My off-line off-dating new year's resolution for 2015!

In the past, I've always included 'finding love' among my New Year's resolution list. My first online date happened soon after I opened an account on Gaydargirls on January 2008. My 'I want to believe' story started also after Christmas when, while reading 'The Rosie Project', I decided to apply a scientific approach to love and find my highest match on OkCupid... But this year, I'm going to cross out love off my list as love is a feeling and it should not be treated as a goal.

Trying to find a feeling by taking a shortcut and planning to spend some short (but often uncomfortable) time with a stranger is not working for me. I'm not saying that love can not be found in the cyberspace, I know a few couples that have met online but, I've come to the conclusion that, for me, online dating is missing something...

Perhaps, is missing the excitement that the uncertainty of not knowing when that feeling is going to bloom that real life brings..... When planning an online date with a stranger, were are scheduling that love might or might not be happening at a particular time (usually after 19) and a particular place (usually in one of the cafes at Kensington Gardens). That 'love-planing process' brings a lot of pressure and awkwardness and doesn't help to create an ideal environment for spontaneity...  I seem to work better out of pressure...

For example, a few nights ago around 4 am, I woke up with the structure of the next chapter for my PhD on my mind... I had to switch on the lights and grab some post-its as my mind was on fire and ready to shoot me some good ideas... So, if the feeling of creativity comes as a flow that you need to grab according to my experience (and also according to Elizabeth Gilbert), love might also come as a stream of energy that I'm not able to feel in the restricted and forced conditions of a date with a stranger.....

Therefore, this year, I've decided to stop forcing love... In 2015 I'm going to give it a try and collect only first real impressions of people instead of swiping right and left on a phone screen... Profile pictures never show the real person, usually, they are only frozen frames that have been strategically chosen and/or are distorted from reality with Photoshop or some other sort of Instagram filter to create a fake impression of how someone wants to be perceived..... I wonder why everyone online seem to have a picture with sunglasses when the eyes are the door to someone's soul?

Another thing that online dating is missing for me is the day-to-day spontaneous encounters... A few nights ago, some friends and I were trying to determine the conditions of when and how we have felt love in the past and, we all agreed that love always started when we casually bumped repeatedly into someone in informal situations such as a film club, friends of friends parties, the water fountain at the office or at that Friday morning seminar.... it seems that meeting someone free of  'romantic objectives' and out of 'your life plans' are the key ingredients for romance......

Moreover, when meeting someone online, the single and available status is already assumed, however, when the encounter happens in real life, there is a lack of information that might leave us wondering if that girl, or that boy with whom we have shared a brief connection was flitting or not and so, finding their relationship status becomes our next mission...

I have collected very nice experiences in the past from the online dating world however, in 2015 I want to start collecting more 'offline real life' experiences and less fake and forced 'online dating' ones...

Where is my Cinderella? 
Lonely shoe found at Brighton Beach (2014)

PD: This is not the end of my blog, I have a few stories queuing up (online and offline) waiting to be narrated... However, I might rename the blog to include my offline stories in the title...

My "WOW-AMAZING" Girl Story

Messaging someone online is easy, meeting someone from an online website however seems to be a little bit more complicated...

Earlier in the year I received a message from Sandra (of course not her real name). She was not living in Brighton yet but she was planning to move down in the spring and therefore, she messaged me to meet some new people before her arrival (I suppose that other girls on the site too).

I thought that she look quite nice in her pictures so, I answered her message a week or so later since I don't check my messages on dating sites often. It took her a couple of weeks to answer back and then, it took me another while to answer her back again.....

We exchanged messages for a long while, however, I prefer to meet up with the person soon rather than later because I think that meeting someone in real life is the only way to see if there is chemistry or not between two people and exchanging an endless amount of messages without knowing the person makes the situation more uncomfortable if, once you meet, there is no chemistry.

Finally, she was visiting Brighton one weekend and so, she asked me to go for a coffee. It took me a few days to see the message but finally, I accepted her invitation hoping that she would answer me back in time as I send my confirmation the day before her proposed date for the meeting.

However, she has yet to reply back confirming the place and time for the date. I don't blame her as I myself don't check my inbox every day, but if I'm expecting someone's confirmation, I would try... In any case, her first round of moving stuff down and packing took her longer than expected and she could not have made it to the coffee date anyway... I'm not sure if it was an excuse or not, but I confess that in a way, I felt bad about my late reply and hence, somehow responsible for the failed attempt to meet up... She apologized for not having replied in time and asked me for a second chance.

It took us a while to find a suitable time again since she was not living in Brighton and I was quite busy at the time. Finally, we agreed on a date and, this time, we exchanged phone numbers so we could both make sure that we would receive each other's messages on time.

The date came and we met up at the train station, it took me a while to recognize her as her hair was very different from her pictures. She told me that she had an appointment with the hairdresser in the morning and I, really hoped she did not go through all that effort just for the date. One thing is not putting any effort at all into your appearance on a first date like "my save the closeted lesbians' project" date or the "Polish-looking tall accountant" and another is to make TOO much of an effort... She looked nice but somehow different from her pictures... I guess that no one looks in real life as in their profile pictures...

Anyway, we walked down from the station to the seafront, we grabbed a drink and sat on the beach. She was very nice but somehow overly enthusiastic. It went to the point that I started to count in my head the number of times that she was saying "WOW" and "AMAZING" ("WOW-AMAZING!" combined scored double....) When the count rapidly passed double digits I decided to stop... What was I doing? I was judging her without even knowing her... For all I know she might be just a bit nervous and has not realized that she is repeating the same filler phase compulsively... I can also be socially awkward sometimes, particularly on a first date with a pretty girl, so, I decided to concentrate my focus on her and not on her annoyingly repetitive reaction to my words...... So, I asked about her.

