On-lies
During Gay Pride 2005, I went to a party in the West Village at my friend Johnny's apartment. He has rooftop access and— on a hot, sunny summer day— it was the perfect place for basting yourself in alcohol and roasting. Johnny had a lot of friends there, most decked out in the shortest-shorts they could find. Luckily this was intentional since it was the theme and not mass-hysteria-related bad taste. I opted to wear jeans. This proved to be a huge mistake in 95-degree heat and since a majority of Johnny's friends are gay, I was also the only one who didn't wear short shorts. Johnny has what I consider to be a vast gay network. And from what I could see, every one of them was totally comfortable with their genitals, for the most part, completely on display. This was unusual for me, since I have so few gay friends. For me, Johnny is
my vast gay network.
I am so utterly unassociated with gay men in New York that I sometimes forget I live in one of the gayest cities in the country. It was undeniably the number one reason for me to move to New York, I wanted to be gay in the gayest place. I wanted that comfort, that opportunity and I desperately wanted to fuck everything that moved.
This never really worked out for me. I moved to New York and ended up doing what I normally do, falling in love with someone from far away. My best friend, Amy, calls this 'pathological.'
I never viewed it as pathological. Well, I thought it was borderline pathological when I started using Friendster. This brought a whole new dimension to falling in love with people who don't know you. I could now find someone I randomly met somewhere, completely memorize their profile, and then in conversation have something to talk about.
"How've you been, haven't seen you in a while," a guy I researched might say to me.
"Yeah, oh my god, I've been so deeply in to folk music and, you know, going out too and having a good time. But, you know, I also like to stay home and watch movies. I love reading, writing, and photography too." I'd say rubbing my hands together excitedly waiting for him to mount me, like I had just recited the magic password that would, literally, open him up to me.
"Ummmm..."
Friendster is the perfect platform to monitor someone in such a vast city like New York. Back in Oklahoma I could easily know what my crushes were doing all the time, I would simply drive by their house, hang out at one of two parties that ever happened or go to the mall. But NYC has two parties going on every few seconds and the social networks are much more complicated. So Friendster (and myspace, facebook and so on) are the best ways to hunt someone down and know as much about them as they are willing to present.
At Johnny's rooftop party, I introduced people to the guy I was dating, Kevin. Everyone was happy to meet him, and then when he was away, Johnny inquired about where he came from with for a group of guys. For a minute almost forgot where I was, so many almost naked men around me in with neon colored genitals. With hesitation, I mumbled, "New Hampshire."
"No, no, no" Johnny pushed, "Where did you meet him??"
Turning more red than the beer and heat had already caused, I looked down at the rooftop and mumbled lowly, "Friendster."
Everyone in earshot laughed, frowned in disapproval or looked at me like I told them I molested a chid, perhaps theirs. Telling people you met someone online for anything other than a one-night stand is hands down, across the board, the absolute worst way you could say you met someone.
"Oh, I met him in the bathroom of Urge with a gram of cocaine and he gave me a hand job," I'd say.
"That is the sweetest story I've ever heard," my friends would say with big smiles, "I'm so glad things are working out for you."
The reality was me mumbling,"Friendster."
"Hahaha..." they laughed and then paused for a dramatic breath, covering their mouths and saying, "Oh my god that is so terrible. I'm so sorry"
I try to avoid this conversation. I also try to act like I've never met anyone online before. That would be so weird. However, I'm now the tried and true internet dater. The first man I dated from the internet was Don. He messaged me and we set a date for drinks. He was funny, charming and moderately attractive in his profile. And, most importantly, he liked good music and books. He described himself well and sounded pretty normal. I figured I had done pretty well. We eventually started dating and for the (gasp) five weeks we dated, he showed me all of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and awed me with the wonder of it all.
But it was only a month that we dated. It seems once my hormones cool after that first month, there has to be something else there. Which, of course, there never is.
This isn't to say it's necessarily my fault. Don said he liked good music, but he actually like gothy music with dark intonings by crazed feminist performances artists. He also tamed his otherworldly beliefs in his profile, like the ghosts that he had conversations with and the ones his mother ("I swear, there really were ghosts in my closet when I was younger!") scared off. But Don had said two things outside of this that really stuck with me. I'll start with the less disturbing one.
He told me he used to masturbate to my picture for a week or two before he messaged me.
After the heat of a sexual moment, in the often guilt ridden seconds after cumming on someone's stomach, Don told me that he used to fantasize about me fucking him while looking at my Friendster profile.
I smiled, told him that was sweet, and wondered if I jumped out the window, how hard it would be to get down the fire escape naked. In the end it wasn't Don's masturbating to photos of me in a French maid's outfit (which I had thought was obviously meant to be a joke and not erotic) before we met, or that he believed in ghosts (which is auto-rejection on a date now), it was that he always one upped me. The final straw was one Sunday morning.
"These pancakes are good," he said after I made him my home made Jiffy Brand recipe, "But I would have made fresh ginger pancakes with mango chutney."
