Seven dates with seven men in seven days

Over the last week I've had, as the title above suggests, seven dates with seven men in seven days. Or at least I've organised seven dates with seven men in seven days. The breakdown is as follows:

Saturday: I had a lunch date scheduled with a 37 year old restauranteur, but, for the first time in my life, I was stood up.

We were supposed to meet in a little cafe at 11.30am. I prettied myself up, drove for half an hour to his part of the city, found somewhere to park, walked ten minutes to the cafe, arrived dead on 11.30am and ordered a coffee. Three minutes later I texted him to let him know I was there. Twenty five minutes after that, I texted him to let him know that I was no longer there. I spent half an hour window shopping, just in case he texted or called, but there was nothing. So I walked back to my car and drove home.

That afternoon I contacted him through Scruff, but there was no response. The texts have gone unanswered too. His Scruff profile still exists but it hasn't shown any activity since Saturday morning, about two hours before our date was supposed to be.

The funny thing is that he messaged me the previous night to make sure the date was still on. I'd replied enthusiastically.

I can only guess that he had some major mental breakdown and couldn't handle meeting the guy he's been gushing at for the last week. In which case I've dodged a bullet.

Sunday: Late at night I had another date with UAM... if you can call two hours of hot, hard and extremely noisy sex a "date".

Monday: I had a date with a 29 year old catering worker.

It was an odd experience. When I got to the smart inner city bar I texted him to let him know I'd arrived, and ordered myself a vodka martini. A couple of minutes later he texted me back, saying that he was still at home, having been cleaning and rearranging furniture all afternoon.

Apparently this date was so unimportant that he'd missed the start because he'd become caught up in housework and lost track of time.

I texted back to tell him that I'd be there for another half an hour finishing my drink, so whether he wanted to come down, reschedule or cancel was up to him.

Nearly half an hour later, just as I was finishing my martini, he texted to say that he'd finished the job, had a shower, and was heading out the door. So having missed the start of the date, he'd actually stayed and finished what he was doing before getting ready and coming down.

Whatever. In many ways he was a bit of a feral - beer drinker, low grade job, badly in need of some remedial dentistry. But every time I thought I had him pegged he's use an obscure word, or mention an interest, or refer to a course of study, that marked him as being clever or well-cultivated.

We hugged each other goodbye, with promises to get together again, but I strongly suspect that I'll never see or hear from him again.

Tuesday: I had a drink with a 40 year old Italian pianist.

We met at one of my favourite small bars, full of hipsters in flannelette shirts and unruly beards. We had a little trouble with the bouncers, who were keen to uphold a bizarre law that patrons were not allowed in after 7.30pm with open shoes, and my date was wearing sandals. The fact that there were patrons inside in thongs, who'd arrived before 7.30pm, wasn't an issue in their minds. Fortunately the bartenders stepped in for me and persuaded the bouncers to bend the (incredibly stupid) rules, and soon my date and I were chatting and sipping swanky cocktails.

He was a nice guy, very easy to talk to, and we got on well. We've already made plans to go out again.

Wednesday: I had dinner with the guy with whom I had a stripper-mandated pash on Valentine's Day.

We went to a cool new Japanese fusion restaurant for dinner. Then he drove me up to a secluded park with views out over the city skyscrapers, and when we got out of the car, he produced a picnic blanket, a bottle of champagne, and a basket of strawberries and chocolates. We lay on the blanket, talking and kissing and drinking champagne.

It's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me. Which says more about my mediocre love life than the grandeur of the gesture.

Thursday: I met up with a 37 year old insurance underwriter.

The date did not start auspiciously. I'd asked to meet him at a franchised coffee house in a nearby suburb. Just as I got there, dead on time, he texted to say that he was inside. But when I got inside, he was nowhere to be seen.

I instantly guessed what had happened. Despite the fact that I'd given him the exact address, and despite the fact that this cafe was closer to his house, he'd gone to another branch of the same franchise in the next suburb over.

To add insult to injury, he insisted that I come to him, since he'd already bought me a coffee.

So I had to walk back to my car, drive over to the next suburb, find a parking space (which wasn't easy... one of the reasons why I'd chosen the OTHER cafe over this one), then walk to the cafe and find him.

He seemed nice enough. Relatively easy to talk to, and only a little weird.

Friday: I saw this guy again, whom I have continued to see even though he remains a model of sang froid.

Much as it helps the ego to date a different man every night for a week, I don't think I'll be attempting it again. It was exhausting.

And of course I'd much rather just date one man every night for a week. But that doesn't seem to be on the cards right now.

The perverse tricks of St Valentine.

I've never celebrated Valentine's Day. I've never had a card, or flowers, or chocolate, or some schmucky poem. This year was the closest I've come to observing it, albeit rather unusually.

On Valentine's night I went to see some fringe theatre with KCG and his boyfriend, HD and his boyfriend, and, at the last minute, a guy I'd met on Scruff with whom I'd had coffee on Sunday. He'd expressed an interest in the theatre I was seeing, and asked if he could come along too. I told him that was fine, and he met us there.

He's bald and more than a little overweight, but strong and confident and fun and full of life. As soon as his back was turned HD and his boyfriend expressed, unprompted and with a little too much alacrity, that they liked him a lot more than Mr Singular. I like him too, although I wonder if I'm not too boring for him to be willing to sustain a relationship with me in the long term.

