Good Plan

Skating With Celebrities- the greatest thing to happen to television since My So Called Life.

What a good idea it was to offer the mantra that it didn't matter where you met a guy, but that you should just go with it. Or, "Say yes!"

Mr. Lee and I had 3 dates this week. You know, it was that weird cosmic alignment where you can spend (maybe too much) time together on consecutive days. Sometimes this can be a bad thing because things start to "move" way too fast. Other times, it can be nice when you're trying to see if it's worth it. It's like you have the first, second, and third dates all at once, so you don't waste a whole month on a particular potential date, only to find out that that bad kiss on the first date wasn't just nerves-- that was just how he is.

On our first date, Mr. Lee and I went to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in East Midtown and, although the conversation never lingered, I often got lost in that "I'm-staring-at-you-because-you're-so-beautiful" trance where you forget to say all the things you mean to. At one point, some Canadians (who were staring at us the whole dinner, not because we were so beautiful, although in hindsight, maybe they were) had me pretend to be some random guy to one of their friends on a cell phone and Mr. Lee seemed to really get a kick out of the fact that random things like that always happen to HS. Later that night we went to a great Fondue place on the Lower East Side (he'd never done Fondue--- give me some credit, I'm not that cliche). We had awesome conversation and got to watch other couples make out; we didn't make out there because (thankfully) that's just not our style.

After a night of cuddling, I awoke and went to work, only to find out that we had plans for the next night. I decided to offer to bring home dinner to him and then we could eat and cuddle on the couch. Well, after I made an awesome stir fry, we watched American Idol and Skating With Celebrities (both of which were thoroughly entertaining). I have to say Mr. Lee had me definitely ensnared.

The next night, we ate out and watched a favorite movie. That's pretty much it.

Let me just offer up a little of the good stuff:

1. Mr. Lee is hairy. Now, since he is Cuban it's all short and very well-spread out. Most men hate this but I have to say it is so nice to run my hands through, etc. Maybe it's just me being lazy because I'd like to say hairy is hot so that I can be ok with me myself being hairy! But I dig it.

2. He's totally easy to flirt with. Hands down, a nice guy. I've been able to text, call, and pinch-in-public Mr. Lee to the point of a very satisfying erection!

3. Tragic flaw: he works at my company. So, I know I'm supposed to say, "Don't dip your nub in the office ink" but we'll see what happens. As you all well know, for this HS, 'tis better to meet a guy at work over a guy via "The Number".

And this is all a part of this whole "don't pre-judge" men mantra. Who knows where it will go with Mr. Lee, but suffice to say, I'm satisfied.

Except. Well, he won't "go all the way". I feel like I need to work my way into real sex. Is this how it really works outside of online hook ups? Like, no wonder boys always hook up online because they always get the whole thing all at once. Really, is it just jacking off and making out I'm guaranteed for the guys who are saving themselves. Clearly this is a part of the Sexual Compulsive within that is speaking out at this time. Basically, I'm afraid I don't want to break in any other guys. I need someone who is sexually compatible, because that sex is important to me, otherwise I might stray. I realize it sounds insane, but know myself and know that I want/need sex. Aside from going elsewhere, I'd like to know I can at least work with what I've got at home.

After all, isn't it just "settling" if I'm with someone who's a nice guy, but isn't ideal in bed? Is settling a bad thing?

Recent Developments

Sorry for my unforgiveable/inexcuseable absence.

BUT, I ended up actually going out on a few dates/staying in for a few dates with Mr. Lee and things have progressed quite nicely. Suffice to say, Mr. Lee has, to date, proven to be nothing short of a fantastic date. To the point that it makes me almost not even be able to type anything else about him.

Compared to my previous relationships, he's a star. He's not self-loathing, doesn't wet the bed, and actually responds to sexual advances. It's almost refreshing to remember that you are sexy, wanted, sought after.

I intend to write a full account of the dates and provide some more HS history within the coming weekend. Getting a new apartment now, so with moving and all, things are a little behind.

Dilemma

to settle- 1. to make a conscious effort to reject all other offers and accept one that seems most appealing. Often times, settling occurs due to fatigue in the dating world. 2. To remove oneself from the meat market in order to create a foundation with one other person (who is, hopefully, not opposed to occasional threesomes or sex toys).