She told me that she had a bad time coming out since her family was not very supportive, however, her little brother was also gay. It is funny that it is not the first time that I meet a gay or a lesbian that has also had another gay sibling. There is currently genetic research that is investigating this phenomenon since it seems to be more common than we think and it makes sense.

I believe that we are born this way, whether is genetics or the influence of hormones during pregnancy or a combination of both. Homosexuality is definitely not a mental illness, has nothing to do with having any kind of sexual trauma in your childhood or having a controlling mother. Developing feelings for another person from the same sex is how some of us are wired and denying those feeling to conform with the straight-oriented society is unnatural and cause a lot of inner pain to the individual.

Anyway, back to the date... After about two hours of talking about homosexuality, career changes and Brighton in general, the date came to an end. I had my housemate's Birthday party to attend and she had plans for the night with some friends so, we walked up to the clock tower and took different paths.

The first date was nice, although we didn't run out of conversation I think that we didn't particularly "Click".... But, what does "Click" mean? Online dating is a very strange way to meet up with people as in real life you tend to meet people gradually, but in the online world everything happens on dates and there seems to be quite a lot of pressure on them...

So, my evaluation of the date when as follows: She was very nice, very pretty, a little bit over-enthusiastic but a nice company overall... We didn't "click" immediately, but considering the awkwardness of internet dating in the first place, we had a smooth date and so I decided that if she wanted to meet up again, I will accept her invitation...

She messaged me for a second date I accepted.

However, it seems that since she was having a lot of problems in finding a place to live in Brighton and I was very busy., it was quite impossible to find a suitable time.... we arranged a date but she ended up cancelling because of a last minute "thing" that happened whit the relative with whom she was staying in Worthing... We re-scheduled again but for some other reason that I forgot we cancelled again...

Finally, we scheduled another date and, due to the fact that the day before I had another online date that went considerably better than the date with her, I was not "over-enthusiastic" about going on another date with Sandra...

She send me a message to confirm the date saying: "Do you have time to meet up or we can rearrange?" implying that she also wanted to reschedule and was not over-enthusiastic about meeting me either, so I replied that I had my housemates' graduation party, which was true and so, we agreed to re-arrange another date, that never happened at the end as I think that we both got tired of the endless exchange of messages to find a suitable time to meet up.

I recently read an article about dating and the FUCK YES/ FUCK NO rule that essentially said that if you are dating someone that is not completely excited about dating you, the most likely outcome will be to end up in a game-playing relationship with a lot of drama... in this case, we both seem to want a second date but perhaps just because the first one was "nice" but we both felt that it wasn't AMAZING, so, I think that in a way, it was better to leave it there... I hope that she has found love in Brighton and has solved all of her housing issues.

Picture taken in Brighton Beach (2014)

PS: Does love a first sight really exist or should I have tried to go on a second date with the WOW-AMAZING girl?

"Somebody that I used to know" - Part II

As much as I hate to split in two my stories, I currently don't have enough time to write as much as I would like to, so I apologize to the readers (if there is actually anyone reading....).

On top of that, I recently had a bike accident with a consequent head concussion that seems to be taking longer to recover than expected. In case you are wondering, my bike accident has nothing to do with the girl in the story, she didn't run over me, I just fainted while cycling, but that's another story... Maybe I'll write about it later on, but now I need to finish what I started, so I'll get back to the story of the girl that I used to know....

As I explained in the first part of the story, I was going through a tough time with my work and the blond-looking lesbian girl was very supportive and a good listener. One Friday night she invited me for dinner, she mentioned in the message that the tall gay men from the welcome event and a few other people that we met that same night were coming as well.

When I arrived at the restaurant, she told me that in the end, it was just going to be just her and I. They all seem to have cancelled last minute....

So there we were... having a proper date night with candles and exotic food. During dinner, we talked about trips and she told me that once she bought a plane ticket to Cuba to fly on the same day as she wanted to see her girlfriend that, after three years of relationship, had moved to Cuba for a few months.

She told me that she could not stand the distance and felt that the relationship was falling apart because of that. At the end, they broke up, but she described the trip to Cuba as the craziest thing that she had ever done for love.

I was a bit confused.... so my instinct was right, she was a lesbian, or at least bisexual, as she had a three years relationship with a girl in the past, however, she was currently in a formal relationship with a guy that was financially supporting her. She also told me that she met him when she was working as a security doorman in a club in Leeds (a very lesbian job choice...) and that they both shared a passion for martial arts, kickboxing and other forms of one-on-one combat (also a very lesbian sport choice).

After dinner, we went to grab a drink at The Druids Head, one of the oldest bars in Brighton where for the last 400 years Brightonians and foreigners, just like us, have been sharing their intimacies and stories.

We were sitting in a bar, sharing a drink on a Friday night when the song "Somebody that I used to know" started to play. She knew the song and told me that she really loved it but I for me, the lyrics and melody was new to my ear. Little I knew at the time that the song was narrating our future story...

The following morning, I woke up thinking about her. That was a bad sign!

Something inside was warning me about repeating again the same love-heart-broken pattern that I've learned in the past. I tended to fall in love with straight or 'not ready to come out' girls that always broke my heart...

But this time, I was determined to avoid falling into my old habits, it was as if my unconscious mind didn't want me to be happy and I was self-sabotaging my own love life. Love for me was a painful feeling of frustration as I only knew how to love by falling in love with the wrong girl. In a twisted way, the pain made me feel comfortable.... happiness in love was (and still is) an unknown feeling and, like all strange feelings, it was out of my comfort zone.....

