More dating tips for women and the man chore that can be seen from space

Now let’s suppose you have a man currently in your life who is not a pseudo-boyfriend (see definitions), and you are interested in trying to move the relationship toward something a little more intimate but you don’t want to seem too obvious, so you invite him over for dinner. However, to blur the possibility of the dinner being clearly and correctly construed as an overture by said man you incorporate a man chore (see definitions) favour into the evening. If this is your tactic of choice, your handling of “the favour” makes all the difference.

My experience whether with a female friend, a girlfriend or with some type of relationship in between, has been that women get it wrong every single time. Yet it is so simple to get right. Ask “the favour” at the time that arrangements are being made for the date not, I repeat not, at the time of arrival. If “the favour” is asked at the time of arrival it can be a little deflating. And I assume, perhaps presumptuously, that your first choice for a date would not be a deflated man. If it is, then I say: to each her own sister. And you are soooo reading the wrong blog.

There is nothing that makes me cringe more, to this very day, than when I enter a woman’s home as her guest, and she speaks those dreadful words which go something like: “While I am preparing dinner, I was wondering if you could do me a favour.” “The favour” more often than not frequently required tools which she did not posses and therefore must have assumed that I, as man, carry around at all times. This is akin to my asking a female friend to knit me a sweater the moment she walks into my house. After all, don’t all women innately know how to do this? Are they not ever vigilant with assorted yarns at the ready and needles, like Japanese Chokuto blades, sheathed across their back?

During the single episodes of some of the women in my life I have unwittingly slipped into the role of their pseudo-boyfriend and “the favour” became my nemesis. Oddly I continually fell for it. There was never a free meal. One would assume that once a woman has a man in her life that “the favour” would no longer be a concern but this, I learned, is a dangerous fallacy. The scope of “the favour” may actually grow exponentially in this situation. “While I am basting the chicken can you put a shelf up for me?” can explode into “While I am basting the chicken can you help Jack put up a retaining wall?” I did eventually catch on and required that certain of my women friends explicitly state that I would not be ambushed by a chore of any sort upon arrival. They have respected my wishes, though admittedly through avoidance.

Comparatively, on the rare occasion when a gay man required help with some type of luger work, not only would he ask while extending the invitation but also take part. Imagine. I still get misty when it happens.

From my experience I can guarantee that it is a misnomer to think that some emperor or other had decreed that the Great Wall of China be built. I know differently. It is the only man chore that you can see from space. “While I am basting the chicken can you help my husband and brothers put up a retaining wall?”

Linen napkins and dire circumstances

Robert recently decided that it was time to hire a housekeeper and, thanks to Craigslist he has found his man. Strangely, this event was presented to me as being my "early Christmas present".

It wasn’t our home’s state of cleanliness which prompted his decision but rather the state of our ironing - specifically, our napkins. He is able to rectify a less than pristinely clean home by simply removing his glasses. But napkins are another matter entirely.

Robert claims that he was brought up so poor that they didn’t even have paper napkins. When he eventually discovered linen, he swore never to endure less. His collection is vast and can be traced to the four corners of the globe. Robert is very tactile and therefore texture is quite important to him. As far as he is concerned, it is a much overlooked part of gracious living.

To his credit, Robert has taken to doing the laundry periodically, up to the point of folding the clothes and putting them away.  This is his line in the sand. Once dried, the clothing is no longer of concern until he goes to dress, whereupon he discovers that everything is neatly awaiting him. I’m not sure if he gives much thought about how the clothing gets from the dryer to his closet. Magic perhaps, with ironing being the most mystical, post-drying, wonder of all.

He has either convinced himself or is trying to convince me that I love to iron. I do not. I like the outcome, but I do not like the act. The difference is significant. Early in our relationship he had tried to persuade me to do all the ironing at once - thus resulting in all of our shirts being pressed for the whole week. This mindset had resulted, just prior to departing for a month, in his leaving a ball of shirts in a shopping bag with a note saying, “You are too, too angelic”. And there they remained until his return. I believe he quietly sends his shirts out now.

Although I don’t mind ironing a shirt for him, on an as required basis, in the absence of an impending dinner party, I don’t plan to spend any of my time ironing napkins. Through use the crisply ironed stacks that he brought from Venice have been slowly whittled away one-by-one. This has left Robert in quite a conundrum. I won’t iron napkins, he won’t iron period, sending them out is a little excessive, and he refuses to use a “tactilely unacceptable” wrinkle free poly-blend. Under these dire circumstances the only rational solution was, of course, to hire a housekeeper. He starts this week.

Stay tuned….

