What the fuck was she waiting for?

Why are we so obsessed about dick? Maybe it’s because men and their cocks come in so many shapes and sizes (small, big, thin, thick, cut, uncut), that the possible Las Vegas slot machine combinations between the type of guy we’re hardwired for and his dick are endless. So we remain constantly curious to see what IT’s like and what IT will do for us. And that often means going beyond our usual circles of bars or local hang outs and out into the world like some sexual explorer, dropping all that money that could be going into a CD or retirement account on trips, botox, liposuction, or Lumineers, or killing ourselves at the gym, all just to look good, when that ultimate dick might be right next door if we opened our eyes.

Some people disagree with me and say it’s just a guy thing – you know, it’s all about the sex – but I think deep down inside it isn’t about cock at all. Because saying it’s just cock eliminates pondering about or dealing with that other c word: commitment. We think we’re not ready to commit ourselves to another human being just quite yet; we meet the guy with the perfect cock and the perfect body and the perfect everything, but there’s just something about his big toe that isn’t quite right; or we want to play run-around Sams forever. After all, old age or worse, loss of libido, happens to other people, right?

And so the search goes on. And on. And on. The 10’s are looking for 13’s, the 4’s will only settle for 10’s, and the 7’s are ready to go straight.

That being said, there are some guys out there, a lot more than we think or mainstream America would believe, who play both sides of the sexual fence without thinking twice about their “sexual orientation.” Having been fortunate to have a few guys of late old enough to be my younger sons who tell me they think and play this way, this may be a small but growing trend among younger guys.

Then we’ve got guys who like guys who have, nonetheless, bought the straight life script and walked down the aisle – with a woman. And they’re out there in droves.  Some are actively married with grown kids and grandkids, others are divorced and disowned by their family or, because they had a loser of a wife, are raising or have raised their kids on their own or, in some cases, with a male partner.

But why does a guy who knows damn well a dick is the only kind of anatomical equipment that’s really gonna excite him get involved with a woman, and –yikes! -   marry her?

Reason #1: “I didn’t know I was gay.” Maybe the guy doesn’t recognize his true sexuality deep down inside, though today with the web and mainstream media, I can’t believe anyone could be that naïve or sheltered. Or is he trying to fool himself and thinks if he just gets married, those strange urges will pass? Sure, there may be men out there who very admirably suppress their sexual desires and sublimate them into husbandhood, fatherhood and profession. And if these same men can live their entire lives that way with perhaps a M4M tryst now and again, whom are they hurting?

Reason #2: “I’ll end up in hell,” or “I’m just supposed to get married.” A lot of this is a generational, ethnic phenomenon. Thirty or forty years ago, guys, particularly Catholic or Jewish or Muslim and/or from Italian or Irish or Eastern European or Middle Eastern ethnicities were often in the marriage vise when they turned 22. Then there are those who needed to carry on the family name or fortune. Have things changed all that much in our so-called enlightened society to make it easier for the gay blades among these ranks today to slip out of the marriage noose? I don’t know. But is it being more of man not to start the ruse in the first place?

Reason #3: “The right guy never came along – until now.” Maybe that contact with another guy at a point in life when we reach that fork in the road happens after that walk down the aisle.

Reason #4: “My wife doesn’t want sex anymore and treats me like shit.” Some bi-guys, usually the over forty group, will tell me that the reason they turned to men for sex is because their wives don’t appreciate them any more. Or can’t keep up with hubby’s attempts to hold on to his youth, whether it’s staying in shape or wearing the latest threads. Or the woman just plain doesn’t want to have sex. Enter another man who tells the guy he’s hot. O.K., but I still say the urge for the male species had to be there in the first place. Otherwise, wouldn’t they be checking out some young chick?

Reason #5: “Living straight is just easier.” Maybe it just comes down to the fact that straight life has a script, gay life is free fall, and some guys would rather follow a script, i.e., marry by 25, have your 2.1 kids by 30, etc.,  and worry about the consequences, if they ever come, later.

