The problem with most sex and relationship experts is that they act like they never make mistakes in their own personal lives.   Of course, you read about it in the papers later on when they get divorced or get caught with a person who isn’t their spouse.  So in the spirit of NOT BEING A HYPOCRITE, I offer you a scene from a recent dust-up.  Did I take my own advice?   Ahem.

Background:  I went home with a guy who was so good-looking he made my teeth ache.  We go to the same XYZ gym class but we actually met at a bar.  At the end of a session that was so hot my neighbors had a cigarette, he left without us exchanging phone numbers (and Mike, a Sexpert!).  He said he’d be at XYZ class on Wednesday night.

He wasn’t there.  I tried looking him up in Facebook and MySpace.  Nada.  Didn’t even know anybody who knew him.  A week goes by and I see him at XYZ class.  Actually, the locker room before the class.  I hand him my phone.  He laughs.  Dials.  After the class, he’s in the showers first.  I pass him as he leaves one of the stalls.  I figure we’ll talk when I get out.  I shower. He’s not there.  Disappeared.  Well, I thought, end of story.   He ain’t into it.

An hour and a half later he texts:  

“Sorry I wasn’t there when you came out.  Thought it’d be a little creepy if I waited in the locker room.”

Hmm, I thought.  We’re talking what, 4 minutes in the shower?  He couldn’t have waited in the lobby?  But then why bother texting if he wasn’t interested?  Ohh, the plight of the single—always trying to read the tea leaves.

So, I do what I always advise people to do:  Mirror.  So I waited an hour and a half (the time it took him to text me) before I replied:  

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed but I’m really glad you texted.  It’d be great to get to know you.”

Nothing.  Nada.  Next morning, same. Nothing, nada.  So I followed my own advice—give it one more shot to make sure the lack of response wasn’t an accident.  And personalize it.  So I call the next day and leave an upbeat message, kidding him about the industry he’s in, blah, blah, blah.  

He calls a day later, leaves a voicemail.  I mirror and wait a day to call him back.  I’m thinking, something ain’t right.  He’s showing all the signs of ambivalence.  The texting starts again.  We make vague plans for drinks early Sunday eve.  He calls that afternoon to say he can’t make it because he’s stressed and has to go to the gym, yada, yada, yada.  And I think, well, it could have been worse.  He could have said he needed to do the laundry.  I was about to accept my fate when he says, “How about tomorrow?”  Perfect, I think, because as I always advise, if you’re truly interested in somebody but the scheduling doesn’t work, don’t cancel–reschedule.  So I said, great, call me.

Next day he texts me at 4:30 pm and wants to know if I want to meet him at 6:00 for a quick drink.  I take my own advice:  Never EVER be that available for somebody unless it’s a booty call.  You send the wrong signal.  You’re saying I’ll drop everything for you at the last moment.  You’re saying you have nothing better to do than to respond to whatever he wants when he wants.  And really, who wants to go out with somebody like that?

So I mirror.  He waited to the last minute to invite, so I waited to the last minute to respond.  A few minutes before 6p I texted:

“Hey.  Didn’t hear from you so I made other plans.”

But that wasn’t all I texted.  I don’t like being ‘ambivalented’ so I decided to end his confusion for him.  Here’s the second half of the text:  

“I would reschedule but I get the sense that you’re not very interested.  Why don’t we just leave it where Jesus flung it?  ;>) “

He texted back, “Cool.”  

I had a wave of regret.  I was wrong.  Instead of letting it play out, instead of letting it live or die on the vine I sprayed DDT on it.  I confused ego with dignity.  Ego takes a guy who’s not giving you what you want when you want it and kills him off.  Dignity takes the same guy, creates some distance, cultivates interest and draws him in.  And if it doesn’t work, that’s ok.

The challenge for me wasn’t just to learn better ways to handle emotionally-charged situations like this (emotional because I really dug this guy and the cat and mouse game was killing me) but to let it inform how I give advice in my columns.  Mainly, to make sure I never come across as the expert who always gets it right, never gets rejected and doesn’t know what it feels like to have a crushing disappointment.

Your Ticket to a Boyfriend?

