Nobody ever got anywhere by waiting for something that might never come. Why sit at home wondering why he hasn’t called? Don’t worry about coming across as ‘pushy’ or a ‘stalker’ – he may be shy and really glad you got in touch. What’s the worst that can happen? A refusal? Whatever, there’ll be others. Don’t die wondering. Put yourself in control. If it’s going to turn into anything serious, it’s right where you’ll want to be.

(And, yes, I know it’s not strictly speaking seven ways to get him to call you.)

Brief Encounter: The Boy in the Apple Store

The Apple Store is a strange place. It does its very best to pretend it isn’t a shop. There are no tills ringing or sour-faced shopgirls stacking shelves with garish product or hurrying along pretending they’re too busy to help you, no groaning rails or higgledy-piggledy stacks of boxes. The Apple Store, especially the one in Covent Garden, London, is more of an ‘experience’. Smiling pretty boys in skinny jeans loiter at the doorway with eager smiles and eyes so wide they can only be the result of a recently dropped ecstasy pill. They have youth, enthusiasm and a handy line in charming condescension. You could be excused for mistaking it for a bar or café, not a global corporation desperate to get its hands on your hard-earned cash – the more noughts at the end, the better.

But where there is wireless, hardware, oak beams and credit cards, there is retail; and here I am, wandering around it on a Saturday, looking for nothing in particular. I’m glad my own MacBook Pro, which wheezes like an asthmatic vuvuzela every time I turn it on, is at home and not here to see the sleek, steel-encased upstarts that will one day replace it both in my affections and upon my knee. The place is crammed with Apple fanatics in all shapes and sizes and with every variety of facial hair imaginable. Ageing computer geeks, tight-skinned students, emo girls, hipster grandmas, confused middle-class parents rife for a fleecing by their offspring and me, peeking over everybody’s shoulder to get a look-in at a machine so I can check my email, as my ever-unreliable phone is about to gasp its last in battery power.

I’m having no luck, so decide to move upstairs to find a free computer. As I make my way to the staircase, I notice three younger people – two guys and a girl – standing at the foot of it and looking my way. One guy is whispering in the ear of the other guy and looking at me. It’s making me a bit uncomfortable, but I carry on – I’ll leave being afraid of youths until I’m elderly. They’re dressed in that young way where nothing seems to fit them properly and one of the guys looks like he hasn’t taken his baseball cap off since he was a toddler. They are, of course, all beautiful in their own way. I walk past them and start up the steps. I only manage two or three paces before I feel someone rush past me and stop right in front of me. It is Guy 1, the whisperer, sans baseball cap. I don’t have much time to take him in, but he is young, cute and staring quizzically at me.

“Excuse me?” he says, in an accent I immediately recognise as French. By stopping, I’ve already excused him, I guess, so I don’t reply. He goes on: “Are you gay?”
I’m confused. It’s not often I get asked this question in public, let alone in the middle of the day. And even though we’re in the middle of the uber-liberal, peacenik outpost of sun-kissed California that is the Apple Store, I’m wary. Why would he be asking? Is he a homo or a homophobe? Is he going to kiss me or punch me on the nose?

I can’t think of what to say, so I say nothing. His eyes search my face, desperate for an answer. I eventually say “Sorry?” to fill some stale air.
He begins to falter, before continuing: “It’s just that you are very good-looking.”
He pauses for a second, bows his head in embarrassment and looks like he’s about to say something else. He doesn’t, however, and darts off, away from me, just as I manage to blurt out a stunned “Thanks”.

Thanks? Is that it? The best I can do? It’s not as if I get told this every day. Not since my adoring grandmothers died have I received compliments on the way my face is set out with such enthusiasm (not to mention unsolicited). How is one supposed to react when someone compliments one’s looks? And why would they be doing it right here, right now? Does he want me? What for? Should I be flattered? I am more than flattered. Would I feel the same if he hadn’t been such a mouthwatering proposition himself?

I start to make my way back down the stairs, I don’t know why. To get his number, maybe? To ask if he’d like mine? Instead, I notice him leave the store. As he does, he gives me a backward glance, full of mortification and missed opportunity.

And then he’s gone. Shit.

Guest post: Why my gay brother and I are friends

I know what you’re thinking. Am I really getting to the stage where I don’t even write my own posts? Is it about to get all Britney-esque, my contributions reduced to a bit of lip-synching and backing vocals? Well, no. Of course not. But here is a post about that age-old partnership that can withstand even the biggest tremors life can throw at it: a girl and the gay best friend. Sure, it’s a stereotype, but stereotypes exist for a reason.

The author of this guest post, Miranda Santiago, is a psychology major and freelance writer. She enjoys writing about dating topics, appealing specifically to relationships involving Latin women. Apart from writing, Miranda enjoys windsurfing, playing the piano and cheering on her favourite baseball teams.

There’s a new study that’s been published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology that claims it has explained the reason that straight women and gay men are friends.

