This is Billy (identity protected), we got chatting through Grindr and then onto Gaydar where we exchanged some more pics. Billy is a dancer and is Latino. We’re meeting on Thursday night. I’ll keep you posted!

I need a haircut and a body shave, I haven’t had either since before my trip abroad.

Just thought I’d post a quick update on the date I’d made for today. I’ve just got back and it couldn’t have gone better. I arrived a little early to be warmly greeted. He was only wearing a pair of blue track bottoms, which were slung quite low. His body certainly matched up to his photos.

After a little small talk, we started kissing and undressing and made our way into his bedroom, where the rest of the clothes were thrown onto the floor. He really enjoyed kissing, which is a huge turn on for me, so I quickly went hard and any nerves I had about not performing were soon forgotten.

We explored each other for a while and I really enjoyed the freedom of touch that total nakedness allows. Soon the kissing became more urgent and we began to move together pressing our bodies and mouths harder.

My hands held onto his buttock as he climbed on top of me and ground his pelvis into mine. I could feel his hardness pressing into me, so I flipped him over and took him fully into my mouth deep throating him until I heard him gasp and moan. He then reached down and pulled me up to face him, kissed me, then turned me onto my back and mirrored what I had done to him. I reached out and found his hard dick which I worked while his mouth worked miracles on me.

After a while I pulled him back up and kissed his lips and neck, then turned him over onto his stomach. My lips played over his shoulders, spine and I worked my way down to his buttocks where my tongue went to work.

For the next hour we gently worked each others bodies until we were hot and sweaty and ready to come. He sat on my abdomen and allowed himself to explode over my chest and stomach, he reached down to me and worked my dick until my hot fluid mingled with his own on my chest.

We lay naked together catching our breath for a while, then cleaned up. I dressed and left, we both gave the promise that we’d meet again, but I realise that these are often empty words. I liked him and would definitely revisit.

I’ve been away, if you were wondering. I’m now back in the UK and  ready to get back to normal. One of the first things that I did on landing a day or so ago was to log onto my Gaydar account and check my messages. I haven’t had sex in weeks and my balls are fit to bursting.

I’ve arranged a date for tomorrow. Let’s just hope it turns out better than the last Gaydar date I made! So here he is in all his glory!

A los que ya me conocéis espero teneros “evangelizados”, pero a los que pasáis por mi página y leéis mis palabras sin haber tenido la oportunidad de conocerme, quiero deciros que… merece la pena  (Acaba de salirme la vena “autobombo”, en realidad no soy así, es que el post del día va un poco de eso)

Ayer empezó FICOD, el mega evento freak de la semana y estuve abducida durante todo el día por gente que tenía cosas interesantes que decir y otros que sólo fueron a “hablar de su libro”.

En la mesa redonda más concurrida de la jornada “Redes Sociales ¿Existe un modelo de negocio viable?”, contábamos con la presencia de Gonzalo Gómez-Acebo de Bookioo.com, hecho que me sorprendió sobremanera.

Normalmente cuando en los medios de comunicación se habla de redes sociales todos hablan de Tuenti o Facebook, pero nadie habla de las otras, las que hasta hace un par de meses generaban el mayor tráfico en nuestro país, las redes de contactos personales.

Sólo en España  y, como leí hace un par de meses en el libro de Javier Celaya; Meetic cuenta con 5 millones y medio de usuarios registrados,  Match.com tiene 4 millones y Badoo más de 1 millón y medio. Dentro del perfil homosexual Gaydar cuenta con más de 4 millones de usuarios.

Entonces, ¿por qué no se habla de ellas?

Está claro que siguen existiendo dificultades a la hora de tratar algo que la sociedad no tiene totalmente aceptado. Y a pesar de que existen cada vez más ejemplos de parejas que se conocen a través de la red, parece que no está bien visto que te metas en Internet para buscar pareja o para “conocer gente”.

Bookioo es una red de contactos, pero es diferente.  Es una red de contactos dirigida a la mujer. Según Gómez-Acebo, está orientada a un público femenino mayor de treinta años, que se preocupa por la privacidad y que necesita saber quién es quién antes de lanzarse a hablar.

Al parecer, el 85% de mujeres solteras de más de 30 años no usan estas páginas o las que las han usado han dejado de hacerlo porque la experiencia no ha sido muy buena.

“¡Ups!, estoy dentro del público objetivo” , tengo más de treinta, estoy soltera  y mi experiencia no ha sido del todo satisfactoria en otras redes.

