Meeting guys without going to bars
The gay newspaper I worked for in Atlanta, The Atlanta Barb, ran personal ads. I put one of my own in. Don't really remember why, probably an inflamed whim. I didn't lead to anything except helping a couple of guys find a youth shelter. Might've lead to more but the paper and I parted shortly thereafter.
Having to type them up for the typesetters I read them all. One struck a chord. Turned out that he was in Tennessee. He gave me a call from Atlanta's airport while he was on a layover. Van sounded like a neat guy.
Working on a gay newspaper had made meeting guys easy. Almost all of my friends were straight. Once I'd left the paper, I was at a loss.
Most gay men would've hit the bars. I'd enjoyed my first trip to one. Mysteriously called Sweet Gum Head, complete with go-go boys dancing on tables. The novelty past, bars were pretty alien to me. You need ready affability or devotion to the cool logic of lust.
I don't have the knack of small talk with strangers. I could more easily, say, write banjo transcriptions of Mahler. In bars you could just stand around. The other guys weren't shy. I remember one sweet sissy who introduced himself by jumping in my lap and shoving his tongue into my mouth. While I wasn't silly enough to expect sleeping with somebody to be a significant or special the meat rack approach was one that I could master.
Lots of folks with my biases build convoluted defenses of their orientation. An apology for more promiscuous inclination is as easily made. Maybe I was just timid. However it did not distort or damage me to say that I was being true to my needs, my nature seems plausible enough.
Delivering the The Barb every month put me in and out of every gay bar in the city. None of them - drag, disco, back room, leather queens - seemed inviting. Back then Atlanta didn't have the Cheers sort of neighborhood gay bar.
So I ran an ad in one of the local weeklies, probably Creative Loafing (later bought by Larry Flynt during his abortive attempt to form a national chain of urban weeklies). Or maybe two ads. I remember running "androgynous/masculine seeks androgynous/feminine." And I only recall one response. I guess there was another ad less exotically erotic.
I met a few people. Almost all of them at the IHOP (back when they used the words and not the initials). Later in Durham it was coffee at Wellspring a groovy-two-shoes health food store (owned by Whole Foods, Inc. a chain that was caught grinding pork in the beef grinder).There was the boy who would've probably slept with me if I'd owned a big car. He wasn't hustling. For him material wealth was sexy. Since he had one of the two most beautiful butts I've seen in my life I kind of wished I had a car. Not knowing how to drive I'm not sure what I'd've done with it. Let him drive it I guess. I don't think I could've had a more educational experience from a personal ad.
There was the very young guy that I spanked and had lick the Army boots my momma had so thoughtfully provided.
And other not unattractive but unmemorable guys. I didn't sleep with the guy who was looking for somebody to go live on his farm in the middle of Nowhere, GA. At that time I never believed I'd be living in a place with less than a couple of million people. He was a decent fellow so the stupidity marker moves over to my side.
In San Francisco I answered three personal ads. One was from a transsexual. Another was from someone into BDSM. I was curious but not willing to go to one of SF's many leather bars (what a twit I was). He wanted money so I said no thanks. I met a sweetie who said I was a "typical golden boy" (my second favorite compliment of my youth aside from hearing about the intimidating power of my "steely blue eyes"). But the guy that I was staying with wouldn't let me bring him into the house.
Since I post the flattering references to my early self I guess I should say that I never thought I was that handsome. And since the line of people offering themselves to me did not stretch around even one block gay mankind in general assented.
What did I look like? As soon as I left home I grew a mustache. Don't know why. I had it until a few years ago. In Atlanta my hair grew past what someone called "hippie greasy" to long. I never worked on my looks or my clothes. In the primping 70s this probably worked to make me more 'butch.' Not long before moving to San Francisco I cut my hair, my mother bought me a bunch of lumberjack shirts and leather boots. I'd worn since my mid-teens (this wasn't as typical back then as now). The clothes momma supplied made Gordon say one day as we were walking down Castro Street in San Francisco "There are a lot of people who look like you here." My curly hair and indifference to my appearance had given me the look of the time.
Since nice looking guys made overtures I guess I was on some level above average. Not amazingly so. Nor was it an achievement. It was my parents genes. Blessed with youth and no rejection I never thought about my looks back then. Now of course I'd like to have a time machine.
There was an ad that really attracted me. I called him. It was Van, the guy whose personal ad I'd answered in Atlanta. He was so lovely that when I met him I was actually scared. How could anyone that compelling want anything to do with me. When I returned to San Francisco we had some pleasant times. I hope he's done well.
I decided that meeting people the more ordinary ways, through friends, at work, was better. It is better to curl up with someone you've chatted with for more than 30 minutes over coffee.
Skip to the year 2000.
But first: When Siobhan left me I starting eating. I'd have a Bojangle's tailgate special for breakfast. Then a snack. In the words of the immortal Herbie Popnecker, I got "fat, fat like a water rat."
I shed 230 lbs. of fat, get my health back. And my sexuality. I discover gay.com, Yahoo clubs & personals, sites that've vanished, sites that I've forgotten. I even listed on cruisingforsex.com even though I wasn't. I find a use for the AOL account I'd established when they bought Time-Warner (because I have a Time-Warner cable modem).
My sexuality can reasonably be called multifarious. Personals always have damnable word limitations. Some limit you to 100 words, some to 1,000. So I established multiple accounts and identities trying to convey who I was and hoped to meet. Since I'm out and self-employed I posted my photo whenever I could. A largish personal web site that talked about everything from my inability to cook to my foreskin.