This time, I was going to break the pattern, I was not going to fall for a girl with a boyfriend. I decided to keep some distance from her... However, she decided to get closer and started to send me daily messages insisting on meeting up again...

Perhaps due to the fact that she sensed my intentions to keep some distance, she asked me to go for drinks again one night in the company of his boyfriend... Maybe she just wanted to be my friend and the signs that I was getting from her were only in my head...

Was I being paranoid thinking that she fancied me? Was I misreading everything? Was my mildly narcissistic personality projecting something that was not there? Maybe she just wanted to make a friend and I was misinterpreting all the signs...

I decided to answer her messages and meet up with her (and the boyfriend) for a drink, after all, I didn't know many people in Brighton and my social agenda was quite open. She was also a good listener and had been very nice to me...

However, for some reason, the more that I got to know her, the more difficult it was for me to tell her that I was gay, perhaps also due to the fact that I was starting to fall for her, but I didn't want to ruin what we had. But if she was just being friendly, I was afraid that she could think that by displaying my sexuality I was coming into her...

This was also another recurring theme for me... Whenever I meet a straight girl, I'm unable to tell her that I'm gay just in case she takes it the wrong way and thinks that I fancy her or something.

In this case, I think that I wanted her to be more than a friend, somehow, I started to develop feelings for her. I found myself jumping off my chair every time I got a message from her and wondering if she was feeling the same way...

I knew that I had to tell her that I was gay as if we were going to be friends, I needed to display my sexuality as it is part of who I am, but it was always a bit difficult to find the right moment. I decided to do it in a subtle way.

I organized a lunch date with the eccentric gay men that we met at the PhD research meeting and another gay friend of mine. Hopefully, after a whole lunch conversation talking about gayness and gay nightlife, she would get the hint... During that lunch, I talked about the gay scene in Brighton and how sad it was that the only officially lesbian bar closed down. After that, I think that she probably got the message behind....

Later that week, she invited me to her place to watch some X-files DVDs since we both were fans of the show when we were teens. I was expecting a quiet night with her and her boyfriend and perhaps with a few other people, crisps and beer. However, when I came to her place there were candles, incense and cheese....

I think that at that point the invitation was very clear. Apparently, his boyfriend was out of town and she offered me wine to ease up the night. I don't usually drink on weekdays and this time, I was not going to make an exception. I needed to keep my head clear to be able to properly read the signs...

Although, I was also not sure about how I felt about starting something with a girl that had a boyfriend that was financially supporting her... Hence, I kept my distance on the sofa... I was a bit uncomfortable as I really liked her but the fact that she had a boyfriend bothered me a lot.

I didn't want to be someone's mistress, or even worst, someone's night cuddler when her boyfriend was out of town. So, after a few episodes of the show, I ended up making an excuse to leave early.

The goodbye at her doorstep was very uncomfortable, she was looking deeply into my eyes and I didn't know what to do... I really wanted to kiss her but I didn't want to be the person with whom she "cheated" on her boyfriend. I met the guy and he was very nice... I didn't want to cause any trouble.....

After some unconformable seconds, she finally hugged me. I was either paranoid or that hug felt extremely long, too long for a friendly hug...


After that night, I decided to tell her openly that I was gay, I didn't know if she knew, so I arranged a lunch meeting on campus. This time it was going to be definitely an ambush lunch. I needed to clarify the situation so, after some rambling, I told her that I was gay and that I was a bit confused about the previous night.

She said that she had no sexual intentions towards me, but perhaps she said that due to the fact that I rejected her the previous night and that my way of approaching the topic sounded a bit like a one-way accusation of a crime... I really liked her, but I was not able to tell her, I couldn't find the right words, so after an awkward silence, I ended up changing the subject. This lunch happened the day before the Christmas break, so, we both left Brighton for a couple of weeks after that.

When we came back, she sent me a couple of messages to meet up, I was having second thoughts about meeting up with her after my embarrassment during lunch, so I kept finding excuses. Finally, I came around, after all, she was a good friend and I should keep her in my life.

I accepted one of her many invitations for dinner with her boyfriend. However, how unfortunate my faith was that the night before I had food poisoning from some seafood and I had to cancel last minute. I think that she got quite upset with me as that was the last time we exchanged messages.

I really wanted to call her again and explain myself, but after having ambushed her during lunch, I felt quite bad about it and ashamed of myself. Also, I thought that in a way, keeping my distance from her was a good idea, after all, I didn't want to be her mistress while her boyfriend was paying for her PhD.... or be friends with someone that uses people to get what she wanted. Perhaps this judgement was a bit harsh, but I needed to find an excuse to switch off my feelings for her and this was my switcher.

One night, I was at a Feminist Society social gathering and I bumped into a familiar friend of ours. I knew they were hanging out a lot those days as they posted every minute of their friendship on Facebook.

I was dying to ask our common friend about her since I also saw that she broke up her relationship status on Facebook. However, I didn't want to sound desperate so, I let the conversation flow...

Two pints later, I was drunk and ready to get a cab and unfortunately, I was not getting the information that I wanted despite the fact that I was dying to know how was she doing but, I was unable to bring her up in our conversation. The night was ending, so our common friend and I got a cab home together.

The time was running out and I wanted to know about her break-up, so I finally I asked her in the cab. Nevertheless, our common friend is quite discrete and barely displayed any information... She said that she had moved back to London and therefore, she was no longer living in Brighton but didn't give me any more details about her or the breakup...

A few months later, I saw her on campus walking in the distance, she didn't see me, but I send her a message to which she never replied. A week after I send that message, I saw her again on campus and this time, I chased her calling her name out loud.... she didn't turn around, she ignored my presence, but I kept on insisting...