Like the average non-descript gay guy I often speak about, bi-married guys are not a group that ordinarily stand out like some radical drag on roller skates at the gay pride parade. They live their married, often suburban, sometimes rural lives like any other married men. Only, unlike us full time gay boys who frequent the bars and sex clubs on a regular basis, bi-marrieds often wait for the opportunity to present itself, at the gym, adult bookstore, or online, do their business, then go home to wifey and kids as if they had just had a haircut or a beer with the guys. Or they have a job that gets them out of town a lot and offers plenty of opportunities to screw around.

Bi’s and Bi-marrieds also tend to use the personals on generic websites like Craig’s List or Aol to connect discretely with other guys,  rather than Daddyhunt, Bear411, or Manhunt like us gay lifers, where men and their dicks are out there like dog shit on a sidewalk.

And while gays and bi guys who resist attachments like to live in the city, bi-marrieds feel surprisingly more comfortable in the burbs or boonies where they can fade into the woodwork like other marrieds. This is even true if, post-divorce, they’re raising their kids on their own, or with a partner who some kids view as their second “Popi.” When a divorce occurs after decades of marriage, the now adult children, maybe because they’re from another generation, often have no hang-ups about Dad announcing he’s gay; other times, they desert him once that closet door has been flung open, poisoned by a vindictive wife/mother or society, or paranoid, if it’s a son, that they may have inherited the “bad seed.”

Bottom line, bi and bi-marrieds are out there in numbers greater than most gays or straights would believe and, who knows, despite all the challenges, may be happier, too, than us career faggots.

After all, who can really define happiness?

At first I thought he would be one of those five minute, drive-by fucks – either me fuck him or him thinking I wanted him to fuck me. But instead we soon got into one of the most sensual hour and halves I’ve ever spent with a guy where hard dicks were only a footnote to the dance.

“I love looking at you,” he whispered, sitting with me on the mattress, stroking his stiff uncut cock as he ran his hands over my furry chest. “Ditto,” I replied. With that, he lifted my arm and sniffed and licked my armpit for what seemed an eternity.  I responded by kissing the wisps of hair on his chest and abs. Without drugs or poppers or liquor, we had entered some kind of sexual trance, as we fingered one another’s buttholes, smelled one another’s pits and pubes, and licked the sweat off our bodies, holding one another tightly, shoulder to shoulder on the bed, taking turns stroking our two rock-hard cocks as we brought drops of precum to one another’s lips.  We were like two trees that had grown into one another.

“Feeling good buddy?” I asked, rubbing my beard against his.

“I feel fucken great, bro, fucken great.”

“You smell great – just like a man,” I replied.

“This is just the way I like it,” he answered staring at me with piercing black eyes

In between all this, he had kept pulling at my sneakers til I finally got the hint and took them and my socks off. He pulled both my feet to his mouth and began sucking my toes, one at a time, in between licking and sniffing. In all my years as a career gay man, I had never gotten into feet, but now I relished in it and gestured for him to strip his feet naked too. Worshipping his feet, small but manly, became my new religion.

When he finally shot his load, with my mouth a few inches from his cock, a geyser of cum trickled down my chin. Moments later, I exploded.

This had been more than a Kodak moment – this was more like a feature movie in 3D and Smell-o-vision.

“You know we chatted on line awhile ago. One of the bear sites.”

Funny. I didn’t remember him.

We exchanged screen names and he asked me to look him up. Maybe an encore was in the wind. If not, living in the moment was what the last 90 minutes had all been about.

I had detected an accent even in his sound bites as we played, and though he looked like he might be Eastern European, he instead revealed he was Argentinean, lived not in Miami as I might have guessed but right here in Lauderdale, and owned his own hair salon. For once I had played with an enterprising guy, not a loser.

Embolden by Enrico, I strutted out to the pool without my towel and with half a hard-on still lingering in my dick. Twenty minutes later, lunch was served and within the hour I was on my way home. For a change, I had gotten my money’s worth. And then some.