Las causas de esto último… bueno, me daría para escribir un libro (igual hasta un día os sorprendo). Lo hablé con uno de los chicos que conocí a través de la red y que se ha convertido en buen amigo y mejor socio. Él era un “estratega”: analizaba a las chicas, las catalogaba y a partir de esto les decía lo que querían escuchar. Después, cuando veía que se comportaban de manera demasiado “cariñosa” o que directamente se les veía que buscaban un “amorcito”, dejaba de hablarles y hacía mutis por el foro.  Un crack de tío, yo le admiro, menos mal que le cazé al vuelo, jajaja.

Es normal que las mujeres lleguen un punto en el que desconfíen. Leyendo una de las noticias del EBE me encontré con el siguiente titular: “No mentir en una entrevista de trabajo sería tan absurdo como decir la verdad en una primera cita”.

O sea que siendo sincera no se liga… habemus Papa.

Yo soy muy sincera, a veces demasiado.

Para las que tengáis curiosidad por saber qué podéis encontraros en estas redes de contacto, el “estratega” y yo hicimos un listado, que voy a reducir a tres tipos :

-El directo (sólo quiere sexo, te lo dice y te propone quedar). Muchos de ellos casados o con pareja.

-El herido (acaba de salir de una ruptura sentimental y no sabe lo que quiere)

-El majo/amigo (se convierten en colegas y ya no los ves con otros ojos)

Con este plan… ya me diréis que ganas tenemos las tías independientes y preparadas (más autobombo) para meternos a dar una vuelta .

¿Será Bookioo la respuesta?

Ellos creen que sí. Su modelo limita la admisión de miembros masculinos, de cada 100 hombres que intentan entrar solamente 30 lo consiguen. Son las mujeres las que deciden que son lo suficientemente buenos como para formar parte de los planes de ocio. Las mujeres pagan (el primer mes es gratis) y los “elegidos” forman parte de la red gratuitamente.

¿Una red sexista?

Muchos lo afirman. Y los chicos hablan de ella en un foro.

Desde mi punto de vista es una empresa dando servicio a un cliente. Han encontrado un nicho de mercado por explotar y no lo están haciendo del todo mal. Tienen un blog, hacen promociones y están en Facebook. Por desgracia no me he registrado y no he probado sus servicios,  así que no puedo hablaros de la experiencia de cliente pero, si algún día lo hago, os lo contaré.

Con respecto al resto os diré que mi radar está estropeado o igual es que, como decía al artículo, “soy sincera”. Que he conocido a buena gente pero quizás no en los momentos adecuados y  que también ha habido malos malísimos (los que, como dicen mis amigas, “me dieron mucho mal”).

Pero bueno,  como reza una de mis canciones favoritas espero que no esté lejos el día  en que alguién me diga eso de “ quiero arriesgarme a conocerte” … es que en este post, ya estaba tardando en salir el amor

Just moments ago I became stunned as I read the latest status update posted by Southern Voice Magazine: “With deepest regret, as editor of SoVo, I have to tell you that we arrived at the office to learn that our parent company, Window Media, has shut down. While the 20 years of SoVo have come to an end, our civil rights movement is only beginning. I am personally grateful to all of the staff, and to all of you who have had the courage to share your stories. It has been the honor of my life to help you tell them.”

Southern Voice and David magazines have been a very important resource to the GLBTQ community in the south. This is not just a loss for Atlanta, Window Media was also the parent company to the following publications: Washington Blade, 411, Bitch Session, SouthFlorida Blade and Houston Voice.

Sovo.com screenshot at 11:30 a.m. this morning. (Sovo.com)

There are still a few GLBTQ magazines left standing on the southern forefront, including the newly published Gaydar magazine. Most of the remaining have a focus on the gay male community. The lesbian dominated publication, Labrys, moved to an 0nline-only readership in the beginning part of this year as it launched a social network on the popular Ning.com platform.

I am happy that I have saved a few copies of SoVo over the span of the 12 years that I was an avid reader. Personally, I had the honor to grace the cover once and my wife and I both have been highlighted within the pages on several occasions. Each year, SoVo’s “Best of Gay Atlanta” (BOGA) was a very popular time when votes cast over a couple of months would award people, businesses and more…to provide community recognition, awareness and a big “thank you”! This past year our website, TransQueerNation.com, was voted the second best social network just under Facebook. I was blown away with the honor of winning “Best Transgender Activist” since I was up against quite a few people that I personally respect and look up to.