I was about as visible online as you can be without being famous.
Plenty of people wanted to chat. Most of them were quickly shoved aside. They just wanted sex. Because I'd put myself in Yahoo's bisexual category there were an amazing and annoying number of married men who wanted my assistance in adultery (while admiring polyamory, I'm a stick-in-the-mud monogamous type).
When I discovered that my sexuality included persons who live above gender norms I'd get emails from lots of transvestites. That was mostly sad and I'll write about that elsewhere. And as "ILikeNellyGuysDurham" among others, gay men who hated femme men would stop to berate me. Eventually I added material to my (now defunct) web site explaining that I'd be happy to meet a conventional male that I'd like. But they never seemed to read those pages. I guess the other pages made their little thingies wilt.
I heard from lots of smart, compassionate, engaging men who lived, alas, in New York, England, Arizona. Anywhere but central North Carolina. I live in a hotbed of educated liberalism and radicalism and almost never heard from anybody near I'd consider meeting. The same thing would happen when towards the end I realized there was no reason to not reach out to women. The one really likable woman, a political activist, wouldn't have anything to do with me after I pointed her to the pages outlining my sexuality.
Thinking back I do wonder if gay men may be more comfortable with meeting people with less traditional ways than straight women. We are already outside the norm.
And straight women never seem to lack for suitors (pests?). That may give then less reason to try anything other than daily life. And when they do go online they may be bothered beyond toleration.
I did meet with a woman. We'd seen each other's posts on Yahoo. We didn't have any illusions that we'd be romantically compatible but liked each other. We had coffee and went shopping.
I only met a few local guys. There was a charming man in Baltimore who designed scenery for operas who wanted to come meet me but Charles showed up before he did.
There were a few local guys I might've met but, again, there was Charles. Most memorable was Dale. He was only 25 but seemed very sweet. He was looking for someone steady and his sexuality was rooted in affection as much as what he called the "horizontal boogie."
Dale was one of a number of people who approached me looking for an older man. When Charles and I first spoke he said his being 28 made him "over the hill in gay years." When I was young I'd always figured that if I lived past 30 I'd have to off myself. It was too common a feeling back then for me to have analyzed it. But I suspect it was the feeling that being middle-aged ended the possibility of being physically attractive (doubtlessly exacerbated by my own young preference for guys who were yet younger).
The desire for more 'maturity' baffled me. Because I've never felt it. It seemed a strange imbalance. Reflecting back I know that many odd mixtures make relationships that endure. No reason that can't be part of it. Because of my own youthful biases I'd always sworn I'd never be a chickenhawk and was probably over-compensating.
Less than three blocks from Books Do Furnish A Room lived a literate, caring man. While I was trying to decide when to meet him he mentioned beating drums out in the woods. Uh oh. Robert Bly's notions of 'primitive' and 'essential' masculinity seem pretty pathetic to me. Paraphrasing Andy Warhol there's nothing less masculine than worrying about being masculine. And going out in the woods and playing Indian tribe as a means of reconciling yourself with your daddy is just plain silly. My bigoted mind snapped shut.
Something in Charles' personality drew me strongly the first time we met. I was pretty scared. I made arrangements for Dale to come over, seeking self-protection by involving myself with another. Circumstances intervened, perhaps for the best. When he tried to make another assignment I told him I was too deeply involved with Charles. He was hurt and told me I was typical of the people on AOL.
Johnnagrrl was a crossdresser. Smart, nice body. Since we met for coffee at Wellspring he wasn't dressed up. If going to Legends to watch a drag show had enticed me more we might've spent some time together.
Before meeting him I had a good idea one guy was too young and muddle-headed. But I'm easily vamped by vulnerability. The moment I met him I knew I didn't match the image he'd built up in his imagination. I did the Dutch Uncle thing and we parted.
Outside of my normal choice of people was Toby. 6'8", very masculine. Tender, intelligent, there I details I'll skip but I thought long and hard about him. And he was certainly willing to give me a shot. Then I heard Charles' voice on the phone.
Dave was certainly the most interesting of the folks I met offline. He responded to a personal ad. We were both online so we started chatting. He lived and worked near me so we met within 45 minutes of his instant message.
He wanted a sexually dominant man. While I didn't find him attractive physically I was very comfortable with him as a person so the former wasn't an issue. But I wanted a couple of days to think about his sexuality. Dave was pushy in taking the initiative. So we did kiss a little before he left. That was really all I was willing to do.
We exchanged a fair amount of email. Talked on the phone a little. And I saw him a couple of more times. The second time I saw him was at his place. I'd told him things would probably go better if he'd come by my place and if was earlier in the day. But I'm never one to argue.
We talked a lot, touched, hugged, kissed. Nothing more. After this visit Dave became confusing. He'd come on very passionately. He didn't seem to be willing to make time to get together.
Thinking about things after that it'd be best to be rid of him I decided that the decisive moment for him may have been when I went over to his house. He gave me the impression that he didn't want any sexual contact that night.
Much later I realized that it was probably coyness. What he most likely wanted was for me to slap his face and tell him to suck me off or lick my boots. Or even just berate him.
I don't dismiss his desires. He was a very interesting man. He may have taken time to memorize Johnson's remarks on Milton before seeing me but how many guys could've done that.