In which I share my sexy powers, fool that I am.

I had some very bad insomnia on Tuesday night, leaving me still wide awake at 3am on Wednesday morning. Which was kind of handy, since it was at 2.52am that my phone decided to trill to let me know that I had received a text... one that The Virtuoso had sent me, at a more civilised hour, three days earlier.

Yes, I am changing carriers when my contract expires.

But back to the insomnia. In searching for causes, I can only come up with one.

You see, earlier this year I hosted a fancy dinner party for some of my gay, unattached friends. There was five of us in total, and it was a lovely affair.

On Tuesday evening, following a catch up with one of them, I came to the sudden realisation that, three months after the dinner party, four of the five gay, unattached men who'd attended now had boyfriends.

AND GUESS WHICH ONE OF THE FIVE IS THE ONE WHO DOESN'T HAVE A BOYFRIEND! GO ON, GUESS!

I could view this as evidence that I have mysterious gay love guru powers, somehow magically granting the gift of boyfriends to all who fall within my social influence. But I prefer to simply regard it as further, ego-crushing proof that I am a loser.

Oh well. I have a second date tonight with the guy I saw last Sunday. I'm not excited, but I suppose it beats sitting alone at home.

At least guys are still asking me out.

Within five days of returning from a fortnight's holidays abroad last week, I had two dates with different men. Hooray for me!

The first date was with a man who just barely meets the old requirement that one can only date people half their age plus seven years. Still, he is very mature, intelligent, professional, easy company and not bad looking. He is one of these spontaneous, jump-in-feet-first kind of people, which sits a little unevenly with my careful, analytical personality, but hey, it could also be good for me to be around someone who takes chances.

He comes from a very conservative and repressive ethnic background, and occasionally he appeared to be forcing himself to break through some internal barrier to share personal information. His livewire personality and buttoned-down heritage seemed to be in uneasy tension. However, as I mentioned, he was intelligent, easy to talk to and engaging, and there did seem to be a mutual frisson of potential when we hugged and chastely kissed each other goodnight.

Spontaneous, jump-in-feet-first people have a tendency to declare things in the heat of one moment that dissipate in the cool of the next. So I'm trying to take his observations that I have a "beautiful smile" and "kissable lips" with a realistic mind. Still, it's nice to be admired, even if you suspect that the admiration is shallow and transient.

The second date was more problematic. I want to see him again, not because I think there's any romantic potential in the relationship, but because I'd like to finesse my psychological profiling. He was obsessed with controlling his identity, to the point of making me promise that I wouldn't talk about him to any of my friends. Not that I have a lot to talk about - getting simple social data like his living situation or his work was like trying to uncover an Egyptian tomb during a sandstorm. Despite this, he talked incessantly, leaving me little space to do anything other than smile and nod. Amateur psychologist that I am, I'd interpret this as bluffing behaviour - filling the conversation with white noise to cover the lack of anything real being said.

He'd complain about men misinterpreting his gaydar profile, and when I explained why they would have misinterpreted it (drawing on my own experience and a university degree in semantics and language signifiers), he didn't seem able to understand that tweaking the profile would be a good thing. I'm always delighted when people offer constructive advice on how to make my profile more appealing, but he seemed to feel that it would be an admission of failure on his part, or pandering to the failings of his readers.

I also wonder if this inflexibility explains why he listed himself as a pure top despite having some fairly swishy moments: he doesn't like letting another man in, literally or metaphorically. It's not so much a desire to be dominant and in control as a deep, fervent desire not to be open or vulnerable.

Oh well. They both seem eager enough for second dates, so we'll see where this goes in both cases.

When I like you more than you like me.

More misery, I'm afraid. This time centring around my friend KCG.

You see, KCG is evolving as a person. He used to be quiet, intellectual, and hanging out with a circle of friends who were generally older, more cultivated and philsophical.

But since he's fallen in with his new friend Sexy D (so named because his name starts with D and he's sexy as hell) he seems to have realised that there will be plenty of time for the life of the mind after he's dead (ie 40). His new circle of friends is younger, shallower, more extroverted and, from all accounts, hotter.

I say "by all accounts" because I've only met Sexy D once, and I've never met his coterie. I've only heard about them.

Sexy D is a white collar worker but he has no interest in philosophy, theology, psychology or any other the other -ologies that KCG and I used to discuss. He's clearly intelligent but no intellectual. He's good with his hands, he has a great body, and he likes drinking, clubbing and fucking. His friends are, apparently, just like him, only moreso. From what I've heard, from both KCG and the Human Dynamo, they're a bunch of loud, buff, venal queens... Sexy D is the quietest and most introspective of them.