SoVo was a master of on-the-scene coverage and was a community icon. David magazine was dedicated to the gay male community and I know this will be a sad day for so many.

This is a HUGE loss, but the memory and what they stood for will live on forever. Thank you SoVo and David from the bottom of my heart. You will be truly missed and I will cross my fingers for a come back.

Much Love xoxo,

Tristan

Tristan & Sicily Skye

There’s been a change in plans.  My move date has been rescheduled- I’m moving out on the 29th instead of the 15th.  Even so, my co-worker and would-be roommate Lyza becomes my housemate the day after tomorrow.  My family is adopting her until we move out.  I’m getting a new sister haha.  It should make for an interesting 2 weeks.  Full house!

Of course, all that also means another two weeks of MRT hell.  It’s not healthy riding it.  Not only does it give you the urge to commit acts of violence against your fellow passengers, it’s so crowded that you can get bruises and become infected by a million different flu viruses and random bacteria in the air.  We were practically breathing each other’s lungs in there.  The good news is that we found a way to by-pass the rush hour crowd.  Going home from GC, it’s to take the train Ayala-Taft-Cubao.  Seats galore!

By the way, my judgment is probably impaired now.  See, I know someone whom I always believed was gay. That was my very first impression; it’s one of those things that you just know. Instantly. And was I ever wrong. Oh geez, I was off by a few hundred miles on the radar.

He recently became the topic of conversation between my friends and I- they say he’s been asking about me.  That got me wondering, “are we talking about the same person here?”  And we were and I learned that I was the only one who thought he was gay. Wow.  I really, always thought he was.  I had absolutely no doubt about it.  I believed! I could barely keep myself from saying that.  He is, to my complete and utter shock, straight. Not that being straight is a horrible thing, but how could I have been so wrong? I am so bothered by the fact that everyone except me thought he was straight. Argh.

There’s a curious thing that happens when men get acquainted for the first time. There’s a sizing up, a probing if you will. Wait, wait…settle down. For those of you snickering in the back row, let me say up front that this is an asexual phenomenon and has nothing to do with Gaydar or the size of anyone’s dong. It’s innocent really, when guys manalyze each other.  There is a tacit, nearly subconscious assessment that happens, as each man checks off the attributes they may find interesting and noteworthy. If everything goes OK and readings are positive, then those guys can hang out together without any awkwardness. You see this a lot when female coworkers or old girlfriends try to get together and decide to bring their husbands or boyfriends along. The first time the guys meet, there’s a manalysis to make sure they are compatible enough to socialize—at least enough to excavate a variety of guy-friendly discussion topics—enabling everyone to survive a double-date or a dinner party. These events always make me nervous because most traditional male topics bore or confuse me. I have absolutely nothing to add to a conversation about college football, NASCAR’s point race, or how to fix a faucet.

My wife and I recently went to a birthday dinner for one of her friends from work. I’ve spent a lot of time with this friend (Georgeanna) and her husband (Jeff) and I like them both a great deal—fortunately, Jeff and I performed our initial manalysis a few years back, so now we have an easy rapport. What benefited me even more is the fact that Jeff is a lunatic sports fan and the most skilled woodworker I know. I can ask Jeff about his Fantasy Football team and his cabinet making and just let him run with it.  If other people at the table overhear chatter about wood screws and I’m nodding along, then I’m golden. I’m manly by association.

You also get this during large family gatherings when all of the male family members end up in the garage or den or backyard and they pass around the guy chit-chat like a bottle of high dollar bourbon. We had a party recently for my son’s birthday and several male in-laws attended. My father-in-law, brother-in-law, and my wife’s cousins and uncles are all manly men. So before the party, as we tidied the house for our guests, I made sure to open the dartboard to show use and lifted the lid to my tool box to prove without question that the compartments still held actual tools and not a dainty button collection or something.  And these guys are family now! What is my deal? Why even go through the trouble of coating one’s life in a virile veneer that other men will find acceptable? I seriously doubt they are sprucing up for me when I come over!

I realize this makes me sound like a squirrelly, self-conscious poseur weirdo, someone obsessed with acceptance and gender stereotypes and other nonsense like that. But it’s all about first impressions and what people absorb the first time they meet you.  I’m stuck on this: if you’re going to assault strangers—especially he-strangers—with babble about books and crossword puzzles and your bout of the artsy-fartsies, you may as well tell them your bra size and favorite brand of lip gloss. I hate to say it, but it just seems so sissy as an opener. So I tell myself to filter. Don’t rush it. The truth will come out. If new acquaintances are to spend any future time with me, they will come to know that I prefer a pen to a screwdriver and can sing most every song on the soft rock station. And that’s ok.  And if it’s not ok, please know that I watch SportsCenter every morning and am filing away stats for future use.