And yet, four hours later, the insatiable pig in me, my childlike need for constant gratification and attention demanded more. After all, I rationalized, it was a three day holiday weekend which made Sunday night Saturday night all over again, and there was Slammers beckoning me like the Sirens wooed Ulysses with its half price eight buck entry fee if you got there by 8 o’clock. I guess horny guys think alike because I got one of the last spots in the place’s one and only parking lot. I spent the next two hours sucking  and getting sucked, while a handsome dark young Latin followed me around all night, groping me in the dark til I held my hands tenderly to his face and whispered with a smile, “You’re a good looking guy, really you are. You’re just not my type.”

In the end, it wasn’t my type that won a mouthful of my cum that night, after all, but a tall, buzzed, thirty something athletic guy donned in only a black jockstrap and boots who sucked me dry at the open pit of the “suck-arium.”

Boom, our local dance club, was having a Studio 54 night and the place was pure electric. Maybe it was all the people, in all shapes and sizes and generations everywhere you looked, or maybe it was the disco beat, capped by a medley of Donna Summer, that made those of us who had lived the Golden Disco Era feel young again.  A baseball capped guy, older than Enrico but short and with that same sexy, scruffy beard, was standing at the foot of the stairs as I came down shirtless from the second level bar. Our eyes met but for a moment– I could see he was with his partner – but my smile carried me all the way back to my car.

Driving home, I could see my vision was very blurry, a side effect I think of popping Big V all weekend like Halloween candy. Too much of a good thing is no good. I envisioned what a failure any of my three little dogs would be to me as my “service animal.” Fortunately, I didn’t end up legally sight impaired, though that old adage that playing with yourself will make you go blind might have some truth to it after all.

Monday was another glorious beach day – I got one of the last spots in the lot closest to the beach at quarter of 11. And that afternoon when I came home there was a message from a suck buddy of mine who had his own glory hole and wanted me to come over. Fifteen minutes later, as I stood there, him slobbering over my cock like some schoolboy, I remembered the guy I had seen the night before at Boom whose T-shirt sported “Pig” on the front. Maybe he was wearing it, but, judge me if you will, I had lived it.

“Hugs,” ended a message from Enrico when I went one last time that night to the hook-up sites to see who loved me.

“You meant licks and sniffs, didn’t you buddy?” I asked.

“Keep talking dirty to me, bro,” was his reply.

But no matter. Ray had a plan. Getting a little bored with Slammers which I had hit up not only Friday but Thursday night too, I thought a good change of venue would be to spend Saturday night at my old haunt, the bath house Clubhouse II, where I could get a room and instead of wandering around hunting for dick could just sprawl out and wait for dick to come to me. Yes, the place had gotten tired and old, particularly after Slammers opened and sucked all that young blood, but I naively thought there would be a few fresh faces in town for the weekend. And after all, all it took was one, right?

Big mistake.

I got there around 8 to make sure I got a room, for thirty dollars, thank you very much, only to spend the next two hours with virtually nothing happening as my dose of Viagra slowly faded away. Oh, sure, there were guys there, plenty of them, the same guys I recognized from my snowbird days of fifteen years ago, aging in place like some childless neighborhood, incestuous since they only had sex with one another, if you could call some old man on his stomach all night while an equally antique fellow stood over his leathered ass pulling on his own hopelessly limp dick is sex. To call the place God’s waiting room would be an insult to God.

So says I to me, if I can’t even get a blowjob from one of these gum-less gargoyles with my eyes closed, I ain’t fucken wasting my Memorial Day Weekend Saturday night among The Living Dead, and at 10:15, a fresh 50 mgs. of the Blue Pill on my tongue, I got dressed and hightailed it to Slammers, ten minutes away. Forty seven minutes later – I think I broke a record – Mr. Peter and I had been satisfied by a tall, lanky bearded forty something guy who gave me a 15 minute Kodak moment blow job in one of the booths. This, guys, I call double dipping, hitting two high priced whorehouses in one night in search of the Almighty Climax.

Video tape replay: my last stop at Ramrod where I bullshitted and commiserated with a few fair weather friends and left.