If you’re like me, you probably cocked your head a bit when you read that. I was browsing the web when I saw this study making news all over the place. I didn’t know at first what it was, but something about the headlines made me uncomfortable, like a silent tugging on the back of my mind. I filed it away.

For those not in-the-know, Texas Christian University’s research essentially based itself around dating advice and trust. Their conclusion was that gay men are generally friends with straight women because it’s more conducive to their dating lives—straight men don’t work for them as friends because they only know how to give advice about women, and the same goes for lesbian women.

A beginner’s guide to breaking it off: The phone call

My recent post on dumping someone by text proved to be pretty divisive. It seems that many people prefer a face-to-face break-up or, at the very least, a phone call.

It’s a common fallacy that bad news like this is better in person, or coming from a disembodied voice at the end of a telephone. Perhaps it seems more personal, or means more, because it’s perceived that tapping in a few digits, then delivering a knockout blow over the phone and waiting distractedly for the stunned reply, in some way takes more effort or is more respectful than sending a carefully worded text (or email if you’re feeling jazzy or are Christopher Ewing in Dallas).

While I believe texting the kiss-off can empower the recipient much more than a surprise attack via a voice call – at least then the dumpee can think about crafting a response rather than blurting out hysterical reactions they will almost certainly regret later – I’ll give the humble telephone the attention it deserves as a device for despatching paramours.

Pick your time carefully
When guys and gals in the ’60s and ’70s used the phone to chuck their lover under the bus, they had to rely on the landline, that dinosaur of the telecommunication age, to deliver the dismissal. That meant having a vague idea of when their future ex would be home and, if they were kind and considerate (which you really should be unless ending a toxic or abusive relationship), whether they would have anyone around them to comfort them. Now, of course, we have mobile phones – or ‘cells’ if you’re reading this somewhere exciting like Manhattan or, erm, Anchorage – so you can get your dump on any time you like.

Even though your unfortunate dumpee is always contactable, keep your head in the 1960s. Nobody wants to be in the supermarket or at a club when they receive the news that the chords of their parachute into lifelong companionship have been severed. Nor do they want to be in the middle of dinner, arguing with their mum, on the toilet, appearing on reality television (my long overdue sympathies to Kevin Federline there) or at work when the news comes through.

Before you make THE call, you need to find out where they are. So, either send a text (see, even the heartless SMS has a role to play here) to see what they’re up to, or give them a short call, before inventing some distraction which means you’ll have to phone back later. You do, of course, run the risk of spooking them if you act distracted or sound ready to deploy your weapons of mass rejection right here and now. Keep this text or call fairly light. Save the plummeting anvil for the main event. No need to stress them out unnecessarily before you end it. Kindness is key.

I don’t know how to say this…
Well, you really should. Starting off by saying that you’re not sure what to say is a total cop-out, because it leaves the recipient in a brief state of frenzy. Are you going to announce a death? Reveal a lottery win? Tell them you have met someone else? Confess to a bank robbery? If you can’t find the exact words straight away, do some stalling – and drop a few clues along the way – with a slightly more telling “Look, I’ve been thinking…” and make sure you say this in a SAD voice and are somewhere quiet, not in the queue for a bar with all your friends.

There’ll then be a brief pause while the cogs whirr in your almost-ex’s mind. You should struggle on, however, and say things aren’t really working out for you and that you think you should both break up. Yes, the ‘both’ is key here, as you need to make it sound like this would be mutually beneficial.

“I want to break up with you” or “I’m breaking up with you” somehow seem colder than “I think we should break up”. While it’s you who’s ruining everything and casting them back out into the kingdom of the singles, by introducing a ‘we’, you are giving the dumpee the chance to consider any doubts they have had about you themself. If you can, lead them to think it’s the right decision – one that may have even been reached mutually were the discussion to go on much longer.

Hanging up on you
So you’ve said the words, but what now? Do you just hang up and leave them to their feelings? Do you let them air their emotions – which could range from a barrage of abuse and grievances to heartfelt, uncontrollable pleas to change your mind? It’s your call, but bear in mind how emotionally charged the response will be. Do you trust yourself not to go back on it if they manage to convince you with tears and tales of all the good times? If you are going to cut the call short, do it kindly. Maybe even agree to talk it over in more detail some other day.

State your reasons for the break up, sure, but at least sugarcoat it to a degree. Nobody wants to hear that their laugh is too loud or their personal hygiene is akin to that of a wild boar. If things haven’t been working out and you haven’t felt fully into it or you want to be by yourself, then just say – put the responsibility on yourself, not them. You’re walking away from it all, anyway; you may as well take the flack (unless they were really objectionable, of course).

And once the call is over, put the phone down and leave them alone. No late-night texts, no drunken regrets. Step away from rants on Facebook and save your saccharine apologies or sincere wishes for the future. Let them get over you. And you, of course, need to get over it too.

So, y’know, get over it.

If you’re really stuck, give this a listen before you call (or, if you’re just plain mean, play it down the phone):