As part of my studies I have been introduced to First Monday which is one of the first peer-reviewed open access journals on the internet, about the internet. In an attempt to get to grips with quantitative (measurables) and qualitative (opinioned observation) research methods, our group has been tasked with reading October’s papers and analysing the approaches utilised.

One study presented was Gaydar: Facebook friendships expose sexual orientation (Jernigan and Mistree 2009) especially as I had read coverage of the research and the privacy debates in the mainstream media in recent weeks.

The research utilised the quantitative techniques to profile 4080 Facebook users within the MIT Facebook network. And hypothesis testing was undertaken to establish “a method for accurately predicting the sexual orientation of Facebook users by analysing friendship associations” (Jernigan and Mistree, 2009).

Despite the success of the study (which did accurately predict Facebook user’s sexual orientation based on the information the information collated about their Facebook friends) I think it is interesting to consider some of the “problems” surrounding this methodology (many of which were identified by Jernigan and Mistree).

Equal contact status – This was part of the basis of the study (people having a predisposition to socialise with people “like” them). Although this may predominately be the case it ignores the fact that there are anomalies and not everyone behaves in this way.

Human sexuality - In Facebook users sexuality has to be defined by distinct categories (interested in men, women, both men and women or undefined). In reality sexuality is more complex than this… as the authors describe “the world can not be divided into sheep and goats” (so to speak!) Is it realistic to expect the identity chosen in Facebook to always match the “reality”. Also this means that identities such a transgender remain ignored.

“Friends” – What is a Facebook friend? Many FB users have 100s(+) of so called “friends” within their network. How representative are these connections in comparison to an individuals “sympathy group” which is the average number of people (12) whose death would leave you truly devastated. This piece of research can not get under the skin of this question.

The tools - The recruiting/profiling of each FB account was undertaken by an automated spider (Arachne). Although this helps remove human bias from the  research process it also means the subtleties of human interpretation are missed. For example the study can not account for the differences that arose between lesbian and gay male FB relationships. Also the way in which the spider operated meant that it collated data over 18 days in total rather than taking a ’snapshot’ at one point in time.

Trade offs - The nature of the logistical regression model used means that there is an ongoing balancing act between “specificity , a measure of the model’s susceptibility to false positives, and sensitivity, the probability the model correctly predicts a characteristic” (Signorovitch, 2007 in Jernigan and Mistree, 2009).

Threats to validity – Jernigan and Mistree also identify various threats to the validity of the results of the study, including the selection method (the validation dataset came from profiles known to the authors to be gay males by prior knowledge) and history – National Coming Out Day was held 13 days before the research began.

Ethics – The data for this research was obtained without the knowledge of the FB users, although it was in the public domain and the individuals have been anonimised. This raises many questions regarding privacy and the ethics of collecting information in this way.

In conclusion it can be said that the study can not reveal causation but only correlation. The methodology is useful to obtain an overall picture however human identity and relationships are complex and therefore maybe can not be fully understood utilising these techniques.

Image c/o Kaptain Kobold licensed under Creative Commons.

The first and most exciting news is that the new single ‘Shadow On The Wall’ is getting a lot of love from all the right places. I keep hearing it on the radio and screaming out loud with excitement. A big shout out to Phil Marriott from Gaydar Radio. I’ve been listening to his show every night and he’s been awesome playing out all the different remixes! Good news as well on the club chart – if #24 wasn’t great enough last week, I just found out it’s shot up to #9. I’m speechless and so happy.

Most of this week is being taken up with plans for the video shoot. I’ve been picking out clothes and had a rehearsal today and tomorrow we do the actual shoot. It’s all very glam so I’m excited for you to see it. Last week I took a very quick trip home to see my family and my pets and also dropped into Estonian radio stations to see what they thought of the single. They loved it too. Yay!

Lots of news has been popping up in the papers and online too. Yesterday’s Daily Express included the Booker’s Tip which was so heartwarming. I gotta feeling, that this year’s gonna be a good year!!!

Stay tuned to my twitter and facebook tomorrow and I’ll keep you all up to date from the video shoot.