Eat, drink, laugh and sit in the coolest, most Euro- suave ways possible

Not too long after arriving in Venice, Robert and I were invited to lunch by an acquaintance of his. It was a societal gesture suggesting that we should make an effort to move from the “cocktail party” circle to the more intimate “dinner party” circle in each other’s lives. She is an American, who owns a place in Paris but prefers Venice and so rents a palazzo that fronts onto the Grand Canal. (The most lavish facades of palazzos are always on the canal side.) And if you are not familiar with the terrain, renting a palazzo on the Grand Canal is akin to renting a condo on Madison Avenue.

Robert and I arrived by the garden entrance to find the table set, with mimosa chilling, on the patio. However it was not long before we came to the general consensus that, even under the awning, the sun was making it far too hot. So the luncheon was moved to the shade at the front of the palazzo.

Throughout Venice the canals are flanked by fondamenta, which represent a dry land hybrid of street and sidewalk. However, as is the case along the entire Grand Canal, there was no fondamenta in front of her palazzo merely a large concrete platform that is only accessible by boat and therefore would only ever be used by visitors. It is in effect a large porch.

The Grand Canal is a busy place being plied by gondolas, private boats, and tourist laden vaporetti (the public transit water buses). While watching the ebb and flow of traffic I soon noticed the cameras and camcorders. The number of lens pointed in our direction defied chance, we were clearly a photo-op! I won’t even attempt to suggest that I felt scandalized or that the entire scenario was horribly invasive for I’d risk being struck by lightning. Self-conscious doesn’t even apply, but I did try to eat, drink, laugh and sit in the coolest, most Euro- suave ways possible. After all, I didn’t want to let my public down! I sincerely love each and everyone one of them. Kisses, kisses....

QM2 and extremely expensive pens

Thanks to Robert I have a small, and growing, collection of extremely expensive pens. The pens were actually free. It is just the places that he took them from that were costly. I have pens from two of London’s most prestigious hotels, The Connaught and Claridges, another from one of London’s most elite private clubs, The Tory Party’s Carleton Club, yet another from one of New York’s most historic hotels, the home of the famous (and infamous) New Yorker roundtable, The Algonquian, and my favourite, due to its sleek design, from Virgin Atlantic’s upper class. And now, thanks to our voyage from New York to South Hampton England aboard the QM2 on route to Venice, I have a pen from the Cunard line, with which I originally diarized the notes which have become this blog post.

If you are not aware, the QM2 is an ocean liner (the only one of her kind left, as two of the ships Officers had independently shared over dinner), not to be confused with a cruise liner. The distinction is a matter of which comes first, the ship or the hotel. A cruise liner is a hotel that just happens to have a hull, whereas an ocean liner is a double platted hull that just happens to be shipping a hotel from port to port.

The resulting difference can be summarized as follows. I have been on a cruise liner previously, the Caribbean Princess to be specific (fitting on so many levels). The suite had been large and chock-a-block with amenities including a full four piece bathroom. Comparatively, on the QM2, Robert and I were in one of the more upscale top deck staterooms. While equivalent in creature comforts to a four or five star hotel, it was not nearly as spacious as what I had experienced on the Caribbean Princes and, additionally, the bathroom was missing the tub. On the other hand, to put things in perspective, the QM2 is built to weather an ocean crossing with maelstrom seas of 90 foot waves (roughly nine stories). The Caribbean Princes, well, not so much. I didn’t miss the bathtub. I should design the Cunard brochures. “You want a tub? I’ve got your tub! It’s in your cruise liner Jacuzzi crypt on the muddy seabed of the Atlantic! There’s your tub!”

Being a British liner, the QM2 had few North American electrical sockets outside of the stateroom. Knowing that I was in the process of writing my third manuscript Robert offered to loan me a converter for my laptop so that I could have full range of the ship. Frequently traveling between England, Italy and the United States Robert has an inventory of plug converters in various permutations. On our trip he had wisely brought along one (and only one) which took the relatively delicate and innocuous North American prongs and capped them with the British, “electricity is a damn bit of serious business, and we’ll have no tomfoolery about it”, industrial strength claw-like trident.

However, it was a boomerang loan, and in short order the converter found its way back to him, for he too wanted to use his laptop beyond the confines of our room. Fair enough. It was on my first afternoon of socket scouting which found me, on day 3 at 4:00 pm, in the Golden Lion Pub on the end of a long red- leather banquette beside a tiny bandstand, where the prized North American outlet was discovered. In a Jungian case of bizarre synchronicity (the meaning of which eludes me) it was at that day and time when the QM2 passed over the wreckage of the Titanic. The sea was suddenly the calmest it had been since we had embarked and fog, seemingly from nowhere, had closed around the ship; the kind of silver-gray soup that an iceberg could hide in. Less than an hour earlier people had been sunning on the top decks. Make of it what you will. I personally had made it a double. (As an aside, the QM2 can go from top speed to a full stop in six minutes, during which it will have traveled three thousand meters. Jarring, but awesome, yet with visibility looking to be no more than five hundred meters there was a whole lot of techno-trust going on that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. )

Whenever possible, the pub became my literary haunt of choice. With six nights at sea, and no ports of call, there is a lot of free-time to people watch should you be so inclined, which I was. And where better to do so than at a pub in the middle of the Atlantic.