Finally, I taped her on the shoulder and she turned around... she said that she didn't hear me calling her (well.... half of the campus did.... so she must be either a bit deaf or she was just ignoring me...) or got my message the week before to what I reply that perhaps, we should grab lunch and catch up... She smiled and said: "Sure, I'll give you a call". But of course, she never did... I guess that in the end, this was for the best, but the only way in which I can interpret her reaction and her silent treatment is due to the fact that in a way, I must have hurt her...

Maybe after all she also had feelings for me... or maybe not... I would never know...  I only hope that she doesn't run over me with her shiny convertible on campus the next time that we cross paths... I don't think I could survive a third head concussion...

Picture taken in Brighton (January 2013)

PS: I hid her from my news feed on Facebook but I kept her as a friend... She is the type of person that posts every minute of her life online and I could not cope with those behaviours... Why do people post every single lunch, event or night out on social networks?

Something different...

As a part of my goal of improving my writing I signed up for a Creative Writing course. You will see some changes in this blog as a result of it, but just so you get a taste of my improvement, I'm posting a story that I wrote last week. The assignment was "something true that had happened to you in 200 words". Judge for yourself if I did a good job:

Living in New York with $4.30 a day sounds like the tittle of the next bestselling travel guide at the Airports bookstores. But when a nasty ATM swallowed my only remaining credit card with funds on Christmas day, it became my own adventure. Luckily, I had paid upfront for my stay in a budget hostel alongside the homeless that could gather the $15.50 for the night. 

A ragged doll with only one eye and an armless GI Joe at the bottom of a decrepit Christmas tree along with a tailless black cat with emerging signs of rabies and an intense smell of urine mixed with alcohol created a very Stephen King like scenario. No wonder why my friends decided to take the bus back to safe and sound Canada. But I always dream about walking in the city of smoky sewers and yellow cabs that I’ve seen in the movies, so I decided to stay despite of the shivery picture and my wobbly financial situation. 

The fried onions from the $1.99 street hotdog stand and the chips that came along with the $2.99 Happy meal at MacDonald´s were my one-a-day vegetable. For seven days, searching for free entrance museums, collecting free samples from malls and looking for street performers became my mission.

Picture taken in New York (January 2007)

"Somebody that I used to know" - Part I

The other day, when I was coming back from having lunch with my housemates, I almost got run over by a car driven by "somebody that I used to know".... that just as the lyrics on the Gotye song: She cut me off, make out like it never happened and that we were nothing... and I don't even need her love, but she treats me like a stranger and that feels so rough...

Sometimes making a clean break with someone for whom you had feelings but know that it is not going to go anywhere, is the best thing that you can do.

After my accident in Canada, I'm usually very cautious when crossing the street. I still get a mild rapid heartbeat when I'm crossing and I see a car approaching, even if it is clear that they have seen me and they are slowing down. However, I believe that facing your fears is the only way to rewire your brain after a traumatic experience, and therefore, I still cross the street as usual, ignoring every time my deep and repressed fear of being hit again.

This time, when I heard the car approaching, I had an automatic reaction and my foot stopped before stepping into the road and I freeze. It was a shining grey convertible Peugeot 207, that for a second slowed down after the turn. She probably saw that there was someone with the intention to cross the road and was going to gently give way to the pedestrian, but as soon as she recognized me, she step on the gas and run off.
As she was passing by, she briefly checked me out but turned her head again quickly so she wouldn't have to greet me.

According to Eric Berne, ignoring someone's presence is the worst treatment that you can give or receive. It is even worse than being frowned at or being looked down on (examples of negative strokes) as at least this negative interaction means that the other person is acknowledging your existence, but the ignoring treatment leaves a feeling of nonexistence to the other person that can be very damaging for its self-stem and confidence.

In any case, I'm not particularly sad that we broke contact, however, I would be happy to keep nodding at her if we bump into each other on campus. Anyway, this story is part of my offline lesbian dating stories, but since we had a brief and potentially dangerous encounter with her last week, I thought that it will make sense to write about it today.

It all began in a welcome meeting organized by the Doctoral School, it was the first time I started my PhD in 2012 (yes, I have started my PhD twice now, but that is another story....) and I had just moved back to Brighton and I didn't know many people. So, I forced myself to attend all of the welcome events that I got invited to, hoping that I could make some new friends and start my social network in Brighton again.

When I entered the room, everyone was already chatting in groups and I was on my own and didn't know anyone, so I approached a tall eccentric gay-looking guy aiming to kill two birds with one stone: make a friend and meet gay people. As soon as I approached him and introduced myself, I saw a short blond lesbian-looking girl that was behind him. I immediately got from her the gay vibe not just due to her flannel shirt, but because she had some butchy manners and very lesbian body language. However, I could see how she was trying to make an effort to hide her masculinity with a very deep layer of foundation makeup and a thick lumpy mascara and a perfectly done French manicure.

I didn't like her at first sight, but she was the kind of person who looks deeply into other people's eyes and follows all the hidden rules of a perfect social interaction: she practices active listening and seems to know how to encourage other people to talk about themselves.

I could see how the tall gay guy was delighted with her treatment and kept on talking about himself. He was really enjoying his own conversation only briefly interrupted by me or the lesbian-looking girl with more reinforcement so he could keep on talking about himself a bit more.

When the event finished, we were invited to continue the evening in Falmer bar (the Student's Union bar) and so we made our way there. The tall eccentric gay men didn't join us, but the girl and I went to the bar.