Now, there were a some fuck buddies who had promised to get together over the weekend but with Sunday morning upon me and no e-mails from my friends, my game plan was to hit The Club, our town’s other bath house for the afternoon. In its hey day, again about the time I was snowbirding, the Club was a magnet for the young and the buffed and, while it still had its share of hotties, 7 out of 10 guys were those young and buffed men from the Club’s hey day who still thought they were young and buffed even if their waist lines said differently.

But I was able to rationalize the afternoon by the fact there was (a) an outdoor clothing optional pool where I could still work on my tan (b) a steam sauna where you hypothetically could find cock in the shadows, and (c) a buffet lunch served at 2 which quite frankly is what most of these former beauties were really there for.

I had my knapsack all ready when up pops on Manhunt “Cocksucker Pig,” a handsome guy with Irish features, a scruffy beard and sexy gray hair. Why not save the $$ for a room at The Club, so, e’s me, “when would you like to come over?”

“How’s now?” he writes back.

“Call me for directs,” I reply, my new rule to hopefully weed out the gameplayers. A minute later, my cell lights up. It’s Cocksucker Pig and he’s three blocks from my house. I swallow a Big V, jump in my pool to get the sweat off, and barely tie my sneakers when he pulls into my driveway.

He was a bit heavier than I imagined but, in his defense, I fell for the face shot which was all he had up. We proceeded to my bedroom where I stripped down and sat on a lounge chair, perfect for cocksucking. I asked him to take his clothes off too get my motor running but he waved me off and proceeded to dive down on my cock.

It looked like I would be spending a stressless, nonchalant afternoon by my own pool when halfway through his mouth action, he switched to jerking me like my dick was a ragdoll, then stopped all together.

“Sorry man, I’m beat.”

With my dick standing stubbornly at attention like a spoiled child wanting more candy, I tried to keep my cool and asked, smiling politely, “So what have you got planned for the weekend?”

“Going home and being a Dad,” he replied as he walked out to his car and sped away. So much for “Cocksucker Pig.” OK, I got it, a married man with a reined-in libido. Ten minutes later, I was on my way to my original destination.

Tomorrow: Sniffs, Licks – and Feet.

Friday I spent at Sebastian Beach, our gay sandbox, alone for a change since both my beach buddies were tied up with family, Bill with his Wall Street son, Jim and Jim’s live-in girlfriend in from NYC, Jason with his sister from Denver. It was a gorgeous summery day after a week of non-stop thunderstorms, and by the sheer number of guys lying half-naked on the sand, the pale skin of some of them, and the chatter about flight times and shitty weather back in Philly or NYC, I figured rightly there would be a lot of new meat in town for the weekend. Whether they would be available or coupled like crazy glue to their buddies or partners, however, was another story.

That night I bypassed our local bear bar, Bill’s, and its Chatty Cathy cliques for what is always my Friday night main event, Slammers, our local sex club. It was doing brisk business by the time I arrived at around quarter of ten, but the crowd, some regulars like me, some new out-of-town faces, was a bit tight assed about getting action. Either guys expect too much, even when they may have little to offer in return, or they have not had enough experience in man-to-man sex to know what to do. But I managed to lasso a few mouths in the glory hole section and hit the jackpot with a big, lumbering guy who resembled an Igor, not my usual turn-on, but who had a great dick to keep happy and loved my fur.

By the time I had wiped off my dick for the last time that night with my T and had zipped up, it was 11:30 and already too late to sneak a peek at Bill’s. So I headed for Ramrod, our local leather bar, waltzed around, got a couple of crotch gropes and tit pulls from a few drunks while I was having my Bud Lite nightcap and was home by 12:30.

When I got home and flipped on the hook-up sites like I always do to see who loved me before I hit the bed, a young, super hot, smooth, tight bodied, clean cut guy almost instantly hit me up on Daddyhunt. My dick and I thought we were going to be a happy threesome til he threw out what has become the almost predictable question from the under 30 crowd, “You pnp?”

Delete went my hard-on.

Tomorrow: Saturday double dipping.

For me, nothing keeps Mr. Peter stiffer than a nice beefy, furry butt and accompanying butthole, tight enough to feel good but not too tight that you need a stick of TNT and a gallon of machine oil to get in there. And that butt has to be attached to a regular guy, someone you’d bring home to Mother if you could, preferably in decent shape – no, not perfect – and definitely on the furry side. I want to fuck a man – if I wanted to fuck a girl, I’d fuck a girl. Period.