Lots of Love

Hannah

For more information on Hannah please go to www.hannahsite.com

We want to get hammered on Prohibition-era hair tonic and open a hotel on the moon and make the rock full of cheese as American as possible (and be greeted as liberators)(before we blow it up) and maybe, just maybe, Conrad Hilton agrees with us. With a little bit of “wow!” as a lady friend of mine once said, between our dreams and our desires, we existed with last night’s new episode of Mad Men in the “Wee Small Hours.”

August Bravo: That Betty sure is a dreamer…

Marco Sparks: You may say she’s a dreamer, but she’s not the only one…

It’s really shaping up that this season is all about the meeting of dreams with desires, two things that aren’t necessarily the same thing.

August: So it seems. Betty is afraid to give into these desires. Don, however, is not.

Marco: I think Betty’s a smart person, a worldly person of sorts, but not a person of depth. Is she really afraid to to combine her wants and dreams of a silver fox lover from the Governor’s office, or is she just trapped within the boundaries of her princess mindset? It seemed like she would’ve fucked that guy (had the show been set in the present day, they would’ve been twittering naughty little missives towards each other) as long as it hadn’t been so “tawdry.”

But that aside, I loved that the episode started off with Betty laying in the dark with her dreams and ended with Don finally asleep in bed with the thing he wanted.

August: I think she’s still trying to see if she still has it. Don neglects her because, let’s face it, he doesn’t seem to give a fuck anymore…

Marco: They’re practically roommates raising kids together.

August: Yeah, and she wants some attention. Some naughty play on the side to get excited about. Reminds me of my ex-girlfriend, actually.

Marco: Which one?

August: Actually, all of them!

Marco: Yikes. Betty just reminded me of my feeling for this show, at least this season, when she’s patronizing  her nanny/housekeeper Carla about “her station” and talking about those four dead girls in Birmingham. “This has really made me wonder about civil rights. Maybe it’s not supposed to happen right now.”

And I feel like when you really get down to it, everything Don does is a reaction to something. Quite probably everything.

August: Betty may actually want the guy from the Governor’s office, but she’s just reacting too, I think. Betty is slowly becoming a more interesting character to me as this season progresses. And more like Don.

Marco: He is one of the most influential characters on TV or in real like in, like, forever.

August: I think Betty wants without thought towards consequences, and last night she got lucky in her covering of them and not getting too caught up by them.

Marco: I loved that Betty A) of course had a hard time discussing civil rights with Carla, but B) threw that fundraiser pretty much to cover herself with Carla, who had Henry Francis, the man from the Governor’s office, coming over for an illicit hello.

August: I don’t think Betty’s going to be so lucky in the future. And yeah, Don does just react. I don’t think he starts a lot of the situations he finds himself in. They just present themselves and he does what he can to craft them, to shape them. He is crafty. But for now, Don isn’t going to stop doing, getting, or taking what he wants. He’s in that 1960s mindset, and why wouldn’t he be?

Marco: The 1960s were like a theme park for insecure men with money to walk around just being better than everyone. Especially their women. And the women of Mad Men have to be careful because they can be let go when they reach their full potential.

August: Yeah, really. Don is the man, quite literally, so therefore he’s accepted as being better than Betty. He deserves more.

Marco: And takes more.

August: He brings home the bacon. And sometimes he wants a woman to play with that bacon. And why shouldn’t they?

Marco: He is Don Draper, after all.

August: He works hard, he plays hard. I think that’s how he feels.

Marco: Don Draper is secure enough in his awesomeness to show up to work late pretty much all the time.

August: But usually because he’s at home reading the bible with his family, of course.

Marco: Oh, of course. You’re really feeling Don, aren’t you? So is Don beginning the relationship with teacher, the very “close to home” relationship, based on the disapproval of his new father figure with unrealistic desires (like the moon), Conrad Hilton?

August: Oh yeah, definitely. I think Don’s just fed up with everything lately. “Give me more ideas to reject,” he says.

Marco: “Now that I can finally understand you, I am less impressed with what you have to say.”

August: Having to say things like that daily and put up with your underlings while constantly being jerked around by a powerful man like Hilton can stress a guy out. At that point, Don really needed something his life to go right, and go right the way he wanted it to. He needed a good powerfuck.

Marco: And the teacher was perfect for him because she presents herself to the world he lives in like she’s from another planet. And I’d like to think that, deep down, she’s outing herself as being from the same planet Don is from, or heading to as the show progresses, but who knows.