For an hour or so we talk. I tried my best to not just talk about myself but put into practice the same social techniques that she was using with me, so we had a bit of a tennis match of active listening and polite compliments.

She told me that she was originally from South Africa, but had moved to South London when she was 2 years old. I could feel her South London chavy influence in the way she was dressed and the way she spoke.
However, she seemed quite cultivated in English literature and explained to me that she was starting a PhD on the influence of Judaism and the old testament on English medieval literature. She also told me that she was Jewish and that she was very excited about analyzing the Bible for her PhD.

As the conversation developed, she discretely asked me about my "relationship status" and therefore indirectly about my sexual preferences to which I reply that I was single and left the rest to an open interpretation. At that time I guess that I was still a bit uncomfortable about displaying my sexuality to someone that I'd just met.

These days I'm more straightforward, I only want to make friends that are comfortable with my sexuality and if they have any kind of problem, is better to know it soon rather than later. Anyway, I didn't tell her that I was gay, however, I didn't say that I was straight either.

I could sense that she liked me as we talked intensively for an hour or more and I even thought at some point that she was coming into me, but I thought that it was possibly the effect of the beer and that perhaps she was just being extremely friendly. However, as we were about to leave, she vaguely mentioned that she was living with his boyfriend, later I would discover that his boyfriend was paying for her PhD and living expenses.

In any case, we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to have lunch on campus the week after, we were both new in Brighton and didn't know many people after all.

As a part of the event, we were asked to write on the glass a sentence about what we were going to do in the first year of our PhD. I wrote "Not Panic!" and she wrote: "Find OUT what my thesis is actually about".

We went for lunch a few times on campus and I had the feeling that she liked me, but I didn't do or say anything since she had a boyfriend. I got the impression that she was a repressed lesbian, but either due to her religious beliefs or her accommodated life with her boyfriend, she was not out.

After a few lunch dates and several intellectual conversations, we became close friends. She was sending me messages on WhatsApp almost every day wishing me a good day and good luck with my work and I didn't know how to interpret them. Perhaps it was just that we were both new in town and we both needed to find some sort of connection to feel more secure and welcome in Brighton. Moreover, I was having a tough time with my PhD due to the fact that only a few months after I started, both of my supervisors left the university, hence, I was having a very stressful time and she was taking the time to listen to me and guide me in my unstable career situation.

After all, only a few months before I had an amazing job as a Marketing Manager for a high-tech company and I was living on my own in a newly refurnished flat in the city, with a shining bathroom all for myself and a very comfortable double bed. I changed all to go back to being a student, living in a room with a single bed in a shared flat and sharing a bathroom and kitchen with 5 more students.... one of whom was very crazy and scary, but that is another story.

Anyway, I was starting to question my decision... however, I had on my head Steve Jobs's words: “Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. [...] Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do”. I knew that I love learning and knowledge and therefore, I was following my passion... even if I was just being hit with a brick.

To be continued...

My "save the closeted lesbians" project

I feel that since I came out, I've been wanting to help the gay community. I have this fantasy in my mind about me being some sort of counselor for 'coming out' lesbians and I go around telling people my coming out story to help closeted gays.

I tend to sympathize with people that are coming out since for me it was a long and painful process (see My coming our Story post), so through out the years I've been out of the dark closet, I've talked to other gays that were coming out that I had come across.

I helped Martita, a 22 years-old smart dentist with amazing eyes. We met for a beer before a concert few years ago, and we had a coming out chat and I introduced her to my lesbians friends in the scene. She was a fast learner and in no time she was riding the gay night without any supporting wheels. I was very proud of her and very happy when she finally found love.

I've also had an Argentinian project before Martita, but this time he was not ready to come out.

My last and most exciting project was my French handsome housemate, although he was partially out when I met him, I think that he still had some shame and shyness about his sexuality and needed a small push to fully live comfortable in his skin as a gay men. He is doing fantastic these days, he is more relax about revealing his homosexuality openly to strangers and he has also being expanding his network of gay friends, which always helps to feel more accepted and grow.

My last project was Naomi (of course not her real name). She contacted me through OkCupid around the same time that the website was on the news due to the block on Firefox.

She told me that she has never being with a woman but that she was going through a lot of changes in her life and she was ready to be open to new experiences. She was very pretty and I accepted to meet her for coffee at the White Rabbit.

 I wanted to help her with her coming out process and perhaps, I would made a new friend in the process. When we met, I had the same feeling that I had with the tall Polish-looking accountant, I could see that she was not in a good place in her life, she looked tired and she was not wearing any makeup to cover up for her deep purple rings, she did not made much effort on her appearance either and I could feel that she was a bit on edge.

I could also feel that she was extremely nervous and when I started to talk about homosexuality and coming out, I could see in her face that she was feeling uncomfortable and wanted to change the subject.
She also had the 'sad eyes', the sad gaze that closeted people have.

I could feel that she was drowning and in need for a rope to hold on too. So, I told her about my coming out story, about how you can be gay but still have a normal life with normal friends and how once you get to know people in the community you will grow as a person because they will provide the emotional support you need and you will ended up accepting yourself and seeing being gay as something completely normal.
The date was short, I finished my earl grey tea and went home.

After that date, it was clear for me that we were in different places in our lives and that we had had a very different backgrounds and way of seeing things, but I wanted to help her.

She looked so sad and lonely, she could be my 'rescue puppy' from the straight main stream society. So I invited her to a day trip to the Seven Sisters (see picture below) with my housemates and other friends.

We walk for hours and we had a nice lunch on the beach. She interacted with my friends and seem more happy and comfortable than in the previous date. I recommended her a few books to read in self-development and social psychology and I could see that she was taking notes.