A recent letter:  

Now that we’re into the New Year I can chalk up six straight years of tricking when I would rather have had six straight years of wedded bliss.  I just got my MBA so I even tried using a business approach to getting a boyfriend, complete with an overall marketing, advertising and public relations plan.  I swear, if my love life was a home loan it would’ve gone into forclosure.  Do you have any suggestions to make 2009 the year I break the curse and break in a boyfriend?

–  Hoping for hope 

Dear Hoping:

You can’t use corporate tactics to improve your bottom’s line.  Here’s why:  Because business strategies focus on objective, external circumstances rather than subjective, internal attitudes.  And it’s your attitude, not your strategy that will get you laid.  I mean, married.  Well, both.  Rather than using the strategies of successful businesses you’re better off using the characteristics of successful businessmen. 

 You want a wedding band?  Then pay attention to these Do’s & Don’ts (business style so you MBAs will feel at home):

Do:  Realize it takes an average of seven contacts to make the sale (translation:  Patience.  You have to plant seeds before harvesting).

Don’t:  Put a bumper sticker in your car that says, “I’m Dating Your Husband.”

 

Do:  Detach yourself from the outcome.  Business plans never say, “You’re sense of identity rests on making the sale.”

Don’t:  Wear a T-shirt with “Apartment Manager” in the front and “Unit Available” in the back.

 

Do:  Act like a business and surround yourself with teams and support.  No businessman succeeds without help from others.  Same in love.  Always go out with friends.  They offer support and a good laugh.  And smiling is a scientifically proven way of attracting people to you. 

Don’t:  Approach a guy in the bar and say, “Would you like a drink or do you just want the money?”

 

Do:  Open up new markets.  Hang out in places where relationships have a higher chance of developing.  If you’re used to clubbing, go to laid-back clubs, if you don’t play sports, start and join one of the gay clubs (the good thing about gay sports is that you’re expected to suck).

Don’t:  Tell people that your favorite song is Peaches’, “Fuck the Pain Away.”

 

Do:  Be disciplined.  Many businesses succeed simply because they never gave up.  They kept at it.  So if you join a volleyball team, go to the practices even if you don’t feel like it.  Persevere.

Don’t:  Be an ass if someone rejects you. After spending hours in a bar buying drinks for some hottie who eventually turned him down, a friend yelled, “.”  Nice.

 

Do:  Sacrifice.  All successful businesses give up short-term profits for long-term goals.  You can’t stay out till 6am whacked out on Tina, screw everything with a pulse and expect to find a boyfriend the next morning at church. 

Getting yourself a boyfriend isn’t a matter of asking yourself “What business tactics should I use?”  It’s asking, “Am I willing to change my life to achieve my goal?”  To be perfectly honest, most gay men would answer “No.”  Maybe this is the year for you to say, “Yes.”

THE GOOD

A white-collar guy goes to jail for embezzlement, afraid of what he’s heard.  Sure enough, his cellmate is biggest, meanest guy he’s ever seen.  When lights go out the guy says, “You want to play the husband or the wife.”  Guy thinks:  “The husband.”   Cellmate says, “Then come over and suck your wife’s dick.”

THE BETTER

Four Catholic ladies are having coffee together. The first one tells her friends, “My son is a Priest. When he walks into a room, everyone says, ‘Father’.” 

The second one chirps up, “My son is a Bishop. Whenever he walks into a room, everyone says ‘Your Grace’.” 

The third Catholic lady says smugly, “My son is a Cardinal. When he walks into a room, everyone says, ‘Your Eminence’.” 

The fourth Catholic lady sips her coffee in silence. The first three ladies all ask, Well…?”  She replies, “My son is a 6′ 2″, hard-bodied stripper, and hung like a rhino. When he walks into a room, everyone says, ‘Oh, my God!’”

THE BEST

One day in the future, George Bush has a heart attack and dies. He immediately goes to hell, where the devil is waiting for him.

“I don’t know what to do,” says the devil. “You’re on my list, but I have no room for you. You definitely have to stay here, so I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. Believe it or not, I’ve got some folks here who weren’t quite as bad as you. I’ll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. I’ll even let YOU decide who leaves.”

Bush thought that sounded pretty good, so the devil opened the first room. In it was Ronald Reagan and a large pool of water. He kept diving in and surfacing over and over again. Such was his fate in hell. “No,” George said. “I don’t think so. I’m not a good swimmer and I don’t think I could do that all day long”.