I also work best with guys closer to my own height – we’re just more compatible when it comes to getting our respective equipment in sync, though little 5 foot six me does get a kick out of fucking some six foot two slab of man.

And when you’re with a masculine bottom, you suddenly forget labels. You’re just two guys giving one another pleasure, each the way he likes it. I like to have that butt in my face for awhile, tonguing the fur around his hole, even sucking his tool,  before we move to the Main Event. And while fucking a guy from behind so I can stroke the fur on his butt while I screw him is hot, having him face me as he works my tits (which are hardwired to my cock) or his own tool and watch my dick tease his hole, going in and out, is truly Upper Ecstasy material. Soon, I’m carefully crawling up on the bed as he moves gingerly up, watching that Mr. Peter doesn’t escape, his legs (preferably hairy and muscular) slung over my shoulders, allowing me to plow him deeper and deeper with my 7 inch tool. It’s usually then that I feel the most affinity with my man as if we were both created just for this moment.

Having him a sling with his legs neatly harnessed and all his equipment – butt, cock and balls – there for my enjoyment, swinging him slowly back and forth as my cock slides in and it of his hole, makes fucking him true pleasure for both of us.

No joke – with the right guy and admittedly some pharmaceutical assistance, I can keep going for 45 minutes or more straight. I love the guys who want it too, and don’t wimp out fifteen minutes into things because their hole is getting sore. Gees!  These are usually the same guys who in their web e-mails wanted me to fuck them all night.

Throw in some dirty talk (“yea, man, fuck me, buddy, fuck me good!”), a mirror or two so he or I or both of us can watch, and, baby, well, let’s go to the video!

A gallon of gas five bucks? Iran starting a nuclear war?

Who the fuck cares?

Tomorrow: My Memorial Day Weekend Diary of a Pig

What I do have are some French franc notes and a handkerchief map of Germany and France cutoff airmen like my Dad were supplied to give them a fighting chance at survival; and all the medals he earned for his heroism. All are nicely framed, hanging in my living room.

Small tokens of consolation from a dad to his son.

The number one thing to know about afterwards is that there is no afterwards. You may think you changed this guy’s life. You may think this guy may want regular relief. You may think you made a new friend or even a suckbuddy.

While entirely possible that you gave the guy an enlightening experience, the truth is that this guy will probably never acknowledge you in the future. He will most likely find a different bar for a long while so as to decrease the chances of ever running into you again. If you gave him your number he will most likely never call. If you do see him again, he will most likely look right through you and not so much as acknowledge the beers you bought him the last time the two of you talked.

Remember, in all likelihood, this is a straight guy that used you as a fleshlight. He will most likely be embarrassed, and maybe even horrified. In fact, he may be so horrified that he may not even go out to a bar for another beer for a long while.

Having said all this, second encounters are not entirely impossible.  I have one guy I met years ago, and he still calls me a few times a year. Call him a closet case, say he is in denial, but me having been deep in the gay world as long as I have, I can honestly say I don’t think this guy is gay. I honestly think he loves to have his dick sucked. He says his wife gives a shitty blowjob and hates doing it. He says does not want to chance cheating on her with another woman since “women are crazy”. Over the years I’ve known him he says he has come to trust me, and he knows I am a good person. When he comes over, he sometimes puts a pillow over his face while I do my thing. He is a big butch guy that works as a steam fitter, and trust me, he is worth it. Afterwards he politely thanks me, quietly leaves my house, and drives away home. Each time he leaves I just assume I will never see this guy again.

That is until next time.

First and foremost, if he seems disgusted, makes negative comments, says he does not believe in that life style, that he voted for George Bush, etc., then disengage. Say nothing more and order yourself another beer. When comfortable, head out and home. Do not try to argue with him; don’t talk about gay rights; don’t talk like you want to change his attitude. If anything, you just want to apologize and disengage.