A friend wisely pointed out that 2006 is the year for saying, "YES!" to everything. My roommate has declared 2006 a year to "be more slutty." Somehow, the two don't seem all that different to me. Perhaps I'm taking their resolutions out of context. Let's examine.

After yesterday's indiscretion, I was obviously a little divided. But I always get this way after meeting someone through a medium that I myself ridicule. Even if I met the love of my life on Craigslist, or through Robin Byrd's "number", I don't think I'd ever allow myself to actually form a committed relationship with this person because I'd always judge them for going to one of those chatrooms, etc. And it's not really a double standard because I end being the hardest on myself for indulging such a ridiculous desire in the first place.

Concurrently, while I am judging serious relationships created in this online dating medium, I end up overthinking possible new relationships. For instance, last night I met a friend of one of my new roommates (for simplicity's sake, let's name my roommates now; the boy is Todd and the girl, we'll call her Oreo). Anyway, Oreo has a friend named Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee immediately caught my eye, but I was just kind of going with the flow of the conversation. As it turned out, Mr. Lee and I have a lot in common, and he has so far been easy to talk to and hang out with. But that's just it. Suddenly, I start to think that, well, just because he's one of the first decent guys I've met outside of the online dating world doesn't immediately mean a) he's interested in me or b) that he's even worth dating. In fact, I start to tell myself I'm just settling, which is ridiculous because I hardly know the guy, and even at that, Mr. Lee is not the kind of guy you end up settling for. He's just not.

It does get a little complicated, but in that very fun, friendly-competition way. Todd was definitely flirting a little with Mr. Lee both last night and tonight at dinner, which makes it interesting because I'm just not sure how to compete with a friend for the attentions of a gentleman caller. It's to the point that I've tried to level with Todd to see if he's totally into Mr. Lee or if I should back off. I've decided to let Mr. Lee make his own decision, and in the meantime, focus some attention on Mr. Lee, but to keep my options open and my guard up. I'd hate to get burned or into any kind of awkward situation with Todd.

Of course, I seem like a total flakey "Flavor of the Week" guy seeing as how I was convinced Oliver was "the guy for me" last night, and now tonight I'm raving about the dating potential of Mr. Lee. That's exactly the problem with the oversaturated gay market. Too many dating venues are presented for gay men now, and it's to the point that everyone is confused and prices and product quality are at an all-time low. It's like, even when Todd is online looking for guys, he ends up signing up for Gay.com and adam4adam and checking out AOL (wisely, he avoids Craigslist, but that's because he's a more quality person). There's just too much gay going on around us, no wonder our community has a rampant prescription drug addiction problem and no wonder so many people have ADD/ADHD/learning disabilities. With all these half-naked college boys sticking their asses in the air and waving their hard-ons at you from cyberspace, how in the hell are you supposed to settle for just one?

I think that's just it-- you don't just settle for one, you settle for THE one. However you meet him, wherever he comes from.

I should make THAT my new Homosexual Suspect mantra. So it shall be.

Laying it out

discrete/discreet [sic]- An imaginary adjective used by men (and presumably women) to increase their anonymity and ensure the anonymity of their online partner; it is almost never spelled correctly.

I've mentioned before that I am enrolled in S.C.A. (which is Sexual Compulsives Anonymous for those who are out of the loop). At the root of my problem is the internet. Growing up, sex was so easy to attain by just logging on to a chatroom (yeah, remember ICQ or mIRC or AOL when the AOL chatrooms were COOL?). At any rate, it developed in college to the point where I met many, many, many men (we're talking numbers to rival Blanche Devereaux). In fact, I used to rate and keep track of them all in my real, paper journal but I had to add a "plus or minus 4 for human error" disclaimer because I couldn't always keep track of how many. Yeah, and, oh, most of them were old, or weird, or just so not my type of guy-- but I would just be so ready for sex, you know so, again, I refer you to a former mantra of Homosexual Suspect: "Friction is friction; A hole is a hole is a hole is a hole."

I've been working on identifying my triggers and my focusing in on the real problem. In the meantime, I'm trying to cut my ties to online websites like the ones I've previously mentioned. However, and this is a very Manhattan-centric-for-New-Yorkers-only reference, but I blame my recent backsliding on Robin Byrd (http://www.robinbyrd.com). Damn her. You should be familiar with her if you live in Manhattan and have ever watched 10 pm local access. Basically, she's this crazy cracked-out woman who invites porn stars and local strippers (men and women) to come and show off (read: get ass-naked) for the viewers at home. I always hate it when she tells us to lie back and get comfortable. I don't know about women entirely, but I have yet to find a man who is comfortable with an erection. But I digress.