A year out from his breakup with his ex, KCG is either throwing off the last shackles of his old life and becoming the man he always should have been, or he's experimenting with a new and different persona, like a teenager who goes goth for a couple of years before settling down into polo shirts and jeans. There's hope for our relationship if it's the latter, but not if it's the former.

That's the sad thing. If he gets free of the neuroses and inner conflicts that have plagued him his whole life, KCG has the charm, the humour and the boyish good looks to be a very successful gay man. If he plays his cards right, he could have the fabulous life partner, the inner city designer terrace, the cool interior design, the luxury mid-size SUV, the chocolate labrador, the Saturday morning couple trips to the gourmet bakery for croissants... basically he could be living the cookie-cutter modern gay dream.

I could never achieve that - I'm too old, too fat, too lazy and too uncharismatic. And people who CAN manage that don't have people like me in their social circle, so I can't even expect to be invited to the occasional dinner party.

I had such high hopes for KCG. I thought that, if I played my cards right, he could be my introduction to a life that would be a dream come true. But even though I have played my cards well, it turns out he's been playing his own cards, and is moving on up to the sort of gay elite that simply isn't for the likes of me.

I miss him. Any idea of a romantic relationship between us has dissipated, but I really like having him as a friend. When I discovered BN2's cheating ways, KCG was the only person I felt I could call to talk about it. The sad truth is that he can do better than me. Our friendship is looking increasingly like a momentary aberation - a lucky confluence of spare time, need and low expectations on his part.

When high maintenance isn't worth it.

A few nights ago, when I logged onto gaydar to check my messages, I had a brief exchange with a new man. Like Tania Zaetta Man, the subject of my last post, this man's glasses were hideous, but he had a refreshing ability to joke about them, and thus didn't seem like a bad kinda guy.

It still wasn't smooth sailing. He asked to see a "full-on" picture of me, and when I replied that I'm not that sort of boy he clarified that he meant a more obvious face photo. This misunderstanding made things a little awkward, especially when he sent me a "full-on" picture of himself. When, I wonder, will gay men learn that a webcam picture of yourself staring unsmilingly at your monitor is not the most attractive look? Team that with the creepily out-of-date hairstyle (I remember wearing something similar in 1991) and the aforementioned hideous glasses, and you'll understand why I didn't hold much hope for the relationship. When I tired of browsing and exchanging messages with a couple of other people, I simply logged off and went to bed.

The next night, when I logged onto gaydar, there were SEVEN messages waiting for me from Mr Full-on. Begining with a normal statement, then a Why Haven't You Responded?, then Seriously, Why Haven't You Responded?, then Did I Say Something Wrong?, then Is There Something Wrong With Gaydar?, then FINE, BE LIKE THAT, BUT I THOUGHT WE WERE REALLY CONNECTING!, then a Let Me Know If You Change Your Mind.

Sheesh.

I did message him to say that I'd logged off the previous night (which you'd think he'd have noticed) so I didn't receive any of his messages. Then we chatted for a bit before I pointedly excused myself to go do some exercise... and I've avoided gaydar ever since.

Win versus Fail

Here's a little comparison that sums up my current dating life:

Over the weekend, KCG went out and had a beer with a man to whom he'd been talking on gaydar. Despite being from a hardscrabble industrial suburb, this man had a conversational knowledge of Jung's collective consciousness and Nietzche's will to power. He was also, apparently, even hotter in the flesh than he is in his profile pictures... which are pretty damn hot. And he's all of 23 years old.

By contrast, last night I got into my first conversation in weeks with a gaydar man. Bearing in mind that my profile mentions that I have a deep aversion to guys who wear oversized, femme sunglasses, here's a rough idea of how the conversation went:

Him: Hey, read your profile, liked it, check me out and see what you think.

Me: I don't know... the sunglasses might be a bit of an issue... (smiley icon)

Him: Er... you're joking, right? They're perfectly normal sunglasses.

He seemed to be dead serious. At this point it should be noted that in EVERY ONE of his profile pictures he's wearing huge, rimless, smoky brown sunglasses with thick gold arms, making me think that somewhere a trophy wife is searching under the seats of her Mercedes SLK200 and muttering "Where the hell did my sunglasses go?"

Me: Um... yes... just my little attempt at humour... ha ha ha...

And then I quickly logged out before I said anything even stupider.

So while KCG is flirting with a 23 year old philosopher-hunk, I'm getting interest from a 51 year old man with Tania Zaetta's sunglasses.

I hate it when problems don't have clear solutions.

