Craig Nelson - Finding True Love in a Man-Eat-Man World: The Intelligent Guide to Gay Dating, Sex, Romance, and Eternal Love

DO YOU KNOW

Which hetero traditions can add romance to your life
and which ones just add complications?

What to do when his definition of fidelity is
incompatible with yours?

How to be together without living together?

How to love the nonscene (partially closeted) man?

A DELL TRADE PAPERBACK

Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036

Copyright 1996 by Craig Nelson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

The trademark Dell is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Nelson, Craig (Craig D.)

Finding true love in a man-eat-man world : the intelligent guide to gay dating, sex, romance, and eternal love / by Craig Nelson.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-307-78990-7

1. Gay menUnited StatesSocial conditions. 2. Gay menUnited StatesSexual behavior. 3. Etiquette for menUnited States. 4. Dating (Social customs)United States. 5. Gay male couplesUnited StatesSocial conditions. 6. Intimacy (Psychology)United States. I. Title.
HQ76.2.U5N45 1996
305.389664dc20

95-24742

v3.1

for Mark

A huge thanks to Leslie Schnur, whose idea this was;
I only hope Ive come close to achieving
her original dream.

Life is like
a New York City playground.
Youve got to jump over a lot of dog shit
to get to the swings.

Steven Infantino

Contents

Introduction:

Love in a
Man-Eat-Man World

I m very successful in my career, and in many ways have never been happier. But I cant figure out how on earth to meet someone special. Its something I never really wanted, or at least never cared so much aboutI was always content dating a lot of guys and being single and independent. Now Id really like to meet someone to share things with and I just dont know how. The guys I meet seem to all be damaged in some way, but honestly I dont even meet many of them. I just dont meet anyone, it seems.

Bob and I broke up four years ago, and ever since then Ive been looking for a new man. But no matter what I trythe bars, the dance clubs, even the bathhousesnothing seems to happen. My friends tell me Im cute and fun to be with, but every guy I meet turns out to be an asshole. They never call; they lie; theyre just so fucked up. I dont know; Im ready to just give up. Maybe theres something wrong with me.

Hundreds of thousands of gay men ask themselves these questions (or versions of them) every single day. In fact they dont just ask themselves, they ask their friends, their family, and they even write constantly to gay magazine Dear Abbys about why theyre so unsuccessful in finding love.

While its common to think of us queers as being continually on the prowl for sex (and admittedly, many guys are doing just that), a new day has dawned in most of our emotional lives. Ten years into a never-ending plague of AIDS, combined with a generation of baby boomers hitting their forties, have created a profound social shift: Never have so many wanted so quickly to settle down and get spousedand never have so many had so much trouble doing exactly that.

If our collective attitudes and goals have changed, then why is it still so difficult to get the relationship everyone seems to want? You grew up thinking your life would eventually be like the Ricardos, or the Brady Bunch, or that incredibly loving and understanding Family, or even your own damn parents; then you came out of the closet, and all those assumptions turned upside down.

Romance between men is so completely different from that between a man and a woman that most of the guidelines we all learned as kids need to be thrown out the window. Very rarely do gay couples follow the heterosexual norm of meeting in high school or college, getting married, raising rug rats, and trying to keep the honeymoon going as long as possible. In fact most gay men dont even know a male couple whove been together longer than ten years, since long-term lovers usually vanish from the public gay life of bars and dance clubs after settling down. One long-term elderly couple I know deliberately avoid going out because theyre so tired of other gay men seeing them as role models and constantly asking for the secret!

Why is gay coupling so difficult, and so complicated? In many ways our social life is young, awkward, and still in its young-adult stage. I like to think that its twenty-five years after Stonewall, and public gay life is like any other twenty-five-year-old: just starting to really define oneself as an adult, insecure, filled with hopes and dreams, arrogant, experimenting with new ideas, naive, exhilarated with freedom, fickle, vain, and of course, obsessed with sex. Its a scene where some male couples are now starting to hold hands in public (at least in our bigger cities) while at the same time certain personal ads demand disease-free, and you be too. Its the best weve ever had, and the worst that anyone can remember.

In this twenty-five-year-old milieu there are practically no rules, no guidelines, nothing set in stone for gay coupleswe each have to make it up as we go along. While het lovers may know what to expect at various stages as their relationships grow, the rules of gay coupledom consist of everything that anyone has ever thought of trying and more.

One pair of long-term lovers may be living much as a strictly married het couple would: being monogamous, combining finances, even going so far as to adopt children. Another pair may live in separate cities, each pursuing sex with other menyet they are just as devoted and committed to each other. One of my friends has a new boyfriend whos still living with and taking care of his ex-lover, who has AIDS. They find it just as confusing as you do, but my friend and his new man are as strong a couple as any I know.

These nontraditional styles, however, bring up a host of emotional conflicts that tear at each lovers deeply held beliefs and undermine their commitment to each other. Without the social forces of legal marriage and children, breaking up is not so hard to do.

There is an endless supply of other factors that can cause deep problems for any gay couple. As boys we learned that being ruthlessly competitive in sports and business was the way to win; this same ruthless competition, however, frequently appears between two men trying to make a go of it, creating a no-win situation. We learned that being a man meant being strong, stoic and silentyet its unlikely that a marriage between two Clint Eastwoods would last for very long. We learned that being faithful was a key element in love and marriageMy Husband Had an Affair! is still a regular feature in all the womens magsyet sex with strangers is such a core element of gay mens lives that strictly monogamous, long-term male couples are rare. Is it any wonder that keeping a male marriage going sometimes seems like the biggest job you can have?