There’s a joke about gay dating that encapsulates the difference between how men and women approach romance. It goes like this: What do lesbians bring on a second date? A U-Haul. What do gay men bring on a second date — What second date?
In the perilous journey that is the search for a suitor, it’s generally easier to find a man who wants to be tied up, flogged, and humiliated for sexual pleasure than it is to find someone to cook at home with and watch Mad Men together. As gay men, we have a surplus of opportunities to fulfill our sexual urges in a variety of new and exciting ways, making the thought of settling for one person hardly enticing for many in the community.

But should you wish to trade meaningless sex for his and his towel sets, actually finding someone who wants the same comes with more obstacles than Lindsay Lohan’s path to sobriety. First, there is the claustrophobically small dating pool. Let’s begin with the fact that only 5% of the population is gay (or at least will admit to it). Half of them aren’t thinking past their next hookup, half of that won’t be sexually compatible, and maybe a tenth of what’s left are people you wouldn’t mind getting to know over coffee. That leaves approximately seven people in your city as potential mates.

Now the question is how to find these seven gentlemen suitors. Likely your friends don’t have anyone for you or you wouldn’t be single. There is the chance that you could meet someone at work, and this is probably still the best and most organic way to meet. However, if you work alone or your office is full of guys who make Danny Devito look like Don Draper, then you’ve go to step outside the cubicle confines.

That leaves two main options: meeting someone at a bar or online. Personally, I’ve been going out to bars in both New York and Los Angeles since I was 19 and I’ve never met anyone in that setting that wasn’t more than a hookup. I’m not saying it can’t happen, and I’m not saying that Ron Paul won’t be the next president. It is possible.

But more likely you’re on some combination of Grindr, OKCupid, and my new favorite, Tinder. There are a few other apps I’m leaving out, but those are more explicitly aimed towards casual encounters with pornographic-sounding names like “Jack’d,” and “Scruff.”

At first blush, you might think you’ve discovered the island of lost men – so this is where they keep all the handsome single guys. But soon one discovers this is really the disenchanted forest of beasts. Because gay men have been finding hookup buddies online since Al Gore invented the internet via chatrooms and Craigslist, there is a prevailing stigma against taking anyone seriously encountered in the virtual sphere. There is either the underlying supposition that they’re simply horny and looking to get off, or they’re some socially inept Quasimodo incapable of finding love in a more traditional locale.

I am in my mid fifties and I consider myself in the best shape of my life now even though I have been active in sports and in great shape my whole life. At age 51 I completed my first half Ironman triathlon and did my first double century. Here are my 10 tips for staying healthy, fit, and happy in your 50’s and beyond. 50’s and 60’s does not mean “senior”! Strike that word from your vocabulary. If you think of yourself as old then you will act old. 50’s and 60’s means midlife to me – the prime of your life. I believe in a holistic approach to fitness.

I always miss the best events. Earlier this year I was invited to a gay wedding. Now, I usually hate weddings, but this was one I wish I had been able to attend. No expense was spared: at the ceremony (in a deconsecrated church) one of the grooms - an artist - wore black, insisting all guests wore white. For the wedding reception (in an underground club), he switched to white, entering on a white horse. Guests were subsequently treated to a 1970s inspired cabaret show, while being served with poppers on silver trays (by scantily clad Latino waiters), which they could then sniff until they turned blue in a dark room.

But it wasn’t just the nuptials and festivities which were different - it was the ideology behind the wedding. Here were a couple making a commitment within the traditional heterosexual structure of marriage, but on their own terms, to suit their lifestyle.

We have all been through our fair share of dating blunders, pitfalls and disasters. If you are single, it is easy to get discouraged after a few too many dating disappointments.

But fret not, because there are men out there who are just like you, and it only takes finding one to make you forget all the other failed attempts at love.

However, even if you find a guy who seems to be a right fit, you still might run into more than a few dilemmas that can cause you to break up if you don’t know what to look out for. Here are a few pitfalls to avoid, and how to avoid them.