She always advertises for phone sex hotlines and I was always turned off by the idea until I quit online dating and had to find a new outlet. So I joined "The Number" and it has been a ridiculous endeavor. Basically, some guys are there to talk, some are there to get you to join a conference call orgy with their family members (yup, you read that right). Then there are hookers (more on that much later once we really get to know each other). But, mostly you just try and find a guy who wants to hook up and is serious enough about doing so that he'll call you "off the line." Just as in real life, it's always so hard to even get a guy to commit to go that far.

Now that I've gotten the backstory out of the way, here's my latest pickle. After apartment hunting in the SUBZERO temperatures this afternoon, I met two friends in Hell's Kitchen for brunch and bottomless mimosas. Hurrah! Well, afterwards, they headed back home and I planned to do a little shopping and head home. But, curiosity/my dick got the best of me and I checked in with "The Number". After chatting with numerous weird, short-of-breath men, I got a guy to call me back off the line who was, most conveniently, actually living in a building less then 5 minutes from the brunch cafe. So I went up to visit him and he is a prime cock shock example. He was a hot, worked out Asian guy with a great dick (FYI: 100% my type). We'll call him Oliver. We had a great time (a great three times actually), but then it gets complicated. I'd really like to see him again. Aside from even the sex, I'd still really like to get to know him and see if maybe something could come of it all. BUT, I lied and told him I was living in Boston and that I just visited New York (I have a certain anonymity to uphold, after all). So, I'm faced with the question: should I just tell him I lied and see if he's into the whole "full disclosure" thing?

See, most of these online dating-type guys are totally into being discrete/discreet and they never want to really get to know you or anything. But he really wants to get to know me and he seemed totally into me. I'd be into getting to know Oliver, but, as with all online hookups (and I count "The Number" among these), I never know how I'm going to introduce him to my friends/family. "Hi mom and dad, this is [insert screen name here] we met in a chatroom called 'hot anal pleasure'. Isn't he dreamy?" Also, even if we got in a relationship, would he still hook up with guys online? I know I did at one point.

Question of the day: Should I see if Oliver is worth it, or just cut my losses (and my phone line) and go back to my S.C.A. meetings?

Disappointment

Cock Shock- the feeling of immense surprise/disappointment felt by the person (un)lucky enough to be faced with a penis that is incongruent with general social opinion. Derived from the 80's blue-light special-crazed bargain shoppers' "sticker shock" delight.

I don't really care about racial stereotypes. I mean, like, when you go on Craigslist or look at ads, often times people specify "not really into Russians" or "I only want to fuck men from Botswana." Consequently, there are always the martyr types that qualify those people as bigots and racists. Ok, let's be real about this. I mean, do these Mother Theresa gay men actually go out and use affirmative action action-type guidelines to hook up with guys? Seriously, everyone has a specific type. I like blondes and I'm not really into redheads. Does it make me a bigot because I don't want to fuck Ronald McDonald? No. I wouldn't mind splitting a quarter-pounder with the guy and hanging out, but I really don't think I'd ever want to taste his Triple Thick Milkshake, if you know what I mean.

I have a great friend who once told me she lives by the idea of, "Whatever floats your boat, just don't sink mine." I definitely agree with that and I wish at times more people did. The hook-up sections of websites are for just that, hooking up. Let people have free sex there with strange men, and let the people with agendas and political statements go to the "Free Tibetan Prisoners" page. So that way, when I want to fuck, I can go to the hook up page, and when I want to free a Tibetan prisoner, I'll go to that page.

To that end, I generally find myself willing to try anything once-- with regards to sex, I mean. See, I don't need to try Bungee Jumping to know that I would piss my pants and hate it, I just know. With sex, I always wanted to see if what they say about black guys, Asian guys, Latin men, etc. was all true. And I have come to some interesting conclusions. First of all, I really don't mind hooking up with any of the above. To me, sex is sex. Friction is friction. A hole is a hole is a hole is a hole, regardless of country of origin. But, society has weened me to expect horse-hung black men and wee little Asian weenies. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I blew a black guy with a wee dick, and conversely, my shock when I saw my first huge Asian dick. What a treat. This is the phenomenon known as cock shock. Let's face it, cock shock is the number one reason I'm always so apprehensive when hooking up on online. It just goes to show that racial profiling your potential fuck buddies' packages is like following the latest sibling of a current pop star, you never how big they're going to get.

