Boyfriend 101 A Gay Guy's Guide to Dating, Romance, and Finding True Love

CHAPTER 1 getting started From the early days of Gay Liberation until the early 1980s, the primary place for meeting gay singles was bars. The bar scene was the hub of gay life. In bars, men dished, met new friends, fell in love, and broke up. Every gay traveler carried the Damron Address Book, the bible of gay travel. With the onset of AIDS in the early eighties, the golden age of bars ended. Suddenly, there were vastly more important things to doministering to others; taking care of one's own healththan hanging out in bars. With the decreasing importance of bars in the culture, new ways of relating emerged, as gay men sought alternatives to bars as places to socialize and to shelter themselves from the storm outside. By the early 1990s, dating patterns for gay men had undergone a profound change. Previously, men met and either fell in love at first sight and became lovers fairly quickly, or had sex and, if it didn't work out, moved on. One rarely heardlet alone usedthe "D" word. It sounded too straight. It took too much time. The expectation of immediately having sex with a man was so ingrained in gay culture that the idea of postponing what was only "natural" seemed old-fashioned and sex-phobic. To be gay was to have sex. Now. The ritual of dating became a new phenomenon. New organizations sprang up across the United States, and gay community centers became an alternative hub of gay life, where one could meet other gay singles in a non-bar environment. Many men rubbed elbows with lesbians for the first time at gay centers, and experienced firsthand another model of same-sex coupling. Few lesbians were looking for the absolutely "perfect" body as much as gay menor for immediate gratification. Some men recoiled at the concept of dating, because they were afraid of intimacyand still held on to the myth that the pre-AIDS period of sexual experimentation constituted the glory years. But those days are gone forever. The paradigm shift from bars, cruising, and immediate sex to dating, courtship, and long-term relationships defines today's gay landscape. WHAT IS A DATE? You're having a date when you meet a guy at a specified place and time in pursuit of the possibility of future romantic involvement. The operative words are possibility and future; throw the notion of immediate gratification out the window, because delayed gratification is part of the new paradigm. Gay "dating" in the past was about immediacy, quickness, get-in-and-get-out, secrecy, fuck buddies, no commitmentsthere was always an exit. In no way do I condemn these patterns. Many gay men seized these opportunities as a means to explore their sexuality and to resist the heterosexist norms that had repressed them. No gay men wanted to be told what to do in bed or out of it. The paradigm shift brought to gay singles the challenge of a new approach to intimacy. Learning how to date men, rather than just have sex with them, includes acknowledging and accessing what I call our "inner teenager." The inner teenager is the playful, shy, sexy, seductive, self-conscious, scared, and romantic part of us that wants to go out on dates, but may not possess the social and emotional skills to do it. There's a negative side to the inner teenager as wellthe inner voices of temper tantrums. The adult part of usthe grown-up who can operate quite efficiently in the worldneeds to take care of his inner teenager, or the inner teenager will rebel and make his life miserable. Our inner teenager can make our career and work life seem like a death sentence if his needs don't get met. The inner teenager wants to come out and play, and requires the adult pSullivan, Jim is the author of 'Boyfriend 101 A Gay Guy's Guide to Dating, Romance, and Finding True Love', published 2003 under ISBN 9780812992199 and ISBN 0812992199.