But if he is not disgusted then what you hope for is the flip side of disgust. In every case I’ve picked up a straight guy at a bar, it is the guy that will initiate the follow-up of your telling him you are ‘into guys’. Usually they will say something about knowing someone that is gay. Or they will say they are OK with it. Or they will ask you about your life. They won’t dwell on it, but they will try to make you feel comfortable. If you get a straight guy in a bar to this point, then you are about 50% of the way to having sex with him. What ever you do, don’t start telling him about your life; how you came out; about your boyfriend or lifestyle. What ever you do, don’t turn the focus of the conversation to about you.

At this point you still have a long way to go, and your chances of success are still very slim.

The next progression is harder, so you have to read the person really well to try to figure out where his mind and attitude are at. I try to figure out if their mind is spinning. I try to figure out if I’ve got them curious. At this point the golden question I am hoping for is for them to ask me if I ever had sex with a woman. Most will. I answer honestly, and then I ask them if they ever did anything with another guy or were ever curious. I also then follow-up with a phrase such as ‘I don’t mean to offend you, but I am just curious’.

Again, this is where it gets tricky. I usually do a lot of apologizing, and saying I don’t mean to be nosy, etc. But as the conversation progresses I try to turn it to the subject of his sex life. Remember, this is not about you so don’t go on about yourself.

In nearly every case I picked up a straight guy in a bar the guy will eventually admit some detail such as (a) he has not had sex in a long while, (b) he does not get it as much as he likes from his wife or girlfriend, (c) their wife or girlfriend hate doing certain things (such as giving blow jobs). During my experiences, in three cases I got the guys to admit they like having a finger or tongue up their asses.

Eventually I work my way into saying something like ‘Look, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, but I will admit that I would be into you. So if you ever want to do something, you should just let me know’. Don’t gross the guy out by giving any details.

At this point variations of several things will happen:

• The straight guy will immediately chuckle and say thanks for no thanks. He will say that guys are not his thing. You should just chuckle back and drop the subject.
• The straight guy will be cold silent and be annoyed. He will make it absolutely clear he his not interested, and then he will disengage with you. Make sure you are covered and can easily exit if he goes off the wall. Chances are he will not. After all, you and he have been talking all evening. If he was really negative, he would have been pissed when you told him you were ‘into guys’.
• The guy might start getting quiet.  Don’t take this as a negative sign, because he is thinking. He is digesting the thought. Give him a chance to ask questions. I would not hurt to repeat your interests.
• Sometimes the guy will fairly quickly take you up on you offer. He will ask if you have a place to go. He may even suggest the parking lot. He will want it right then and there.

There are other approaches worth trying. Some times you need to give the guy an ‘excuse’ to go with you. For example, if the guy has been drinking, offer to drive him home. I once offered the guy to sober up at my house by playing a game of pool. Once at my house he asked for another beer.

If you do get the guy to agree, then strike while the iron is hot. Don’t make a date for the next day or later in the evening. If you do I guarantee that any action were hoping for will never happen. You need to take advantage of the moment.

Once you get this guy’s dick out, from my experience you can expect one of two things:

• They either want a quick blow job. They may even reciprocate with painful tugs on your cock, or a few very poorly executed sucks.
• They will go hog wild and want to try it all. This has happened to me only 3 times, and I will say that these episodes have been some of the best sex I have ever had. I think these guys feel that they’ve come this far, they may as well got nuts and get all their curiosities out. He will want you to do things to him that he cannot get his girl to do for him. He will also want to do what he may never have a chance (or nerve) to do again in his life.

Don’t attack the guy or be too aggressive; and don’t initiate kissing (though I’ve found that guys who get all worked up will sometimes go crazy kissing).  There is a high degree of probability that you are the first guy he has been with during his adult life. Also, don’t take your time. He does not want to be with you for a long time.

One other observation is that the guy may be shaking. He will be ultra nervous at first to the point that he cannot even talk because his mouth is so dry. He usually cannot even hold his hand still because of the nerves. Try to calm him the hell down, but be careful of him backing out if he gains his senses back. Answer: Offer him one last beer.