The devil led him to the next room. In it was Richard Nixon with a sledgehammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing that hammer, time after time after time. “No, I’ve got this problem with my shoulder. I’d be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day,” said George.

The devil opened a third door. In it, Bush saw Bill Clinton, lying on the floor with his arms tied behind his head, and his legs in a spread eagle pose.  Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.  Bush looked in disbelief and finally said, “Yeah, I can handle this.” The devil smiled and said, “OK, Monica, you’re free to go.”

Chinese Friendship Symbol

A recent letter:  So, my friend “Dave” told me about a year ago that he is HIV positive.  I’m not. I went clubbing with a different friend, “Steve”, also negative, when we ran into Dave. Immediate sparks ignited between Dave and Steve.

I debated if I should say anything to Steve about Dave’s HIV status but decided it was their business to discuss, not my own.  They ended up going back to Dave’s apartment.  Apparently, Dave revealed his status to an unsuspecting Steve and those sparks were quickly extinguished.

Now, Steve is no longer speaking to me because he feels as though I should have said something sooner, so, as I suspect, he could have blown off Dave sooner.  Which is sad.  Both are great guys, and they could have missed out on getting to know someone really cool, or they could be missing out on some hot sex.  Should I have told Steve about Dave’s status? Or was I right to keep my trap shut?

– Trapped in the middle

Dear Trapped:

 I’ve spent weeks thinking about your dilemma, changing my mind every 15 minutes, and getting splitting headaches in the bargain.  In fact, I’ve been popping so much Ibuprofen, Advil sent me a thank you letter for propping up their stock.

I even called a couple of psychologists and counselors to see what they had to say. Here’s the transcript of a conversation I had with one of them–the gay, and more importantly, hot, New York City-based psychologist, Dr. Brad Thomason:

Me:  Was he right for keeping silent?

 

Doc:  Yes.  It isn’t your responsibility to broadcast other people’s medical conditions. 

 

Me:  But isn’t it irresponsible to say nothing and take the risk that somebody you love might get infected?

 

Doc:   People should take responsibility for their own health.  Taken to its ultimate conclusion what you’re saying is that you have the obligation to tell everybody who might sleep with “Dave” that he’s positive.

 

Me:  It’s hard to disagree with what you’re saying but I keep thinking, what’s more important–keeping a friends’ confidence or keeping a friend safe?

 

Doc:  That’s not the right question.  The right question is who is responsible for your health—you or your friends?

 

Me:  I take your point, but I don’t think you’re getting mine.  Are we not our brother’s keepers? 

 

Doc:  Yes, if those brothers are unable to take care of themselves.  If they’re mentally impaired, or demonstrably ignorant about HIV that’s a different story.

 

Me:  Or if they’re so stupid they think it’s possible to kill a fish by drowning it.

 

Doc:  I’m going to ignore that.  My point is that you’re not the alarm system for fully functioning friends.

 

Me:  What if they’re drunk or high?

 

Doc:  They made a choice to drink or use.  Are you going to police that, too?  

 

Me:  Are you kidding?  I’d be the one pouring!

 

 

So much for the transcript; here’s my bottom line:  I would have told “Steve” that “Dave” was HIV.

Why?  When philosophy meets reality, logic flies out the window.  If I’m asked to choose between an abstraction like personal responsibility and the well being of a close friend, I would rather be intellectually inconsistent than emotionally tortured.  I’m not passing judgment on you because there are good arguments on both sides.  The only person who needs a wake-up call is negative Steve.  First, he should have asked before they left the bar.  Second, he gave up a night or maybe a life with an awesome guy just because he’s HIV?  What a schmuck.

Another favorite from Post Secret.

You know, somebody who can go great lengths of time without sex.

A recent letter:

 I am 25, and have the sex drive of an 18-year-old.  My boyfriend of almost 7 years is 32, and has the sex drive of a 60-year-old.  It seems like the only time we have sex is when he is in the mood, or when I am almost “forcing” him to.  I can usually get him into the mood by doing different things to seduce him, but he is never the one to initiate sex.  We have tried several different things, with no improvement.  What can we do to get his sex drive up to where it should be?