At some point, she also told me that she was seeing a vegan guy from OkCupid and that since she met him she was also embracing new eating habits.

I guess that she was in need for a change, but starting with an easy step towards a different self was her way of starting her coming out process. I guess that she was just on the process of starting to question her life and the main stream social rules and baby steps were her way of start her journey.

I could see that from her background and type of personality she was not ready to come out as a lesbian yet and needed to start with something small like changing her diet.

We can not all jump out into a new life, some people need baby steps and since she told me that for almost 10 years she had a boyfriend that he was his best friend and protector and she was living under his wings, it made sense that she was feeling very vulnerable on her own and that perhaps, the best thing for the time being was getting an open minded boyfriend, something safe, but at the same time that could help her to experience with little things such veganism and question the society rules little by little before moving on to experience with a bigger change in your life.

After that day, we met once for coffee on a Saturday morning at St. Anne's Well Gardens, they had a small neighborhood festival going on full of Salsa dancers, families with kids and retired pensioners playing petanque.

She suggested the place but I thought that we were a bit out of place, it was definitely a family straight oriented environment in where she probably felt safe but I, as a 'pretending-to-be-Gay-counselor-expert-on-coming-out' could see that she was hiding herself and wanted to blended in.

Once I saw that she was not ready to take on my lecture on 'coming-out', I realized that we had very little to talk about.

We had very different backgrounds and ways of see things, she was also not a big lover of intellectual conversations and for me pretending to get on with someone that seems nice but we don't have much in common is out of my scope.

Life is too short to waste your time with people that don't bring you anything, who don't teach you anything or inspire you in any way. I barely have time for my current friends, so my unconscious plan on adopting a gay puppy to make me feel better about myself and to feel that I was contributing to the gay community was perhaps not a good idea after all.

I went away for a couple of weeks after that coffee morning date in the park, so we lost touch. When I came back, I had already lots in my mind to keep it up with my "save the gays" project and I failed to keep in touch with her.

I am sure that she has being meeting other people from the site and I am sure that she is doing fine, after all she seem to be a very kind-hearted person and she will find her way in this jungle. Although she might need some supporting wheels for the time being. Also, she is living in the most open minded city in the UK so I'm sure that she will be able to come out or just experience with girls if that is what she wants.

PS: I've asked her to complete my survey for the research project that I was doing at that time and she did, I am crossing the line by asking online strangers to participate on my research if they qualify for it?

Others people's online dates that connect to my offline dating lesbian stories

I decided to write this story as this week was the 4th year anniversary of it...  I don't usually remember dates or years but on this occasion, I will never forget... It all begins at a bus stop with someone else online date...

As I wrote in the previous post, in September of 2008 I was very close to a very handsome Spanish gay man named Pedro. He was THE MASTER of online dating, he had met most of his long-term boyfriends in the cyberspace...

At the time, he had a long-distance boyfriend but kept his profile active as he was also 'new in town' and wanted to meet gay people to go out... He contacted this guy who slightly reminded me of a young Michael Jackson (before he turned white) due to his fantastic hair and face shape.

He and Pedro were supposed to meet that week for coffee but they recognized each other at the 25 bus stop at Sainsbury's on Lewes Road and introduced themselves on the spot. The situation was a bit uncomfortable for them, meeting a future online date sooner than expected, and for me as well, as I was there too...

Because Pedro had a boyfriend, Chris and him became friends and so we started to hang out... For about 2 years Chris was part of our lives...

The three of us used to go out to Revenge, went for long walks in the countryside, or just bumped into each other on campus and spend the evening together in Falmer bar playing Jenga.... we used to have long conversations about homosexuality, coming out, love and life in general...

Chris and I were both in the 'accepting our sexuality' phase and, in a way, we understood and supported each other... He told me a couple of times about a lesbian friend of his that I needed to meet because we would probably like each other.... but unfortunately, he never introduced me to her.....

One summery day on June 2010, he decided to terminate his life and hanged himself in the woods at the back of Sussex University Campus...

Two days before he did it, we bumped into each other on the 25 bus. It was Friday and I was going to Falmer Bar to work a long shift, so I told him that I will call him that Saturday or Sunday so we could hang out before leaving Brighton...

When we said goodbye I had a very strange and powerful feeling, and the words: "this is the last time I'm going to see him" crossed my mind... I thought that I was not going to see him again because I was moving out of Brighton in a few weeks' time and he was going to Swaziland for the summer the following week...

We both had uncertain futures so I thought that crossing paths again was going to be difficult... 

When he got off the bus, I took a "mental picture" of him while he was waving me goodbye..... he was at the same bus stop where we met 2 years ago, looking at me with his big sad eyes.... and I unconsciously perceived that there was something wrong...

That Sunday night, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought that I needed to call Chris... I was feeling bad because I said to him that I was going to call him to hang out, but I didn't in the end as I was very busy with my dissertation and work...

I was taking a lot of shifts at the bar at the time because I needed the money for the summer... so I forgot to call him... The morning after it was already too late to make that call...

When I got the news, I was shocked, in a way, I always thought that Chris and I were very much alike... we both were struggling with our sexuality and coming out but, we both believed in finding someone, probably as a consequence of watching too many Hollywood films. We were also both gay and single and didn't have that much luck in finding love in the past... So, in a way, I related to Chris's state of mind...

I didn't know what to think... He had given up in life... just like this... I didn't know how to react... In 2010, I have to confess that I was also having a tough time myself.... without noticing, I started to slowly isolate my self from the world and that's probably why I didn't notice Chris' depression at the time,

I was in an odd place, I was feeling very lonely and vulnerable... I wasn't happy with my life at the time, but I never considered giving up...  his defeat was a big hit for me.....