She jobs along lonely stretches of highway at all hours of the night, she lives above somebody’s garage, and she advocates not staring right into the sun. And she’s seen their entire affair, and knows exactly how it’s going to end. Who knows what Don Draper’s views on fate and predestination are, but I think he knows the one thing he can control, whether doing so is a reaction or something else or not, is to fuck this woman’s brains out, especially if there’s a higher risk of him being caught than ever before. “Doesn’t that mean anything to a person like you?”

August: You can tell that Don’s giving less and less of a shit about Betty, it seems. She asks if it’s okay to have the fundraiser there and he says sure, as long as he doesn’t have to go. Don’s a little like Betty in that he wants what he wants, and right now it’s the teacher. He’s drinking too much coffee, he’s not sleeping, he’s giving more and more of himself over to Connie, I don’t know.

Marco: Everyone’s walking around hunched over, with burnt fuses sticking out of their necks.

August: Exactly. Everything, especially everything with Don is a ticking time bomb at this point. Especially when it comes to Conrad Hilton. Don may want Connie’s approval, but I don’t he’ll be able to give Connie the love he wants.

Marco: Speaking of time bombs, I feel like yet another fuse was lit last night in the coming hardcore show down with Roger and Don.

August: Seriously. Even though Don and Roger technically agreed on aspects of the Sal situation last night, there’s still going to be a showdown. I’m hoping for a fistfight!

Marco: More American bloodlust as usual, huh?

And Don did cause all of us to step back a little with the way he treated Sal in this episode, wouldn’t you agree?

August: He knows about Sal, knows about what went down on in that hotel room with the bellhop and Sal, or was about to go down in that hotel room when they were out of town together. Sal’s being bit in the ass for not having given in. Don’s a cool guy with a lot of the things that flow outside what is currently considered the social norm of his time, but it seems he doesn’t trust that lifestyle. The way he mutters to Sal, “You people.”

Marco: It was absolutely chilling, wasn’t it? It’s kind of funny that when Don is mean to people like Pete Campbell or Ken Cosgrove or Kurt or Smitty, Kinsey and Crane, and the rest, we kind of cheer it on. We want to see more of it. Maybe even with Peggy, a little. But when I said that Joan was the spine of this show in a lot of ways, I think you could make the argument that Sal’s part of the ribs of the thing.

From his first scene in the first episode, when he walks in and you can tell he’s gay, and you instantly know how hard his life has to be in this time period, I think there was too much of a chance that this character could’ve been a joke, but he’s always been written well and Bryan Batt has played him with such class. And I think we’ve come to realize how much we like Sal this season just by watching him suffer so. Especially at the hands of Don Draper.

August: But Don had to do what he had to do. Lucky Strike is their biggest client, after all.

Marco: They were there since the pilot too, weren’t they? They’re “toasted.” But in Lee Garner, Jr. we have a villain you can really hate. A bully. He wants what he wants, as do all the characters on this show, and he won’t be told no too.

August: You upset him and Lucky Strikes and you’re fucked. Like Sal is now.

Marco: I blame it all on Harry Crane, who looks more like young Isaac Asimov to me than Perry Mason.

August: When I said that Sal was fucked, well, it was Harry Crane who did the fucking. He should’ve done something when he got that phone call, and his silence is what did Sal in.

Marco: Yeah, it is. It’s funny to me that a majority of the other characters all have better gaydar than Sal, in that they can all tell that Sal is gay and he’s clueless about them. But then again, that commercial was super homoerotic, so maybe it wasn’t so hard to figure out.

But, to be fair to Don, it seemed like Don and Sal never talked about Sal’s sexuality, so with Don witnessing Sal’s hookup with a bellhop out of town, he may’ve assumed that it was a regular thing with him (as I think you could call all of Don’s extramarital partying around) and Don may be upset that Sal didn’t follow his vague advice of: “Cover your exposure.” Eh… then again, maybe not.

I just hope that Sal finds some temporary solace there in Central Park…

August: Seriously.

Marco: …and then teams up with Joan for a comeback at Sterling-Cooper.

August: Is it too late to make a comment about Sal being shafted? Sal got shafted!

Marco: I guess it’s never too late.

What about the moon?

August: And you reminded me, where the fuck was Cosgrove? I think I liked Roger’s line the best, the one about what the company is going to be known for…

Marco: ”That’s what you want this place to be known for? That and some guy losing his foot in the lawnmower.”

August: Yes!

Marco: I think that Betty actually got not just the line of the night, about the meta-statement of the season, maybe the entire show itself when she was referring to Baby Eugene and Connie at the same time…

August: “‘I want what I want when I want it,” as she feeds the baby in the wee small hours…

Marco: “…and you don’t care what it does to the rest of us.”