–  Horny

Dear Horny:

At 32, he should be stuffing you like a Thanksgiving turkey every time you gobble.  I seriously doubt there’s a medical problem but you gotta start there–my advice isn’t going to work for something like diabetes or low testosterone.  Honestly, I’m not that good.

Have him bring a list of all medicines he’s taking, prescription or not.  Everyone knows anti-depressants can heave your ‘ho right out the door, but did you know that popular over-the-counter drugs like Tagamet, Zantac, Benadryl and Aleve may do it too?  Any drug that affects your hormones, nerves or blood circulation has the potential to make Willy Nilly.   If he goes to the doctor and finds out you’re the only problem he’s got, then here’s what he needs to do:

1.  Have ‘Flicker Stage’ Sex.  High libido people report dramatic stirrings in their stomachs (among other places) while low libido people don’t.  That means horn-dogs like you get dramatic physiological triggers (raging hard-ons) that demand a response.  Or at least, a mouth.  But low libido guys don’t get those kind of noticeable cues.   Typically, they don’t get hard *until* they have sex.  Even when they’re turned on, they’re more likely to feel burning coals than raging fires.  That’s why it’s important that he initiate sex on the slightest impulse.  Ask any fireman—a spark is all you need to turn wood into a spectacle. 

 

2.  Don’t wait for the mood to strike, strike into the mood.   Imagine going to the gym only when you felt like it.  You’d get so fat waiters would hand you an estimate.  To prevent that most people have a routine—they knock back an energy drink, crank up the music, and do a few warm-ups.  Just like your boyfriend figured out how to get himself to the gym when he doesn’t feel like pumping iron, he’s gotta figure out how he gets himself to bed when he doesn’t feel like pumping you.

He can start by telling you what makes him hot under the collar.   Is it a massage?  Porn?  Sudoku?  Whatever it is, get good at it.  If you want more sex, you’ve got to get better at making his cucumber rise out of the salad.  Pay attention to what he responds to and make mental notes.  Be his idea of a great lover, not yours.

 

3.  Have sex even when he doesn’t feel like it.   Almost everybody’s experienced a time when they didn’t feel like having sex, “gave in” to their partner and ended up having the time of their lives.  He needs to do that.  Not always but just enough to understand you can start out not wanting it and end up not getting enough.   Having sex when you’re not horny is like eating food when you’re not hungry.   Sometimes a sniff of the hot dog makes you want to put the whole thing in your mouth.  

A recent letter:

I’m getting penis envy from hanging around all these dating and hookup sites.  Amazingly, the average dick size in these chat rooms is eight inches!  Yes, 8 inches!  I know because people tell me so.  Of course, they’re measuring from the crack of their ass to the tip of their lies, but maybe I’m being a sore sport.  My question:  For those of us who want to know how big our dicks REALLY are, what’s the best way of measuring them?

—    Digging deep for one last inch

Dear Digging:

So here’s the bad news:  the average penis size is not six inches.  The “six inch myth” got started when Kinsey did his landmark penis size study back in the 50’s.  Although there were 2,000 men in his study, it had a fatal flaw—the results were self-reported.   Men were asked to go into a room, get themselves hard and measure themselves.  Now tell me, would you believe anything coming out of a man’s mouth while he’s holding his dick?   I mean, who do you think came up with maps that say an inch equals a mile–women?

 Realizing that too many men were backdating their stock options, urologists developed a new way of measuring the size of the prize:  A third party.  So, now every legitimate penis study includes medical staff doing the measuring and reporting.  And guess what happened?  The average erect penis size shrank from Kinsey’ 6.2 inches to 5.1 inches.  Yes, the average size is just over five inches.  Kinda makes you weep, doesn’t it?  

If you want to know your exact measurements, here’s how to do it:

1.  Get undressed in room temperature. “Shrinkage” will occur if it’s cold.  

2.  Use a cloth ruler.  Tape measures or straightedge rulers don’t measure curvatures well.   

3.  Lie on your back and start where the base of your penis meets your stomach.  Do NOT start from the back of your balls.  Nobody includes the basement when they quote the height of a skyscraper, so don’t include the tip of your ass in quoting yours.

