“You never really meet anyone good there… maybe if you’re lucky you can find a hook-up.”

Donovan arrived at the third item on his list on how he typically went about finding a man.

He dwelt here a moment to elaborate about his experience doing the gay bar scene on Capitol Hill, namely Madison Pub and the Cuff.

 

“I like going there (Madison Pub) because I can get a pitcher of beer pretty cheap and they’ll usually have sports playing on TV.  More athletic dudes go there too.”

 

I nodded in agreement since I myself had been there on multiple occasions with the smell of dirt and sweat caked on me either after a hard-hitting rugby practice (years ago) or more recently after facing-off against another soccer team during a Tuesday night co-rec game.  It’s exactly the type of place I’d expect to find someone like Donovan.

 

As he related his strategy to me when I asked about where he was searching for that guy he had in mind, it occurred to me that I likely would have been taking the same path to get there (at least in the early part of my dating experience) more or less.  Before this he had highlighted the other avenues for M4M interaction.

 

“I’ve been having some luck chatting with guys on Scruff and have occasionally met up with some of them, but mostly they just want to have sex.  That’s all it pretty much is.”

 

“Of course that’s what it is!  Do you really think guys are meeting there and ending up happily ever after?”

 

He paused and looked up in the air – head tilted slightly to his left as if thinking.

 

Some scientific research states that whenever people are asked a question, they angle their heads in the direction of whichever hemisphere of the brain they are using in that instant.  In this case, it would be Donovan’s left and/or logical side… the side of reason.   Donovan stroked his ginger-colored beard a few moments to indicate he was truly pondering my question.  He looked at me and smiled slyly.  I could tell he reached a conclusion making both of us laugh.

 

“You’re probably right.”

 

“Wait, actually I take that back.  About the bars.”

 

I shared with Donovan details about a former relationship with an ex-boyfriend who picked me up at the Cuff one night several years ago.  We dated for about five months AND strange about this one… he was opposite the Seattle standard – being very direct with me from the moment we met.  If I remember correctly he grabbed my arm to get my attention after I came up the Dog Walk.  This is a whole other story though.

 

I implored Donovan to carry on with his strategy.

 

“I’ve got a profile on Adam4Adam that I just setup too.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“It’s another hook-up… er… dating site.”

 

“I thought you’re after a boyfriend?”

 

We’d stepped over to his computer typing in the URL.  The monitor screen refreshed.  The byline for the site read “for friendship, romance or a hot hookup”.

 

Hmmm… I wonder how successful he’d been here.  Donovan went on about how the site was like ManHunt, but less slutty.

 

“So which one is working best for you?”

 

He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his cargo shorts launching the Scruff app.

 

Back to Scruff.  Again.

 

The grid system of local guys in his radius loaded up… ones that I hadn’t seen before.  We were on Alki Beach after all. His thumb moved to the upper left corner of the screen (his profile) which enlarged when he tapped on it revealing a mirror shot of his face and torso he’d taken from his bathroom.  He was shirtless.

 

“Nice.”  I thought to myself.

 

Wow, he had been working out.  Just a month before we had been at a lakehouse party swimming and lounging in our trunks at a dockside cabana on Lake Sammamish.

 

I hadn’t been able to tell how much he leaned out from the baggy shirt he was now wearing as we talked.

 

“Whoa, you look really good here.”

 

“I wasn’t getting too much attention until I posted this photo to my profile.  Now, I’m having guys message me left and right.”

 

And with good cause too.  His pecs were bigger, shoulders bulging, arms thick and the faintest sign of a six-pack could be seen in this photo.  Oh yeah, and just the right amount of blondish-reddish fur surrounded his chest.  I stared back at him looking at his torso thinking that the only thing separating me from him was a thin layer of cotton.

 

He’d been getting bites alright.  A couple of back and forth conversations with pics sent with anyone he thought was a match from as close as 800 feet to three miles away.  A face pic was a must.

Donovan’s tone changed quickly from the high of the compliment I had just paid him on his physique to the frustration of chatting.

“I can usually get a good chat going with someone over a day or two.  But I typically lose them once I invite them to meet up.  It becomes dead silence on the other side.”

I suppose that’s what we can expect with a passive-aggressive city like Seattle.  Looking at a list of men on our computer screens or mobile phones thinking that we can “order up a date” like it’s an item on the menu.  Perhaps the guy on the other side isn’t really serious, “just seeing who else is on here” or indeed just wants a hook-up.  This online persona is certainly one that guys can hide behind keeping them safe from any form of rejection or simply satisfying the need to have other guys being interested in them.

 

But the other side of this story is to know what we’re looking for as well.  Are our intentions clear on what we want out of the dating experience?  Have we communicated clearly what we are after?

 

Don’t get me wrong here – being online is not all bad experiences.  In fact, next week, Donovan has a first date with a military man – a soldier from Tacoma’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) facility.

My ears perk up as Donovan describes the dude to me then shows me his Scruff profile.  I start feeling pretty happy for my friend.  Again, he’s only at the beginning of the dating cycle.

“We’ll have to see what happens.  Who knows?  I’m not laying all my cards on the table.  At least not yet.”

I can’t wait to hear about it.