As it generally was, the establishment was relatively empty one mid-afternoon when I had once again returned; just enough patrons to keep it interesting, but not enough to be distracting. No sooner had I setup my laptop when a middle-aged man, appearing somewhat worn thin, plopped himself at the table directly beside me. In retrospect I doubt that I was even noticed. With a notable British accent, he ordered a rum and coke in a tall class with a straw and lemon wedge (In hindsight I think he was attempting to camouflage it as purely a soda).

 He had managed a couple of sips before his exasperated wife, with her mother in tow, arrived (both assumptions about the relationships involved are fairly safe bets, I assure you). As the two sat down at the gentleman’s table his spine went a little rigged. His wife sniffed the drink and then looked straight at him as a prelude to her scolding.  She at once asked a question and in no uncertain terms provided the answer. “It’s a little early don’t you think?” People are the best show in town.

Neither here-nor-there I suppose, but to be accurate it was 3:30 in the afternoon. “Since I’ve been married to you there is no such thing,” would have been my answer. But then I’m not the best council in such situations.  

Of related interest, the QM2 has a theatre for live performance which seconds as a non-denominational chapel for private weddings. Conversely, the ship also has a huge expanse of railing from which to sightsee, sections of which could second as a rather secluded place for a witness free divorce.

Dating, sexism and fabulous lemonade

Before getting back to the matter of your gay-man-approach to the first meeting, let’s review. You select a man primarily based on his looks and to a lesser extent on his personality. His current job and his career potential are not part of the equation. You pepper conversation ever so lightly with flattery, as you work your way toward complimenting his body parts. 

At this point any man would be lucky to have you, but one small refining matter remains before moving on to that all important first meeting, sexism. I have never seen this topic mentioned in any other dating advice column/blog, mock or not. And I don’t understand why that would be the case. Sexist comments happen. They can be a mood killer and therefore merit discussion.

To be clear, in this post I’m not referring to your date’s stereotypes inadvertently directed at women but rather potentially your stereotypes naively directed at men.  When I started to date men I have to admit that I was not at first consciously aware of the complete absence of sexist comments but I think that it did immediately contributed very positively to the overall enjoyment of the experience.    

To simplify for the sake of this particular blog post, and by simplify I mean pigeon-hole, I will divide the women I have dated into two distinct camps. The first are the women who while attracted to the male body and male sexuality have strong issues with ‘men’ as a gender. They are complicated, tirade prone and seemingly unhappy ladies. The other category I will simply label as – fans of men. These are the women that would join in, if only in spirit, with the Weather Girls as they belt out their 70’s disco classic ‘It’s Raining Men’. It is to the latter group that I write.

So that we have a shared understanding of what I am talking about with regard to sexism let me give you a hypothetical scenario. You park your sexy sports car and as you are getting out, a young man who is passing by comments, sincerely: “Nice car! Your husband must have a great job.”

Some examples of equivalent female slip-ups which have actually been said to me by women (though not necessarily about me) include:

1)      “A cashier is no job for a man.”

2)      “When the woman of the house is happy, then the house is happy.”

3)      “I’m just not used to a man who can’t do home repair. My father was so handy.”

Should you not see an issue with one or more of the above - you’ve got your work cut out for you. I can help. If nothing else, avoid generalized statements. It sounds simple enough but it is not. And you will, as will your future dates, screw this up. My point it is that sexist remarks will happen from time to time. Don’t become obsessively on guard but it is something to keep in mind. It is also perhaps a suggestion for some tolerance when the shoe is on the other foot. Taking my above car scenario, if you are single and the young man is attractive you could respond with: “Actually I’m not married. Would you like to take a closer look at my car?” Make fabulous lemonade from lemons my dear, it’s the gay man way.

Our Stay in Truro

In May 2009, while winding our way to Venice, Robert and I took the ferry from Boston to Cape Cod to visit a couple of his dear friends. The boat docks in Provincetown which, if you haven’t been, is on every gay man’s bucket-list but shouldn’t be. Once quaint I am sure, the town is now a caricatured amusement park of its bygone offbeat self. Our final destination was to be Truro, a lesser known, lesser gay, still quaint, town further up the Cape.