4.  Round up to the nearest centimeter, not the nearest foot.

5.  Read it and weep.  Most men will fall between four and six inches, with the average being 5.1 inches.  

Actually, there’s a much faster and easier way to measure your cock.  You don’t even need to get hard to do it.  All you have to do is stretch your flaccid flogger and measure it from the penopubic region to the tip.  Believe it or not, every major study shows a high correlation between erectile and flaccid/stretched length.  

Now, here’s an interesting trick I learned from a condom company.  If you want to find out if you have a big dick without measuring it, then put a tube of toilet paper over your erect penis.  If it slides all the way down to the base, you’re average or below average.  If it gets stuck, then pop the champagne corks because you’re one of the lucky few.  Yes, FEW.  Condom manufacturers estimate that only 6% of the population needs extra-large rubbers.  I know.  Another reason to cry.

The economy is taking its toll on everybody’s love life. Marrieds:  If you think your partner wasn’t putting out before, wait till you see what they’ve got in store for you once they realize you had all your money in Wachovia and Citi-Group.  Couples living together:  If you think your partner didn’t pay you much attention before, wait till you see how much shade his “Project Ignore” stamp is going cast on your emotional needs now.  And singles:  If you think finding somebody was hard before, wait till you go to the bars and see how they’ve turned into empty bowling alleys.

But the people I feel sorry for the most are gold diggers.  

I mean, this housing market is the functional equivalent of date rape for them.  Once, real estate was the best investment they ever made.  Or rather, marrying somebody with real estate was the best investment they ever made.  But now, what’s a gold-digger to do?  How do you tell the house-poor from the plain poor?  They’re both driving about-to-be repo’d BMWs. 

“Everyone is looking for handsome, rich and charming men but there are less and less of them to go around,” says one gold digger in The NY Post’s Page Six Magazine.  And here’s the London Telegraph on men cutting back on “mistress-associated costs”:  ”More than three-quarters of the adulterous multi-millionaire men surveyed said they planned to spend less money on gifts and treats for their lovers, and 82 per cent planned to cut their regular payments.”

One reader wrote with a great solution—-a kind of modified Heimlich maneuver:  ”Place your fist on his abdomen and squeeze quickly and firmly until he coughs up more cash.”

Hey, the Hermes scarf on that shelf ain’t going to buy itself…

Take a look:

No.  Black is the new Nay.  

The Advocate had a potentially interesting cover story about African-American nay-saying to gay civil rights.  I say “potentially” because the story punted on its own premise.  You have to go two pages into the story before they actually say anything about the subject.  It’s yet another example of the magazine’s  ongoing struggle with publishing bulimia–Binging on a delicious topic, then throwing it up before it’s fully digested.

But enough about why the magazine’s so thin you could mistake it for a brochure.  Truth is, it’s a very provocative title.  Some excerpts:

“Gay is the new black in only one meaningful way. At present we are the most socially acceptable targets for the kind of casual hatred that American society once approved for habitual use against black people…

Except in a few statistically insignificant cases (the gay kid who happens to be the child of gay parents), being gay begins with recognizing your difference from the people with whom you have your earliest, most intimate relationships….

Our oppression, by and large, is nowhere near as extreme as blacks’, and we insult them when we make facile comparisons between our plights. Gay people have more resources than blacks had in the 1960s. We are embedded in the power structures of every institution of this society. While it is illegal in this country to fire an African-American without cause and in most places it’s still legal to fire a gay person for being gay, we are more likely to have informal means of recourse than black people have. Almost all gay people have the choice of passing. Very few black people have that option…”

Here’s the problem:  While these are all good points, does it matter?  Is black support for discrimination acceptable because there are differences between us?  Methinks the writer punted.  Instead of holding that part of the African-American population that supported Prop 8 accountable, he gave them a pass.  It’s almost like he’s apologizing to them:  ”Well, you know, we’re DIFFERENT, so you don’t have a moral obligation to stop what was done to you.”

By holding them accountable I don’t mean BLAME.  I mean holding a mirror up.  The way MLK did to that part of white America that objected to black civil rights.  Mirrors have a way of double-checking our self-perceptions.  If I were the editors of the Advocate, I would have put an African-American clutching his Yes on 8 ballot on the cover, looking into a mirror, and seeing George Wallace smiling back.