A woman’s guide to dating like a gay man

Over the course of our relationship Robert has, from time to time, shared his theory as to why outwardly ‘straight’ men seek out a liaison with another man with some finally switching camps altogether.  The lynchpin in his adamant conjecture is Oral Sex. Simply put, women don’t give it. Gay men do...brilliantly!

While his presumption does hold statistically in my own personal  dating experience and does possess some rudimentary merit, I believe that he has merely touched upon a symptom of a far more pervasive and complex root cause. I offer the alternative possibility that the allure resides in the clear and direct flattering interest of another.  The importance of clear and direct cannot be overstated.

A related aside, I think in terms of clarity of communication between the genders, women should hold in reserve the word ‘horny’ in reference to their state of arousal. Unless you are contemplating eating through someone’s clothing to get their body, you are not horny. I honestly don’t know if this has ever crossed a woman’s mind, but for the sake of transparency of intent, any state of coital desire less than this should be labelled simply as frisky.

Certainly in the realm of male libido it is tempting to defer to the principle of Occam’s Razor, "when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better", thus indicating that Robert pretty much nailed it. Nevertheless, I perceive a vacuum of knowledge that I will attempt to address with an intermittent series of blogs tentatively entitled “A woman’s guide to dating like a gay man”.

These blogs will be tagged “A woman’s guide” and though intended to assist women who wish a unique, if indeed not entirely skewed, peek into the male psyche, all are welcome. I must caution, however, that those readily prone to moral corruption or overly sensitive to the erosion core family values should probably steer clear.

In reference to this series the following non-alphabetical list of fast-and-loose definitions shall apply:

1)      Sex (noun with hopefully verb like qualities): an arousing social encounter between two or more optimistic individuals during which the genitals are, in some fashion, pleasantly engaged...or not unpleasantly engaged...whatever floats your boat

2)       Relationship (noun):  a) you at least know the person’s first and last names, b) you have demonstrated a desire to know more c) you’ve had sex, d) you still don’t regret “b)” or “c)”, e) you’re pretty sure they feel the same and f) ground rules have been set for the initial level of monogamy.

3)      Man chore (noun phrase): Domestic duties that a woman will seek a man to perform. While the installation of home electronics falls under this purview, these tasks are more often than not relegated to scutwork which combines at least two of the following three attributes: a) doesn’t require much intellect, b) labour intensive, c) filthy. Taking out the garbage is a superlative example of a delegated ‘man chore’.

4)      Pseudo-boyfriend (noun): A single woman’s male friend who performs the tasks and duties in her life which would otherwise normally be associated with a boyfriend or husband, except sex. A single woman’s “might-as-well-be-eunuch” substitute boyfriend. A single woman’s male friend who does man chores for her and to whom she will (if she’s honest with herself) rarely, if ever, consider reciprocating.

5)      Chivalry (noun): Archaic. Replaced by the word thoughtful in the new millennium so that women would feel okay about being “chivalrous” toward men.