After his funeral, we went out to Revenge as it was what he would have liked us to do... His whole family was there, his mum, his brothers and sister, his friends and I finally met the 'lesbian' girl that he wanted me to meet... We didn't talk, she approached me on the dance floor... I was covered in tears... she grabbed me and we started kissing...., we didn't talk.... just kissed...

I was drunk as Chris' brother kept buying Tequila shots for everyone... We kept on kissing for a while and I ended up at her place... we talked for hours about life and death and the darkness that we all have inside while sharing a spliff and more booze.... we cuddle for a bit and then went upstairs to her bed and..... (you know I never give details....) Finally, I fell asleep in her bed after several days of insomnia due to Chris' death.......

The morning after, we exchanged phone numbers. We met up that week for an afternoon coffee that turned into a night out at Revenge.... but then she moved back home for the summer and I left Brighton a few weeks after.... so it faded away after that very intense connection that night, probably because of the circumstances...

Nothing good can ever start from a drunk night after a funeral... I know through Facebook that she is now engaged to a guy... I guess that she was one of those "college lesbians" who hung her lumberjack flannels shirts and Dr Martens boots after Uni and paired up with a guy from her hometown to live happily ever after...

I don't really know if this story has any moral... I guess some experiences in life are difficult to understand and I'm still trying to make sense of Chris' death..... But what is clear is that the pressure that society puts on minorities to become who they are hasn't had a big role in Chris' death...

He was a mix-race gay boy living in Swaziland where he was not white enough for the white upper-class parties but not black enough to hang out with the other half... He was also an extremely sensitive gay man trying to find love in the superficial gay men's world in which muscles and one-night stands are the currency...

I know that suicide among the young lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender community is higher than among the general population and Chris was just a victim. I myself briefly thought about ending my life when I realized I was gay, the thought of not following the rules of society, not living up to society's standards and the idea of living isolated because I was following my heart, put that thought into my mind, but fortunately, I never considered it seriously as an option as after all, coming out was more challenging in my mind that what it actually was at the end.....

I can tell you for a fact that: "It gets better" and only with little changes we can aspire to create a society in which minorities of any kind will feel safe to express themselves and to love freely who they want without being judged...

I would like to dedicate this post and picture to Chris as he would have enjoyed crossing the street in this new rainbow that they have painted in Brighton :)!

My offline dating lesbians stories - My first "one night stand" story

I decided to write today an offline story... not that I've run out of online dating stories yet... but I feel that the ones untold yet are either too long or too boring for a Sunday afternoon.... + this story follows in time "My 'I'm new in town' story"... so in a way, it makes sense to fit it here in the blog...

One Halloween night in 2008, just after moving into Brighton and meeting the PhD student lesbian student, I went out with my new Spanish gay man's kick...

I have a tendency to always have a gay man as a best friend in my life, and in 2008 it was Pedro, a very handsome Spanish guy that was always super positive about life and completely open about his sexuality and me, that I was still struggling a bit with mine, his company and guidelines through the accepting process was very appreciated...

 We used to go out to Revenge every weekend, sometimes it was just the two of us... but some other sometimes we dragged some other people along with us........  anyway, back to my story...

One Halloween "Girls on Top" Thursday at Revenge, I went out with my Spanish gay friend to dance... Since I was young and working in a bar, my tolerance for alcohol was slightly higher than these days... so I think that at least I double the number of recommended units...

I lost my friends and I ended up dancing with this gorgeous-looking blonde girl dressed up as a feminine version of Tom Cruise in 'Top Gun' with a pair of RayBan aviator sunglasses and baggie military-looking pair of dungarees...

We danced and kissed and.... the next thing I remember....  we were on the bus to my place...  It was a fun night with a stranger whose name I quickly forgot the morning after... We exchanged numbers but we didn't contact each other again...

I bumped into her again a few months later at Revenge. She told me that a few days after we met a friend of hers threw her phone on the Thames River... so, she lost my phone number...

Really...? flying phones that end up in the Thames is a common thing that can happen and I should believe her....(?) Well, I was 23 so I did have faith in humanity and I believed her...

We exchange phone numbers again and we meet up the day after for drinks... My friend the zombie M&M from Canada was visiting me that weekend so she decided to invite another gay guy for a double date...

They were both very good-looking, he was a model in London and she was a very attractive photography student at Brighton University.... But we didn't have much to talk about, unfortunately...

My friend the zombie M&M's described the date as Ernest Hemingway meeting with a Bimbo Blonde on his side and I felt a bit the same way... they were not even able to situate Spain in a map and their favourite movie was "The Goonies"... They were not very intellectual material but they were beautiful...

The gay incredibly handsome guy ended up vomiting in the toilet and the pretty blonde had to walked him home as the doorman at the "Pav Tav" kicked him out... and that was the end...

She send me few messages after that night.... but, I was secretly in love with a colleague at work that of course was not gay and showed no interest in me whatsoever... but well... I always seem to choose the wrong person to have a crush on...

Do we choose who we love?

My "I'm new in town" story

This is the story of my second online date....

At the end of August 2008, I moved to Brighton for the first time. I have moved to Brighton twice now... I guess that I can't stay too far for too long from this city...

When I first arrived, I got a room for few days on Sussex campus, but soon I moved into a room that an Italian guy was subletting for the summer on the top of the pub Thomas Kemp in Kemptown...

The flat had three rooms, I was in the biggest one, another very quiet guy was subletting another one and a half- British half- Israeli guy was in last room next to mine.