The business with BN2, as covered in my last post, has thrown me off more than I could have realised. I've been cheerfully asserting that 2011 will be my year, the year in which I meet many new men and attain many milestones in my gay relationship journey... but I'm starting to realise how tenuous this can be. It doesn't take much - an unanswered text, a "postponed" date - for my self-confidence to be rattled.

Beyond my friends KCG and the Human Dynamo, up until recently I had six men whom I was seeing in some sort of capacity. I was rather excited by this, but it seems that they are all dead ends. I'm only attracted to half of them and I'm not hopeful about any of them. And I get the impression that none of them are terribly fussed about me either. This may simply be in response to my own inertia, but there it is.

In the last few days, I've discovered that one of them has reunited with his ex, another is seeing someone else, and a third has turned down my last two suggestions for dates, which implies that he regrets his initial interest. Of the remaining three, one is a very poor match who seems to be communicating with me largely because he has nothing better to do. Another is a lovely guy with whom I have much in common, but he's a little strange and occasionally off-putting and there's zero sexual chemistry. And finally there's The Virtuoso, probably the best dating relationship I have right now... whom I haven't seen for more than two weeks.

Combined with the fact that KCG and the Human Dynamo are both seeing new guys (KCG claims that his new man is just a friend, but I'm sensing vibes), and I'm suddenly feeling very lonely and depressed. I've realised that while I was supposed to go out on five dates last week, none of them actually resulted in me and another gay man being in the same room together. A couple got held up at work, two guys were ill, and one had to do emergency babysitting. Or at least those were their respective stories.

In short it seems that everyone is, very suddenly, having more success than me. And I was doing so well there for a while.

Disconcerting, to say the least.

Things have been going well lately. I've met a lot of interesting guys through gaydar. My social and dating life has been too busy rather than not busy enough. I'm getting as much hot sex as I want thanks to The Virtuoso. However my feeling that things are finally coming together for me has been dealt a fairly hard blow.

It all started with a date on Monday night. He was a nice guy, professional, intelligent and easy to talk to. He mentioned that he'd broken up with his partner a couple of months ago, but that they were still living in the same house before the partner moved to another city. Over the course of the conversation he mentioned the partner's first name, ethnic background and profession. It rang a bell, so I asked what his surname was. And that clinched it. His partner was none other than my first lover, BN2.

This sort of thing doesn't happen in normal heterosexual relationships. A straight man doesn't go out with a straight woman only to discover that they share the same ex. It certainly makes things a little awkward, and you just need to put it aside and keep concentrating on what's happening here and now.

However there was an added complication in this instance. My date mentioned that he and BN2 had been together for three and a half years. But BN2 and I were deep in the throes of our short relationship just a little under three years ago.

Cue record scratch sound effect.

Now I never had even an inkling that BN2 was so much as seeing anyone else when we were together, never mind being in another relationship. But my date mentioned the figure of three and half years a couple of times, so the overlap is undeniable. Fortunately my only mention of my relationship with BN2 was that I'd been seeing him "a few years ago", so my date evidently assumed that it was more than three and a half years. Frankly, revealing that your date's ex cheated on him is not something you want to do on a first date.

Of course it's possible that my date misspoke. Maybe he meant two and half years, which would place the begining of his relationship about three months after BN2 and I parted ways. But that's still bad news for me. Back then BN2 told me that he was taking a job overseas. He'd even bought a house. He was leaving within a month. But even if I assume that my date's relationship was two and half years rather than three and a half, that means that the whole overseas job/house/life thing was a barefaced lie.

Of course if my date didn't misspeak, and it really was three and a half years, then BN2 was lying to us both, which is even worse.

There may be some innocent explanation for everything. Maybe it really was only two and half years. And maybe they were only friends initially and my date counts that as part of the relationship. And maybe BN2's overseas job fell through at the last minute or after a very brief time.

But Occam's Razor tells us that the simplest answer is usually the right one. Most likely he was just a dirty dog, chewing on two bones at once.

Of course that hurts, just as you'd expect, but it actually goes a lot deeper than that. I'd always recalled my relationship with BN2 with fondness. I occassionally had a vague little fantasy that he might pop up out of the blue, and we could try again and, with the benefit of a little more maturity on my part, see where our relationship might take us.

But now I discover that he's been around this city for years, he may have had a boyfriend for all of the time that I knew him, and basically he lied to me about his life, his job, his plans and his relationships. In even the best scenario, he wasn't the nice guy I thought he was. He was, in this best case scenario, a manipulative liar.

Have you any idea how devastating it is to be confronted with the fact that the closest thing you've had to a boyfriend was really just a dishonest dude enjoying a bit of fun on the side?