I have to admit it: I am a romantic. I used to believe that once I came out of my overstuffed closet I would barge straight into the arms of True Love. I would find that one special man with whom I just clicked. Me and Fantasy Guy would have the same likes, dislikes, taste in food and obviously be the same size so we could always wear each other’s clothes. I don’t know when that particular fantasy came to an end, but I think it was around the time I started “dating” online. Now you may wonder why I was “dating” instead of merely dating. But those quotation marks mean the difference between pants on and pants off. And I’m not talking about being wined and dined. Just sixty-nined. If you’re lucky.

You see, certain homos have the unfortunate predilection of being slightly shallow when it comes to certain (ahem) assets. No money? Never mind. No job? Ho-hum. Overweight? Oh, well. Average penis? Oh I couldn’t possibly do anything with a man who doesn’t have a full-time job. Internet dating has taken this to the next level. Most of these sites (Gaydar, dudesnude, Manhunt, GayRomeo) are like a Cock Catalogue. A lot of guys don’t even include their faces. That’s right, people. We’ve gone straight from dating to “dating”. And all this before we’ve even exchanged a single word. Now let me set the record straight: I have been guilty of being impressed by the mightily endowed. But the fascination ends with an aching jaw and a butthole that clenches (involuntarily) when faced with a Panty Python.

Faithful readers, over the next few weeks, I’ll attempt to regale you with stories from the front line. All of this in a futile attempt to find Mr. Fantasy Guy. Let’s start with last Friday night. I had been putting off a certain gentleman from dudesnude who had wanted to meet up for at least a month. I didn’t know if I was keen. These days the questions aren’t “What’s your favourite book?” or “What do you do?”. It’s “Are you into watersports?” and “Do you mind if I spit in your mouth?” or my recent favourite, “You wanna get caned?”. I eventually acquiesced to the date. When we were sitting happily ensconced in the pub, he looked at me and said “Wow! Your eyes are kinda weird, they don’t open the whole way do they?” and proceeded to say that he hardly drank. It wasn’t the worst date, but at the end when I asked which authors he liked to read, he replied, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly read for enjoyment.”.I knew this was no fantasy. Will I see him again? Sure. But only for a “date”.

I know that you’re not meant to find love if you look for it. But I’m not gonna find it curled in the foetal position on my bed watching movies like “Juno” and cursing the Academy for not nominating Jennifer Garner for Best Supporting Actress. Screw you Academy! She rocked that role! Just like someone’s gonna rock my world, dammit.

Again, until the newest episode of “Glee” comes out, I’m reposting the reviews from AfterElton.com. This review can be found here. I love the wit this guy puts in his review. Enjoy.

The third episode of Glee certainly offered an unexpected mixed bag. I knew going in that the cringe-inspiring Sandy would be back, but I wasn’t expecting gay student Kurt to get development until next week. I’m not sure if the two balanced each other out, but Kurt certainly made Sandy easier to watch.

Let’s start with the bad news, namely the return of Sandy, the former glee club advisor who was fired after Rachel reported him for touching a male student inappropriately. Sandy is effeminate, fussy about the thread count in his bedsheets and, when people suggest he’s gay, he insists he has a girlfriend who lives in Canada Cleveland.

We first see Sandy as he’s hanging out in the teachers’ lounge, pointing out that he can still visit the school since his court order only requires him to maintain a 50 foot distance from children, not the school. That means Sandy is there when Will gets the idea to form an acapella singing group with some of the other school staffers, the Acafellas. Sandy doesn’t become a charter members of the Acafellas, though, as things feel “creepy” when he’s around.

Sandy eventually gets himself a spot on the Acafellas by promising he can get Josh Groban to check out a performance and consider them as a potential opening act. Groban does visit them after a performance, but only to deliver a restraining order (that’s two restraining orders for Sandy in three episodes) and to reveal that the friendship Sandy boasted about was a stalker’s delusion, complete with obsessive poetry and unwanted nude photos.

What’s frustrating about Sandy is that he mixes the “gay villain” stereotype — scheming, predatory, unable to sense when he makes people uncomfortable — with the old gag of the effeminate guy who is obviously gay, but is the only person not to realize it. It’s not that you can’t create an interesting character with those qualities, but so far there isn’t much more to Sandy than those damaging stereotypes.