But I get ahead of myself. The late night show was an extremely edgy caberet, filled with full frontal nudity, magic tricks involving vaginas, and some audience participation that I'm pretty sure left the participants completely traumatised. But we knew what to expect, and the weird stuff was leavened with humour, song and dance numbers, and kitschy vaudeville tricks.

Following the aforementioned traumatic audience participation act, the performers told all of us in the audience that, in honour of Valentine's Day, they wanted us to turn to the person next to us and kiss them, for ten seconds. They didn't say it directly, but there was an ominous implication that non-compliance would be noted. The audience giggled nervously. As they counted down 3.. 2... 1... my date looked at me and said, "Do you want to?", and I looked at him, shrugged and said, "Yeah, sure," so when the performers cried "Go!" we kissed.

Not just a liplock-and-hold for ten seconds, but a genuine, ardent kiss, with just a hint of tongue on each others' lips.

Being forced into your first kiss by a naked, sweaty, beer-drenched man (don't ask) is an unusual way to reach a milestone in a relationship, but hey, it's something to blog about. And it definitley broke the ice. When the show got out at midnight, he walked me back to my car and he kissed me again, twice, in the street.

The good things that come from having low expectations.

I had a date last night with someone I'll call UAM, or Unexpectedly Appealing Man. It's not much of a nom de blog, but they can't all be gems.

On paper poor UAM didn't have a lot going for him. He's a Pakistani muslim with mediocre English skills, a hand-to-mouth existence, and a barely semi-legal status in this country. I had to pick him up to go on our date because his Pakistani drivers' license had expired.

But in person he was good looking, well-educated, friendly and charming. Not to mention sexy - there was an instant chemistry. We got in my car and drove to a local bar for a drink. By halfway there he was rubbing my stomach, ostensibly to feel the quality of the cloth of my shirt. By three quarters of the way there he was holding my hand between gear changes. By the time we'd parked, he was kissing me.

We went into the bar and had a drink and chatted. He told me many things about himself, 90% of which I consider apocraphal. But I didn't see the harm even if they weren't true.

When we got back to the car, he said, "What shall we do now?"

"I'd like to take you back to my place so I can kiss you properly," I replied.

"Okay. Perfect."

And so I did. When we got in the front door I offered him another drink, but it was five minutes before I could get to the liquor cabinet because he grabbed me and kissed me. He was a sublime kisser - sensitive, erotic and passionate. Soon we were kissing and caressing on the couch. Soon after that, we were in the bedroom and naked.

I hadn't known what to expect from this date, but there was a welcome sign of good things to come when I pulled off his shorts.

He was amazing. His technique was fair to good, but his sensuality made everything more erotic. Unlike the last guy I had sex with, who treated it almost as a process, UAM did it right: as if sex was simply a byproduct of enjoying each other, body and spirit, to the fullest extent.

The other thing that made an unexpected difference was the fact that UAM is 29 years old. From an aesthetic standpoint this meant strong muscles, soft smooth skin and an ass that felt as if it had been carved from granite. But from a practical standpoint, it meant that his body just worked. When I've slept with older men, there's a sense of urgency once he's hard to get him sheathed and lubed and in before things start to wilt. When UAM got hard, he rolled off the bed, found the condoms box, dug one out, tore it open, put the wrapper in the bin, found the lube... all while his cock continued to jut out as hard and erect as a flagpole.

And this was for our second round. That's the other great thing about younger men: stamina. Later, when I nuzzled against him and suggested Round Three, he just smiled and nodded and plunged back into it.

Around midnight I drove him home, not particularly because I didn't want him to spend the night, but because it would have been even less convenient to drive him home in the morning, and I didn't think it right to make him take a taxi. This morning he sent me a text once I'd arrived at work: Good morning gorgeous. Hope u slept well last night. It was so amazing and I enjoyed alot. Happy valentines day. Am missing u xox

And then late this evening: Sweet dreams gorgeous... cant wait to hold u in my arms again... missing u alot... sleep well sexy...

We're never going to be serious boyfriends - for a variety of reasons that I'll go into in later posts - but it could be that we'll make great fuckbuddies.

From rainbow robber to ass bandit.

So that's how it happens!



And here I was blaming my mother.

Silence isn't golden.

A little followup to this post: on Wednesday night HD's ex contacted me on my Gaydar profile, in a message full of charm and interest. It took me a moment to realise that he had no idea who I was - my OKCupid profile and my Gaydar profile don't have a username or photos in common.

So I wrote back, responding to his questions and jokes with some of my own, and adding at the end, "By the way, just in case you haven't realised, I'm GTR (your ex HD's good friend). But if that doesn't bother you then it doesn't bother me." I didn't want to spoil the mood, but it's the sort of thing I needed to say at the outset, because it would have been weird not to mention it straight away.

Clearly it did bother him, because his response was... silence.

I am actually rather irritated. As far as I'm concerned, there were two acceptable responses to my message.

The first is: "Oh hey, wow, it's an embarassingly small world! No, I don't have a problem with that. Althought I worry about what HD might have told you about me..." and so on.

The second is: "Oh crap, really? Um... sorry, but I really don't feel comfortable with that. Too close to home, you know? I hope you don't mind."

Because although our paths haven't crossed in the real world, it's inevitable that they will one day, and having received the silent treatment online, let's just say that I'm not going to feel disposed to be particularly polite.