Temptation

Slut: Someone who delivers on any promises made of sexual satisfaction.

Sometimes, there are really too many things going on around me. For instance, in the midst of trying to locate a new apartment in this ridiculous city, the guy next to me, my roommate is on www.manhunt.net looking up a guy to hook up for the night. Of course, I discovered Manhunt back before Manhunt was even cool. I mean, we're talking the summer of 2002 when AOL was getting old, and all the hotties were on Manhnut.

Of course, as someone who is currently enrolled in a "Twelve Step Program" to curb my interest in these sites, I felt compelled to offer my roommate some helpful tips. You know, things like, "Oh, well you know that rule that if you take a cab there and back to the hook up you get to fuck twice because it's just common courtesy." And of course there's the inevitable fact that everyone on those sites only posts pictures of themselves at their absolute sexiest best. This means that really, when you get there, you're always disappointed. Sure, the package might be the right size and the sex might be great, but the body you lusted after and the face that gave you a hard-on just don't quite match. This was the reason I always posted a decent picture of myself; I used a picture that I looked good in, but one that I knew I could, even on my worst day, muster up the energy to look just cute enough. Often times, I'd hear guys tell me that I was so much cuter in person. And it's always nice to hear how good you look.

So my roommate went out for his little hook-up, and in the morning was raving about it. This of course is the difference between true sluts and those that wish they were. TRUE sluts, people like me, really have lots of sex with lots of people, but most people never suspect us for being like that. I firmly believe that the louder you shout it, the less true it is. I mean, Tom Cruise, case and point. And, the obvious American Pie 2 references aside, it is generally true that guys will say they've had more sex than they have had and girls often deny having any at all.

All this reminds me of the time I was in the internet cafe for the first time one night pretty late. I had been using internet cafes to get work done (legitimate volunteer commitment)... suddenly, I looked over and everyone else was watching PORN on the computer screen and I was worrying about helping deaf people. I felt very out of place. How odd. I never understood why when we were in high school everyone always wanted to watch porn at parties... it always just made me horny. I mean seriously, like we all need more temptation.

Homosexual Suspect

Homosexual Suspect: to be unabashedly aware that you are in control of your destiny, your sex drive, and your cable provider; one who makes everyone around wonder who or what he's thinking of fucking next; derived from the title of Jenny Garp's acclaimed bestseller Sexual Suspect offered in John Irving's classic The World According to Garp. See also: slut.

In the true spirit of 2006 and the idea that this is indeed the year to saying, "YES!" to everything, I have embraced the cliche world of blogs at long last. But I determined to enjoy my writing as more than just a mindless blog/rundown of my life.

No, I have instead decided to embark on something far more meaningful: the (sometimes) gay sexual compulsive. Yup, I'm the guy who cheats on his girlfriends with (countless) boys and fucks around with girls when he should be faithful to his boyfriend. I'm the guy who sleeps with the person who's showing him the apartment, or who meets someone on a train and decides it's ok to take them home to fuck. And, last but certainly not least, I'm the guy who is willingly pimped out only because he feels sorry for the party that was expecting a blowjob in the first place. But I'm also the guy who hates most other gay men, but really wants to find one so we can cuddle and watch Beaches or listen to Dolly Parton. So I'll talk about the phenomenon of gay dating, meaningless sex, and I'll even offer a blow-by-blow (weak pun FULLY INTENDED) of my weekly S.C.A. (Sexual Compulsives Anonymous) meetings.

Yeah, I'm sure that at times I'll sound just as trite and over the top as all the other blogs claim to be. And it's going to be hard to fight the Bridget Jones references, or, for those poor souls that read Jessica Cutler's lukewarm "The Washingtonienne" I'll try to refrain from becoming a slut just to satisfy my readers. I shall be keeping myself, and all other implicated parties, anonymous.

And to start each and every post, I'll offer a word of the day. Something to theme the post, and get us thinking right from the start. Happy New Year! May God have mercy on our souls.