Singapore trip Feb 2005. Saturday night in Singapore

I get back to the hotel in Singapore around 8pm. I send P a txt msg to tell him my room number and for now, I decide to try and forget him. The ball’s now in his court. Some local colleagues from the bank had offered to take me out on Saturday night but I declined, preferring to find my own entertainment as usual. Their favourite venue is called Top Ten and is some kind of club with loose girls so definitely not my cup of tea.

Why can’t I be happy with boyfriend number 1, whom I love dearly, and whom I’m sure loves me dearly too? Why am I so weak-willed when it comes to monogamy? I give in as usual, set up my laptop, and go into the gay.com chat rooms.

Just like Wednesday night, I get a lot of Asian guys wanting to talk to me. I feel I should point out that this level of attention is unusual. For some reason Singapore just seems to be full of potato queens. I start chatting to a few of them. One guy wants to come round to my hotel room and give me a blow job. Well I’d enjoy that but he doesn’t sound like surrogate boyfriend material. I eventually decide to try and arrange for a 23 year old Asian guy to visit me, who sounds lovely. He tells me he’s very shy, and we’ll have to have all the lights out otherwise he won’t be able to "get started". I always think it’s important to talk to a guy over the phone before meeting him so I persuade him to phone me. He phones, and tells me that he’ll have to drive in, and it will take 15-20 minutes.

Content, I disconnect and look forward to the rest of the evening. To pass the time I log on to work and focus on finishing up some reports for senior management. But an hour passes and I’m still alone. I quietly kick myself. I told the guy how to contact me, but have no way of contacting him. So if anything more promising presents itself to him he can easily change his mind knowing there’ll be no difficult calls to take from me.

Reluctantly I log back on to gay.com, but the night is still young. Back in the chat rooms there’s one Asian guy who looks gorgeous in his photos. He’s been studying in the UK, and he says he very tempted to come and visit me. But he says he "feels like shite after working an 18 hour shift", so he’ll have a shower and see how he feels after that. Poor guy, what kind of boss makes him work for 18 hours?

Meanwhile there’s a 25 year old guy who’s occasionally chatting to me. I can tell he’s also chatting to a lot of other guys; otherwise his responses would be faster. Slowly he starts to talk to me a bit quicker so maybe I’m moving to the top of his list. Yes, he says he can be here in 15 minutes. This time I want his phone number, which he eventually gives me. He tells me his name and I give him a call. It sounds like he’s in a busy place. "When I arrive, can I come straight up to the hotel room, or do I need a key-card to make the lifts work", he asks. I tell him he can come straight up to the room.

Interestingly, the last time I stayed in this hotel it was necessary to have a key-card to operate the lifts. I ponder that key-card operated lifts are unpopular with some of their guests, the kind of guests like me perhaps, who like to be visited quietly in their rooms. Had commercial pressure forced them into allowing easier access to the rooms? Maybe there are some things which gays and heteros have in common.

But he doesn’t show any interest in logging off. So I carry on chatting to him through gay.com. Eventually I found out why .... "fancy a 3sme?". "Sure, but who’s the other guy?" I reply, "does this other guy have a gay.com profile?". To my surprise, the other guy doesn’t seem to. I would have expected the offer of a threesome to be the result of one of the other conversations he was obviously having on gay.com. Apparently there are photos of the other guy on msn, but I don’t know how to access them, as I’ve never used msn for online cruising. I tell him I’m happy with him alone or a threesome if I can find out something about the other guy. So he relays some details, "he’s really lean tone" he starts. "Sounds great", I say. "He’s quite hairy too". "But I don’t really like hairy guys" I lie, trying to force a conclusion at last. "OK then", he says, "don’t worry, I’m coming over. I’ll be 15 minutes".

And around 15 minutes later there’s a knock at my door. He comes in confidently and looks me up and down, slightly unsure. "Can I use the bathroom?" he asks, avoiding eye contact. "Sure". He speaks English with a very strong Chinese accent which I find slightly hard to understand. But when he comes out of the bathroom he seems to have made up his mind. He comes up to me very close, and starts rubbing his whole body against mine. We lift each others loose shirts off, and I notice he’s extremely slim and muscley. "Are you Chinese?" I ask, and he nods. Soon we're lying with each other on the bed. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be a cuddler. Within 15 minutes we're mopping up and putting some clothes back on.

I offer him a drink. He takes a fruit juice from the mini-bar and we start chatting. He seems more interested in me that I had expected. He is sitting in one of the chairs, and I’m on the bed. He lives such a different life to me, and I get the impression that his family has a business that's stereotypically Chinese such as a Chinese restaurant or jade antiques or something. He's got family in Sydney that he'll be visiting soon for 3 months. He tells me about a website called fridae.com, "it’s where the Asian guys are", he says. Then he comes and lies on the bed, burying himself in the pillows next to me. I try cuddling him, which he now seems to enjoy. "Stay the night here with me", I say. "But I’ve got to be up really early at 8am" he says. He seems tempted but not tempted enough. He surprises me again by leaving me his e-mail address, so I give him mine. We kiss at the door and he’s gone.

Now, after three bad, jet-lagged nights sleep, surely I’ll get a decent bit of kip tonight.