For a brief period of time, the half-Brit-half-Israeli guy was the only person that I knew in Brighton.... I didn't know anyone here before I moved in so, soon I found myself hanging out with a 24 years-old, frustrated saxophonist, that fitted perfectly the stereotype of an early-twenties stoner: baggie clothes from his teens days as a skater, a general scruffy appearance from someone who has recently moved out of his parents house and still struggling to keep up with laundry duties and cleaning chores.

He had an incredible messy room that looked as if a hurricane had passed and had thrown all his belongings on the  floor. He was really funny, one day, I saw him staring at a painting from the Italian guy that was on the wall for about half an hour because he was super stoned...

Another day, he made an attempt to cook me an uneatable English baked potato with beans while he was high as hell as a payment from all of the food that he was stealing from my fridge on his regular night munchies... He was very funny and nice, but after hanging out with him for a couple of days, I realized that I needed to meet some new people...

I went back to my account on GaydarGirls that I hadn't opened since my first online dating story. I was determined to expand my social circle in Brighton that at that moment consisted only on a very stoned guy that enjoyed to play the saxophone at 4am in the morning since he had no concept of time whatsoever due to the fact that he was constantly stoned.....

I send a couple of messages to few girls that seem nice and approachable on the site. All of the messages started with something like: "I'm new in town and I would like to meet some new people ...". We all have send or received a message from someone that is new in town... it is a nice strategy to approach people on an online site, in stead of just sending a message because you are miserably lonely and want to get laid.... which sounds desperate, you now have an excuse.... you are "new"... and as a newbie, you have an excuse to approach strangers on the Internet without being judged....

Unfortunately, the excuse only lasts for the first few months that you are new in a city....

Since I barely use GaydarGirls and, I haven't edited my profile's headline in the past 6 years, I think that I am still using the tactic of "I'm new in town" as the headline on my profile... Oh well..., considering that I have moved a couple of times in the past 6 years... Is not that I've been lying all the time.... (mental note: change your status in the 'old' lesbian online site of Gaydargirls..., just in case.... New phone online dating applications not always deliver quality dates, at least this old site had provided me with some fun dates on the past.... )

Back to my story...., so I send few messages and one girl answered me saying that she was also new in town and that she would love to meet up for a drink. It all went very quickly... We meet up that Thursday for a quick drink but we ended up spending almost the whole weekend together.....

We both had a lot of time on our hands and too little contacts in Brighton... She had just moved down from Edinburgh to start a PhD in Sociology at Sussex in September. She was using the last few days of the summer to settle down into her new place and getting around in the city.

She was 27-years-old, very tall and slim, Scottish (without the accent....) with big blue eyes. Her conversation was very intellectual... she talked as the aspiring academic she wanted to become and I, at the time 23... found very attractive the idea of hanging out with a doctoral student. I've always been a bit of a sapiophile... 

I didn't know at the time that I will ended up becoming an academic myself, so in a way, it was like looking at me in the future... She was who I wanted to be when I "grew up"....

We had few night dates and few day ones..., I remember one afternoon that we were hanging out in my room and we were about to watch a movie when my stoner housemate came in his underwear and sat in the middle of the sofa with a spliff ready to watch the movie with us...

No one invited him, but I didn't want to kick him out since he himself did not have many contacts in Brighton either and he was probably as lonely as the two new lesbians in town... So I let him staying and watch the movie with us....

When the movie finished, he left to his room... The day after he confessed that he was hopping to have a threesome with us....  Of course a very typical straight male thiking, they meet two "non butchy" looking lesbian and instantly they think that they are in a porn movie and that we are going to act accordingly.... of course the threesome never happen... but I don't blame him for trying.... you need to act on your fantasies... but sometimes your fantasies are not others people's fantasies.... Anyway, he was a funny character.... I wonder if he still around Brighton...

The new lesbian in town and I had a brief thing for about a week or more, but soon after September came, we had to wake up, Greenday style.... the summer was over and the academic year began....

I started my courses and also, I started to work at the Student Union bars at freshers week. My routine went from having all of the time in the world to not having a minute to myself.... I spend the first week of term working everyday serving "snake bites" and "Jagger bombs" to a thousands of new University party hunter students. It was fun.... I met a lot of new people, new people from the new house I moved to, new people from the bars where I was working, and new people from my courses....

I went from having only a couple of numbers on my phone to have a pretty busy social life.... the bright Phd student was not my only "normal" contact in Brighton anymore...... and also, probably for her, my role in her life shifted to the background too... after the term started, it was not easy to meet up anymore.... we both had different social commitments and after trying for a while to arrange a next date without any success, she ended up telling me on the phone that perhaps we should take sometime off... which considering that we spend a lot of time together too fast, it was a very sensible thing to do...

We are still friends on Facebook and I have seen her around Sussex campus from time to time... She proof read few of my essays that term.... (she offered to do it....) but we didn't properly meet up again or kept in touch apart from the occasional 2 to 3 minutes conversation on campus every once in a while... I knew from the begging that she was not going to be the love of my life, but I was new in town and I wanted to expand my social circle.... and perhaps, I was trying to find a new adventure while waiting for the academic year and "reality" to start...

I enjoyed the time we spend together but, I knew that we both were in very different places in our lives and that we were not going to work once the academic year began... but it was a nice "I'm new in town" + "end of the summer" story.... Is it true that we are more likely to fall in love and have more stories when we first move to a place?

According to research we are more likely to fall in love during holidays and during times of change in your life since we have apparently a more open mindset..... Should I move to a new town again just so I can pull off again my excuse for contacting people online without the desperate lonely smell that an dating website message always has hoping that perhaps, this time I will find the love of my life....????

Naahhh.... I love Brighton too much to move out....