Now that the smartphone phenomenon known as Grindr has been unleashed on the Android market for about two months now, I’ve noticed a lot of new faces showing up on my iPhone Grindr app wanting to say hello. Welcome to the party men, and the occasional Best Girl Gay Friend.
I talked about Grindr protocols in a previous post that you can read here, and since then I’ve gotten some questions from guys wanting to know why no one’s responding to their chats and why they’re getting blocked on Grindr. Here are some of my experiences with different Grindr chats that did nothing but made me want to hit Block:
Pitching A Fast One
While I appreciate this guy’s honesty, his approach came on way too strong for me and bordered on being down-right rude. Unlike a dating site, there isn’t a way for you to wink, nudge, poke or pull the hair of your potential beloved on Grindr so that they know you have an interest in them before you meet them via chat. Coming on too strong may not always work, and can leave a bad impression with the person you’re chatting with, and with their friends. See below …
If That’s Your Boyfriend was my jam in the ’90s. A strong black woman playing a bass with an unbelievable sound and ground-breaking style, Plantation Lullabies is an amazing album from whence this track and many other great songs came from.
But I’m not putting up Meshell solely based on her talent. I’m including this song as a Dating Soundtrack because it states a plain fact that many gay men don’t want to admit to or talk about: at some point in our dating lives we’ve hooked up with someone else’s man and didn’t regret it. Read more…
In DC, going to networking events is a common occurrence. I am not talking about the First Friday phenomenon where everyone seems to be a hair salon owner or in varying stages of looking for employment (read here), but actual real live networking. I will occasionally attend these events with someone I’m dating, so we can mingle and play off each other or ditch early if the event is a bust.
I was at an event once with a date, having a good time and seeing old friends when he walked in. He, who I’ll call “Idris” because every black man who is devastatingly hot is like an Idris to me, is the ex-boyfriend of a close friend who is now the boyfriend of an acquaintance.
To say that Idris looked hot was an understatement. Well-groomed facial hair. Knitted polo shirt that did nothing to hide every ripple of muscle in Idris’ arms. A pair of dress slacks that were generous in their cut but left room for him and my imagination. Idris was a beautiful, brown, sexy black man that literally took my breath away when I saw him that evening.
I’m always able to keep my cool regardless of what level of attraction I may initially have for a man, but for some reason seeing Idris on this night made me lose it. He came over to say hello and I went from sociable, professional and composed to silly, blithering and wilted in 6.2 seconds flat. At one point the only words I could muster to say were “you look good” repeatedly. Wait, didn’t I come here with a date? Read more…
Matt walking past me at the party and not speaking wasn’t a possibility that I came prepared for. An awkward hello followed by looking at each other, but not looking at each other across the room for the rest of the night? Yeah, I totally came prepared for that to happen. But not speaking?
I immediately downed my drink and asked Clay to get me two of the same. We were chatting with a group of people who didn’t know Matt so no one noticed when he didn’t stop to say. I acted like nothing was wrong.
Clay came back with three drinks for us. I immediately downed one and took the other to nurse on.
“You okay there Kamal?” Clay said to me with a look of concern.
“Yeah Clay, I’m fine” I said. “We came here to have fun and I refuse to let Matt put me in a bad mood. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Van.” Read more…
If there is one thing I try not to do on this blog, it’s get all preachy and relationship expert-like. But for this, I’m going to put my arms akimbo and become your Sassy Gay Friend for a moment. WAIT FOR LOVE, DAMN IT!
Spring has sprung in DC and while some of you are walking around holding hands under the cherry blossoms, some of you are also walking around wondering where your plus one is and why he hasn’t shown up yet.
You’re ready for him, I know. There have been times in my life too when I felt really ready to give and receive love, and wondered why I wasn’t finding someone to share it with. WAIT FOR LOVE, DAMN IT!
As my grandma would say, “it may not come when you want it to but it’ll come right on time.” It’s hard to fall asleep at night holding on to a belief, but isn’t that what we do every day? Yes, it may take a moment for the right person to come along but that person will come; and being frustrated about it may close you off to recognizing a good thing when it finally comes along.
Oh, and just because you have someone to walk under the cherry blossoms with doesn’t always mean they’re the right person for you. WAIT FOR LOVE, DAMN IT! Read more…
There is a certain joy that comes from dating. When you truly like a person, you enjoy being around them and have fun exploring new places or frequenting old standbys. But there are times in dating when it isn’t very fun, and in fact can be down-right uncomfortable.
I tend to be a little neurotic and can over-dramatize situations. Hard to believe, I know. Meeting a guy’s parents can be unbelievably uncomfortable as I’m always wondering if they’re going to like me or have any apprehension meeting the guy that’s dating and schtupping their son. Read more…
Van Goodwin invited you to the event “Bon Voyage!” read the email from Facebook that I received several days ago. I let the invite linger in my Inbox, giving some time for the RSVPs to trickle in.
Matt and I had been avoiding each other since our email tête-á-tête about traveling together to the bike race in Ohio. While we weren’t going out of our way to completely switch up our respective routines, we would occasionally send each other a message like “I’m not going to happy hour tonight” which we both knew meant, “you can go there tonight and have no fear of me walking in and making things awkward.”
Being invited to Van’s event presented a potential problem. Van was leaving DC for several months on a work trip and there was much talk about sending him off with a bang. I wasn’t “best friends” with Van (and neither was Matt), but I wanted to go and show my support and I knew that Matt would want to do the same. Read more…
The official video for Kelly Rowland’s new single Motivation came out today, and to call the video “smokin” would be an understatement. Think Kylie Minogue’s All the Lovers video times 10.
Motivation is overt without being explicit, and that’s exactly how we like it. By the way, I think I’ve seen some of those dancers at Mansion parties in LA.
Yesterday’s post of An Episode in Dating sparked a lot of feedback from some loyal fans, so I want to take a moment to address that and also discuss some issues I deal with in writing about reality.
I had a feeling that the post would raise some eyebrows, and the comments I heard boiled down to: were those Matt’s actual emails and how could you re-post them on the internet?
Yes, the emails I posted yesterday were from Matt. The reality of what I do, which is different from other blogs, is that I don’t narrate experiences to you verbatim or as they happened. I reserve the right to make edits for the sake of being concise, but without changing the true nature of the experience or what was actually being said.
The “emails” I used in yesterday’s An Episode were a summary of an email thread that was longer than what was actually represented. Technically it went exactly like: I don’t think we should do X because of A, B, and C. But I think we should because of D, and E. But what about C and D? Okay, I apologize and agree to not do B and C. Fine, but I’m doing A.
Confusing isn’t it? Which is why I edit. Read more…
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