Also, remember that this is most likely the guy’s first experience. So he may be disgusted by a lot of stuff. Don’t force him and don’t take his repulsion personal. Just go with the flow and give him a good time.

In Case Things Go Wrong

I am not sure what advice to give if things go wrong. I’ve never had a bad experience once the guy has agreed to go with me. This is why it is important to read the guy well during the evening.  However, it is entirely possible. My strongest suggestion is to not be drunk and to always have your wits about you. Don’t force anything. Read the guy really good. By the time you tell him you are ‘into guys’ you should have a good feeling about him. Oh… and don’t be wearing flip flops that you cannot run in.

Above all else, remember you are not in a gay bar picking up a gay guy. The rules are different. You are playing as a ‘visitor’ and not as the ‘home’ team. Know your place.

Tomorrow: Afterwards

At his point, if I am lucky, I am already near the guy I find of interest. However, it is entirely also possible that no one has yet sparked my interest. In this situation I sit and observe in hopes that I will take notice of someone. Remember, on any given night the chances are small you will find a potential candidate, and even smaller that the night will end in sex with him. So while at the part always maintain the attitude you are there to have a few beers and some laughs. In other words, still have a good time.

If there is someone I am interested in I will observe the person for a while to see if they look back. But remember, you cannot cruise the person. Just glance and see what their eyes are doing. If the guy really peaks my interest I will strike up a conversation. I converse for a living, so this is not tough for me. If the guy does not want to talk don’t push it. Just have your beer. Never push.

If he does start talking with you, then this is great progress. At the beginning of the conversation, just bullshit about sports or the big news story of the day. After a while, move onto other subjects. Eventually get the conversation to center around him. Remember, everyone likes talking about themselves, and these guys are usually frustrated with their lives. Don’t talk too much about you unless you can relate a story back to them. This night is not about you; it is about them and they don’t want to hear your problems, grips, or issues.

So far what I said could be done in any bar both gay and straight. But here now are some kickers to get you moving in the direction you want.

• Offer to buy the guy a drink. If he declines, then let him decline. Offer again during the next round. I cannot quit explain this, but I found if the guy is unhappy and also has money problems, he appreciates the beer that much more, and you become his buddy faster. But a word of warning: Don’t keep buying drinks like you are best buddies or like you are on a date, and certainly not to intentionally get him drunk. If you do, he will catch on.
• Act like the guy that happens to be sitting next to him at the bar. Don’t act like you are there together. But when possible, see if you and the guy can share some chuckle or observation about someone in the bar or something in the bar. Don’t degrade anyone, but just make the conversation comfortable. Why? In my mind, by doing this it becomes you and him together at the bar as outside observers. It can make you fellow bar buddies for the evening.
• If the guy is drunk then I use a method I call “Ground Hog Day.” My friends make fun of me for this, but it works. Usually someone that is drunk will tell stories, but a little while later he will forget what he told you. So I remember certain central threads, and later in the evening I use those threads to get him to feel we have a bit of a connection. For example, I met a guy once that talked about getting a hotdog stand. Later in the evening I talked about how much how much I was in the mood for a ball park hot dog. This guy lit up and started telling me how he was hoping to get a hotdog stand one day. We then proceeded to talk about this subject again, but now I already knew what he was going to say so I was able to lead the questions in the direction I wanted the conversation to go. Note, this technique only works if the guy is drunk.

After talking for a while I do the unexpected. I act as if I am disinterested and like I am back in my own world. For example, I will go to the bathroom, and when I come back I look off in a different direction of the bar and not speak much. This may sound counter intuitive but what happens, I think, after becoming friendly with you, the guy will feel rejected. Then, after a while start talking and engaging the guy again. He will feel like his new friend is back.

Eventually the night will drag on, so I warn not to over drink. Keep your senses!

If during the course of the evening the guy ever becomes hostile; starts asking why you are talking with him; starts catching and acts annoyed, then disengage immediately. Just say ‘Hey… I was just making conversation’. Say nothing more and order yourself another beer. When comfortable, head out and home.

But if things are going well, then I go in for the kill.

Tomorrow: Making It Happen