And to think I used to have standards

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Maths: is there anything it can't do?

And now, the power of mathematics applied to the world of popular song.








And my favourite:



"It's fantastic!" Go here for more.

I was never terribly good at chemistry

Over the last few days I’ve been out on a couple of dates with a guy I met through GMM.

On paper we’re a very good match. We both like jazz and respect the English language, we’re both intelligent and articulate, and we’re both professionals who are unusually clean-living (for gay men). We’re both relatively straight-acting, and neither of us has any inclination to visit a gym.

The problem is… well, I’m not exactly sure. Our first date ended chastely but with both of us wanting to go out again. Our second date, two days later, also ended chastely, with an agreement to go out again but perhaps not quite as much excitement at the prospect. During the second date our conversation lagged a few times, and I noticed that he didn’t respond to my sense of humour as well as most people do. Maybe that was the problem.

On the other hand, maybe the problem is just that he’s so damn sexy. He’s boyishly good looking and well-built, with a gorgeous smile and pretty blue eyes I could gaze into for hours. During pauses in our conversations I wanted nothing more than to lean over, stroke my fingers through his hair and kiss him long and slow. But I didn’t, because I wasn’t getting any cues from him that he wanted me to. If he were less attractive, maybe it would be easier for me to decide that we were lacking in chemistry and shift my attention elsewhere.

So now I’m wondering if I just want him for what he represents rather than him personally. He’s a handsome, available gay man who wants to spend time with me, and as a result I’m seeing him as object for all of the sensuality that’s been bottled up inside me. I don’t just want to kiss him – I want to caress him, run my hands all over his body, and gently cup his head or his shoulders in my hands as I pull him close.

Oh, and obviously I want to fuck his brains out. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But that’s just the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

I’ve decided that something has to happen on our third date, even if it’s just a goodnight kiss. If we don’t take that step, I can see us sliding into an uneventful friendship, and I think I have enough friends. What I want is a lover.

My morning routine

It’s always a pleasure to wake in the morning, stretch luxuriously against my rumpled sheets, then roll out of bed. After a moment to get my sleepy head together, I shuffle my way out into the kitchen, and the first thing I see is my happy friend, perched on the bench, enjoying his first coffee of the day and giving me that wry little smile of his. And I have that sudden unwavering certainty that today is going to be another monumentally great day, one far better than I deserve.



Then I wake up. Stupid dreams and their habit of surpassing reality in every way.

*Hot man stolen from Yarraville Paul. Dreams stolen from my own turbid subconscious.

More cream of the crop

Further recent taglines at GMM, annotated for your pleasure:

Bi married guy looking for sensuous times
Translation: creepy middle-aged man who wants to do everything that stops just short of sex so that if his wife finds out he can claim it isn't adultery.

Hot Guy seeks Hot Guy for Hot Times
Also seeks Hot Thesaurus.

big guy who fucks good!
Actually, I'm pretty impressed that someone managed to distill the essence of what most guys on GMM are looking for into five syllables. Here's lookin' at you, bgwfg!

In which I'm honoured to be someone's worst case scenario

I started a low-key correspondence with a guy on GMM who sounded sort of interesting. We chatted back and forth a couple of times, then he fell silent for a few days... right after I'd sent him some photos of me.

My photos seem to have that effect. I don't know why - I'd go out with the guy in them. I guess there's no accounting for taste.

Then today I got an email from him, stating that while I was a handsom (sic) man, he'd "just met someone that has caught (his) full attention" and so he was going to be concentrating on that nascent relationship for the moment.

I've checked the Big Book of Gay Interpersonal Relationships, and I haven't found the rule that disallows you from corresponding with anyone except your prospective boyfriend. I guess maybe my version is out of date. Still, it's nice that he's met someone.

The real kicker was the final line, however:

"so please forgive me - who knows if your still interested and things dont work out as hoped - can we take a rain check?"

Rough translation: "if things turn out the opposite of the way I want them to, I may yet go out with you."

Wow, thanks dude, that's so big of you.

I'm feeling something right now, but it sure as hell isn't gratitude.

The Power of Pong

I spent part of Saturday in the city’s largest independent music store, flipping through racks of cut-price CDs and trying to work out if I could indeed live without ‘A James Brown Christmas’.

At one point I noticed a guy in a grey tank top and shorts walk in. He was tall, reasonably well-built and scruffily good-looking. But in a groovy inner city music store there are a lot of tall, reasonably well-built and scruffily good-looking men wandering about, so I didn’t really give him a second glance… until he passed behind me.

He was still throwing off heat from the very hot day outside, and with it came a heady waft of cologne. It smelt like hot sex and spice, and coming off a carelessly dressed unshaven guy it was as incongruous as finding Bob Dylan dancing in the audience at a Britney Spears concert.

And suddenly it was as if he was the only guy in the store. Without even thinking about it, I found myself browsing the CDs next to him, then virtually chasing him around the premises to catch further draughts of that delicious, sensual scent. When I did catch it, I came very close to purring.

The guy eventually made it out of the store without getting pawed, but only just. Never underestimate the power of a good cologne.

All I want is a room somewhere... stuffed with horny naked firemen

Sometimes you'll hear a guy say something along the lines of, "All I'm looking for is someone who loves me." Usually followed by the coda, "Is that so much to ask? I mean really?"

I've occasionally had thoughts that run along similar lines. It really helped get my attitude into perspective when I actually met someone who seemed happy to oblige. That forced me to challenge and refine my preconception.

Let's be frank: finding someone who might love you isn't an impossible task. You just need to set your standards at the appropriate depth. If you're a fairly plain 20-something with a mediocre job and listless conversation skills, try looking for an ugly 40-something unemployed man with more issues than The New Yorker. Faced with a (comparatively) hot (comparatively) young thing, he'll think all of his Christmases have come at once and woo you like there's no tomorrow.

But that's not what you meant when you said, "All I'm looking for is someone who loves me", is it? When we say that all we want is to find someone to love us, what we really want is for the people whom we consider loveable to love us. We want to be considered attractive by the people we find attractive. We want to be deemed amusing by the people we find amusing, worldly by the people we consider worldly, clever and stylish by the people we identify as clever and stylish. It's not good enough for them to love us - it has to be a lovefest in both directions.

That's what we want. It's just important that we admit it and stop deluding ourselves that "all I'm looking for is someone who loves me."

A curvy, dimpled, shadowy gift to the world

Many men on gaymatchmaker.com.au choose to display their photo in a way that obscures rather than displays. Sometimes it's because they want to veil their identity. Sometimes it's because Mother Nature was having a bitchy kind of day when they were born and she withheld their quota of hunkiness. Sometimes it's just because a clear photo of their face would draw interest away from far more important body parts. I mean, who wants to see what a guy looks like when you can just have another interchangable ass picture?

But even the ass can be portrayed with more elan than a simple depiction that says, "Here is my ass. Make of it what you will." I noticed this picture recently on someone's profile (reproduced here without a skerrick of permission), and I really do appreciate the effort he put into doing something a little more creative than usual...



Ah, the classic bare-butt-in-the-moonlight shot so beloved of Hollywood when they want to add a dash of softcore spice to an otherwise plain scene. In soft focus black and white like this, it could almost be some "romantic" poster on a teenage girl's bedroom wall.

And it does the job: we know this guy has an ass, but we have absolutely no idea what he looks like, the colour of his skin or even if he ever smiles. I guess for a certain subset of GMM users the fact that he has an ass is all they really want to know.

Of course I'm hardly in a position to criticise this picture - it would take a hell of a lot more artful chiaoscuro than that to make my ass look presentable.