Heartbreaking coming out stories are unfortunately still all too common, which is why it’s important to share stories like this recent anecdote from a father who discovered his teen son is gay.

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Earlier today, my oldest son left his cell phone on the living room table. I noticed that someone has been blowing his cell up, and curious ol’ me decided to see what was going on,” he wrote to the AskGayBros Reddit channel. “Well, I learned that he has been dating this boy from, what I assume to be his high school. I am not experienced on this topic, never really have been, til now at least.”

Sometimes, your normally quiet office turns into an unpleasant symphony: Dry, barking hacks combine with those wet, chesty coughs and the little, tickling throat-clearings to create a productivity-sapping crescendo.

But bugs aren’t the only things that can leave you whooping. There are many different causes of both acute cough - which lasts 4 weeks or less - and chronic cough, which persists past the 8-week mark. And it’s important to figure out what’s actually behind yours. 

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Canadians Adam Grant and Shayne Curran were happily married when they decided to get a divorce.

The couple first met in Nova Scotia six years ago and were legally wed in 2011. A year after saying “I do,” they met Sebastian Tran at a nightclub while searching for someone to join them in an innocent threeway.

“We never intended it to be anything serious,” Adam tells the Daily Mail. “We were certainly never planning on taking on a full-time third partner. It was just bit of sexual experimentation.”

But after bringing Sebastian home, Adam and Shayne quickly realized he was more than just another notch on the bedpost.

“The three of us sat out in our back garden together, talking for hours about our lives, ambitions and dreams,” Adam recalls. “Sebastian was different to anyone we had ever met. There was something about him that Shayne and I couldn’t explain, but it was like meeting our life partner for the second time.”

Sebastian was equally as surprised by how well the three of them got along.

“At the time, I didn’t think I was ready to commit to anyone, so it was a surprise when I fell for both Adam and Shayne,” he says. “I didn’t think I wanted one boyfriend let alone two!”

Behind every great gay man, there’s a real desire to have an awesome straight dude (and I don’t mean sexually). For many gay men, having a close straight male friend is akin to capturing the holy grail. 
It’s something that is fetishized and yearned for on both sides. In the past, I’ve sought out the company of straight men because, in a way, I feel like it validated my masculinity. It made me feel more versatile, like I could pass for “straight” and inhabit a heterosexual world more seamlessly than my other “gayer” friends. I’m not proud of this logic. On the contrary, I think it’s totally screwed up and an obvious indicator of self-loathing.

 

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Why does it give me so much pride when I gain the approval from heterosexual males? Am I that eager to not be perceived or defined as gay? I think it’s just another example of gay men’s aversion to be labeled as “femme.” If you go on any gay male dating/sex site, you’ll see a large percentage of men who are looking for “straight acting guys only.” 

They identify themselves as jock types and make a point to say they’re not into “femmes.” In the gay world, “femmes” have the least amount of power whereas so-called masculine men possess the most. So if you’re the kind of guy who’s never going to be described as “jockish” and you want to feel accepted, being friends with straight guys can often feel like the next best thing.

This obsession with masculinity and, by extension, straight culture, definitely bleeds into the straight guy/gay guy dynamic. Throughout my life, I’ve been friends with straight dudes who have treated me like a novelty. It’s clear that I’m there to be the gay friend who makes them feel better about themselves for being so open-minded. “See? I hang out with gay dudes because I think they’re cool. I’m very progressive!” Oftentimes, in the friendship, I’ve felt the need to wear my sexuality on my t-shirt, inserting gay jokes whenever possible or testing the comfortability level by being a little bit raunchy. I’ve hated myself for it and I’ve hated them! But it wasn’t entirely their fault, no one was really the bad guy here, because I was using them too. By letting me get close to them, they were making me feel cool and butch, like I was more than my sexuality, like I was one of The Cool Gay Guys.