After disembarking, Robert and I were met by Mitch and his wife Judy. Not entirely recovered from the two hours of being on a seafaring tilt-a-whirl, I sat in the back of the SUV and listened quietly while these longstanding friends caught up. Interspersed amongst the gossip were sprinklings of Cape Cod trivia provided by Mitch, one particularly interesting fact being that the Pilgrims did not first go ashore in Plymouth, as is the popular lore even amongst Americans, but rather had first gone to Truro. Curious, I later researched this titbit and stumbled upon an historical irony surrounding the arrival of the Mayflower that I positively relish. These religious puritans (similar in beliefs and practices to today’s Baptists, Congregationalists, and Methodists) first dropped anchor on November 21, 1620 in Provincetown Harbour; the future site of the gayest place on earth, right after San Francisco’s Castro District and the Vatican. After which they proceeded to explore Truro as a possible place for settlement--and promptly left. No reflection on the place in its current state.

In a short time the drive brought us to the hillside enclave of four homes (the combined plot of land could have fit a small subdivision) where Mitch and Judy had built their beautiful abode which had been designed by their architect son and his architect wife. It is modern in its lines, including a flat roof, but kept with regional tradition in its exterior finishes such as the clapboard siding.  The property, a few acres of it, had for the most part been left to the indigenous coastal flora. Tall poverty grass, subtle wild flowers and wind pruned trees like pitch pine were made part of the home’s decor through large windows.

Bright and engaging, Mitch and Judy were gracious hosts. Mitch is a wonderfully pragmatic man who once took a silver-set to the public dump simply because they never used it - a treasured find that was quickly snatched up by others. (It would seem from the description that the site was actually somewhat of a free-market open-air exchange for locals.)  Subsequently, on a different run, Mitch picked up a rusted grate which he refurbished and repurposed as a tabletop, because he needed a tabletop. After recently having purged myself of most of my worldly possessions (it’s just stuff after all), his pragmatism had a very rational charm to it.

Judy is an extremely sweet woman whose self-proclaimed type-A tendencies with regard to tidiness are endearing, almost beautiful, to watch. She was as delicate, unobtrusive and welcome as a humming bird as she cleaned alongside me while I worked in the kitchen. Directly alongside me, as if I had two additional autonomous arms rushing to diligently conceal my trail.

During our outings Mitch would not only share his knowledge about the Cape, its ecology and history, but also would provide quick insights of his neighbours (aka gossip).  The three neighbours which shared the vast hillside reserve consisted of; a couple who were both judges (from western Massachusetts who got together on the Cape to live in sin supposedly unbeknownst to their hometown friends—scandalous), and a couple who were both architects (gay and impossibly bitchy, they didn’t abide by the environmental protection codes) and a couple who were both psychiatrists (No juicy scoop on them, but they’re psychiatrists so you know they’re definitely not normal--my generalization not Mitch’s.) It would appear to me that in Truro there are some very strict, two-by-two, cohabitation laws. I can only assume, but didn’t confirm, that Mitch and Judy had a type of zoning waiver since he, formerly being in real estate, was a painter and she is a retired school principal. Who cohabitates with someone outside their own profession?

Further down the hill was a woman who lived in a lovely yellow saltbox house whose garden we raided for the ingredients to a salad as we were taking a shortcut through her yard. (Both acts Mitch assured us were perfectly acceptable amongst congenial neighbours.) This particular neighbour loves to travel, Nepal being her destination of choice. Periodically, we were told, she brings back a Sherpa or two. Yes, a Sherpa--or two. I’m not sure what one goes for these days, but apparently they are very conscientious, hard working men who put in a six month tour and then go back to Nepal.

In addition to providing general labour, they are skilled builders who construct delightful, but durable structures, such as little cages of woven branches for the roses and charming little huts without the use of nails. It is a remarkably generous act on her part, but who does that? Seriously, if you want to ensure that your money is getting to the people who need it most, hire them directly. 

Hooray for Prime Timers!

Robert and I began the celebration of my birth-month, February, with an extra long weekend in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. While we were down there we meet up with a couple of friends of Robert’s to whom he had sent a copy of my book, “Pairs”. It turns out that they liked it so much that they bought a few copies (five) as gifts for friends. And, when they return to their home in Boston, they would love for me to come and speak at the next get together of Prime Timers. What is Prime Timers, you ask? well according to their website:

“PRIME TIMERS WORLD WIDE has thousands of members and more than 70 chapters from Australia, to North America and Europe. PRIME TIMERS is a brotherhood of mature gay and bisexual men and their friends who join together for social, educational, and cultural activities.  Our diverse membership, some retired, some still working, are involved and focused on improving the image and quality of gay life through activities like volunteerism, politics, gay issues, arts, sports, and entertainment.”

http://www.primetimersww.org/boston/

Cool, eh. My editor and I had thought that I had written a work in the genre of “women’s literature” but it turns out that I may have actually written a work of “mature gay and bisexual men and their friends” literature. Time will tell....