At Johnny's party I didn't have to worry about running in to Don, he was of course from Friendster and only connected to me through the fictional "G train" profile, a tenuous connection at best. But at Johnny's party I did run into my first boyfriend, Joey. I hadn't really talked to him for almost four years and from what I could see (and see through) he hadn't changed a bit: he looked 13.
Our relationship also lasted the magical five weeks but ended amicably. It wasn't until after a few months it soured (for no other reason than I tend to sour things I have sex with). The last time I saw him was at a bar where I blurted out drunkenly as he walked by my friends and I, "There goes the Ho train for Ho town."
I am not a proud person, so when Josh emailed me to ask about us being friends and not being so hostile after that event, I agreed. Besides, I was never going to go to Ho town so what did it matter if I ever had to be nice to him again?
Unfortunately, Ho town was the West Village and the today's Ho stop was Johnny's rooftop Bar-B-Q.
"How are you doing?" I asked, spitting the red hot beer back into my cup as I greeted Josh for the first time since I told him, "We would really make much better friends."
"Hey, good. Here, meet my boyfriend, Caleb," he said with a big smile as I looked at Caleb's penis. Luckily, Kevin intervened, ever paranoid that I was somehow going to cheat, and began talking to them. I went off to talk to other people.
These are the events that I imagine I will meet my next boyfriend, which is unfortunate when you already have one. Rooftop bar-b-q's, house parties and quiet bookstores: they seem like the perfect places to find someone. I can see some man with stubble and black Buddy Holly glasses walking into the musty underground used book store, he'll cruise the fiction section instead of the gay bars and ask me about my favorite band and not how many of his fingers he can fit in my anus.
But this doesn't happen, partially because I don't have enough money for books after all the money I spend drinking at the gay bars people are suppose to cruise me at, but mostly because it doesn't happen to anyone. I have yet to hear of a cute meeting story that even remotely resembles the ones I've come up with.
It definitely doesn't help either when you spend your time on Friendster, looking for that guy you almost met that one time at that one party. Or maybe I'm the only one who does that. Like Joey's boyfriend, Caleb, maybe I'll keep an eye on his profile and message him when his status moves to "single."
But even status can be ambiguous. With Kevin, I never made the full fledge commitment to him that involved changing my status to "In a Relationship." I was "Single" through our relationship, but I was only looking for "Friends."
Kevin first contacted me when I was Single and "Looking for a Relationship" with a scatological note about Oklahoma and Texas. I looked at his profile and he had written a tangent against the Chelsea queens and how he hated what gay culture had become: image obsessed, drug addicted, eating disordered sluts. He had created a profile that was perfect for me. I thought the note was cute at the time as well and had no idea it was going to be the pattern for his entire personality.
We dated for (this is good) three months. It's notable as the longest relationship I've ever had. Three whole months! Wow! Kevin told me he had never met anyone online before and I smirked and said, "Well there's a first time for everything."
Much like getting a rim job on the first date. This seemed to be more in tune with my friends' expectations of meeting people online, drinking and then sex. Unfortunately for me this is a recipe for a mistaken relationship where, near the end of two months, your tanorexic, anorexic boyfriend tells you that you don't love him enough. Maybe it's because I can't love someone who spends all day thinking about his skin tone and his imaginary personal assistant, Juanita.
It's not that these things aren't cute in their own way, it's that nothing is ever cute for very long. Much like Josh's young, prepubescent cuteness, it eventually gives way to something much creepier. For Josh this was looking like a Man-Child and for Kevin it was acting like a Man-Child. This meant crying uncontrollably, needing constant reassurance, still clutching on to dreams of becoming a Broadway star and explaining to me that his favorite book is A Hoboken Chicken Story, a children's book about a boy and a chicken. I'm okay with liking children's books but I feel like after you have done enough cocaine for nine months of your life to support a small South American country or blown more than 30 guys you would eventually, maybe, be old enough or mature enough to read a Bret Easton Ellis book. But, of course, I've been wrong before.
I met Kevin and Don online, dated them and eventually broke up with them. I don't know if you can meet good guys on the internet -- I know I've met what seem like good guys in real life and found them on Friendster -- but I can't actually verify that men in the real world are any better. Everyone has a few personality "traits" that make you want to suffocate them, but I don't know if I can attribute anything specific to the online singles. All I can say is that an online profile seems to be the best description of what you are NOT. Having to explain so vociferously that you aren't a psycho probably means you are. Listing in a two page diatribe that you hate image obsession and sexual promiscuity probably means that you are stupid enough to believe saying you hate those things will instantly expunge you of those qualities.
Back on the rooftop Bar-B-Q I watched all of the singles mingle in their groups, one guy with an awful voice, another one who leered at people too long, even another with an obsession with circuit parties and a few men who guffawed at my hatred for Chelsea clubs. The pool of gay men is not, necessarily, good in real life or the internet. And it's confusing too since everyone seems so good in writing. But despite this, I will probably still rely on the internet for dating. It seems to me that it's more likely I'll find my over-educated, glasses wearing, stubble man online than in any of the places I ever go in real life. But the one nice thing about the real world is that, much like a penis outlined in spandex short shorts, it's much harder to hide your real self.