However, there’s one good reason to hope that Glee can make Sandy a character that’s more than a mash-up of stereotypes — Glee’s other effeminate guy, Kurt. Honestly, Kurt’s storyline this week isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking. We’ve seen the story of the gay guy and his gal pal semi-dating before but thanks to Chris Colfer and Amber Riley, the show mines the story for all the drama it’s worth.

As Mercedes starts to get close to Kurt, she seems pretty aware that she shouldn’t be hoping for more than friendship, acknowledging she’s pretty sure she’s not Kurt’s type with a knowing nod.

However, Mercedes lets Quinn (who is looking to sow discord among the the Glee Club) convince her that there could be more to the relationship. Seeing what’s going on, Rachel and Tina try to pull Mercedes back to reality with a “gaytervention.”

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop Mercedes and the relationship leads to her having her heart broken and a busted windshield for Kurt.

Colfer and Riley’s talents get a nice showcase before Mercedes busts Kurt’s windows. Not only does Colfer manage to communicate all the things going through Kurt’s head — being deliberately clueless about Mercedes’ flirtatious hints to hating himself when he seizes an opportunity to lie his way back into the closet  — but Colfer hits all the varied emotions a kid like Kurt would deal with in that situation.

Riley hits similar nuances with Mercedes including the forced ease she adopts when suggesting they “make it official” or the flash of hesitation that shows on her face when Kurt sets off her gaydar. It all leads to Kurt coming out to Mercedes in a scene where Colfer lets us see Kurt’s vulnerable side without ever letting go of the strong-willed young man we usually see.

Between Kurt and Sandy, we have two very different effeminate men. We’re getting to know Kurt and his effeminate and fashion conscious are traits that let us understand him better, not the beginning and end of the character. Sandy’s effeminacy, meanwhile, emphases his negative traits, abusiveness, inappropriateness and sneakiness.

The episode may have given us more Sandy, but the Acafellas story also gave us the chance to get to know jock Puck and see him become a performer.

Puck, it turns out, has decided he’s had enough of high school girls who are looking for husband material and dumping him based on his bad credit rating. Instead, he prefers to be the sexy above-ground-pool boy who has meaningless sex with older women.

That goal is helped by his ability to sing and play the guitar. I’m guessing joining the Acafellas is supposed to let him use his musical talent to impress those women who don’t have an above-ground-pool. Because the sight of him working shirtless should be enough to close the deal in most cases.

The Acafellas give Sue Sylvester an opportunity to try to destroy the Glee Club from within. When Will starts missing rehearsals, Quinn moves to get the Glee Club to hire a tyrannical and insulting choreographer who should break the Club’s spirit.

The scheme almost works, except that Rachel makes an appeal in the name of Barbra Streisand which leaves the club stronger than ever. On any other show, an appeal in the name of Barbra would be the gayest moment but on Glee that’s debatable.

With “Acafellas”, Glee continues to improve… and I didn’t get to mentioning the Acafella’s dance moves, Quinn’s closing comment to Sue Sylvester (is she giving up on being a mean girl, already?), Kurt’s apparent crush on Finn or the frustrating lack of Victor Garber singing. Next week’s episode looks especially promising with Kurt joining the football team in an attempt to impress his father (though it also brings Sandy joining forces with Sue Sylvester).

What did you think? Did Kurt and Mercedes’ friendship work for you or was it a return to a too-familiar story? If Kurt bothered you before, is the character working better for you now? Is Sandy a troubling character and can he be improved? Has Quinn reformed already?

Enough of that review from AfterElton.com…here’s more Puck.

well as sometimes happens, all the plans you make to meet someone don’t come off. It’s another one that fails to deliver!

You win some you lose some.

As part of a class project, MIT students have developed a system called “Project Gaydar” that predicts whether people are gay based on their Facebook friends.  The Boston Globe described it this way: “Using data from the social network Facebook, they made a striking discovery: just by looking at a person’s online friends, they could predict whether the person was gay. They did this with a software program that looked at the gender and sexuality of a person’s friends and, using statistical analysis, made a prediction.”

The project was intended to examine the privacy implications of online social relationships — that is, what can be deduced about a person based on their friend networks.  So how did they make their predictions work? The Globe explains that “the idea behind the MIT work, done in 2007, is as old as the adage that birds of a feather flock together. For years, sociologists have known of the ‘homophily principle’ – the tendency for similar people to group together.” Specifically, Gaydar looked at the gender and “interested in” info on Facebook profiles, as well as a person’s friends.  If you’re gay, you’re likely to have more gay friends.  Their research suggests that they can accurately predict whether someone who doesn’t publish their sexual orientation on his or her profile is gay or straight.