Gay Banker's tips for successful online cruising

I’m sure that there are many people know more about this subject than me. But a comment left by Reluctant Nomad to my recent post A long-awaited and unusual liaison made me think that there are lots of things I haven’t said about this subject that are worth saying.

Earlier this year, in February and March, I divulged that I’ve been using the internet to meet guys for sex since 1995. The origin of my infidelity in my relationship with boyfriend number 1 had been the previous year. 1995 was definitely before gaydar had started, and I don’t think gay.com had started then either. My first internet service provider was CompuServe, and there was just one gay chat room for the whole world. None the less, quite a few guys in the chat room were based in London, and so my online cruising life started.

Some guys just use the internet cruising web sites just to chat to other gay guys, or to find guys for phone-sex or cyber-sex. For me though, the miracle of online cruising is that anywhere in the world, the internet makes face-to-face meetings between like-minded guys so easy. Previously one had to go to a gay bar, or find an outside cruising area which might be dangerous. But the internet makes it simple to find horny guys who are waiting just round the corner from you. This is especially useful when one is at a loose end in a strange foreign city :-)

But if you get chatting to a guy online, how can you tell if they’re genuine? If you arrange a meeting, how do you know they’ll be there? How can you avoid time-wasters? The answer’s simple really, for each guy you meet online just run down Gay Banker’s check-list for successful online cruising [patent pending] and everything will be all right:
(1) Early in the online conversation, get them to tell you their name
(2) Make sure you see a picture with their face in
(3) Get their phone number so you can contact them
(4) If you’re meeting at their place, get their post-code first, and their full address before you set off
(5) Before you meet up face-to-face, talk to them on the phone
(6) After talking on the phone but before the meeting, continue to build rapport e.g. by txt msg
(7) If it’s sex you’re after and you’ve met somewhere private, take off your shirt soon after you meet
(8) Don’t compromise on more than one of items (1)-(5)

Of course whatever they tell you online they could be lying, or showing you someone else’s picture. That’s why it’s important not to compromise too much, because it’s hard to make up everything convincingly.

Seeing a picture with the other guy’s face in is definitely an important step. If you’re going to meet up with a guy you’re going to end up seeing their face anyway, so it’s reasonable to ask to see what they look like in advance. A lot of guys use face pics to work out whether they’re attracted to someone, which is fair enough. Also if someone doesn’t ask to see your face pic, either they’re very new to online cruising, or they’ve got something to hide because they don’t want to show you a pic with their face in. So if they don’t ask, then you should!

It is understandable for guys who are new to online cruising to be reluctant to give out their phone numbers, because there’s a natural fear of strangers misusing this information somehow. But in the ten years I’ve been meeting guys from the internet, there was only one occasion when I got a slightly unwelcome call. Even that one unwelcome call wouldn’t have happened if I had just given the guy some rules about when he could phone me when I gave him the number. So I don’t think giving out your phone number is any risk at all as long as you specify what the rules are when you give out your number, for example "only for today", or "never phone in the evening". If you’re going to visit them their address might be hard to find, so without a phone number you’re sunk. Similarly if they’re visiting you and they’re taking longer than expected you’d want to be able to give them a call to work out how much longer they’re going to be. If a guy is reluctant to give out this information either they’re new or they’ve got something to hide.

Because I don’t entertain guys in the home I share with boyfriend number 1, I’m always meeting guys at their house, or sometimes at their office. Where a guy lives is even more personal than what his mobile phone number is, so it’s also understandable for guys to be reluctant to give out their address. If a guy seems a bit reluctant, ask for less specific information, for example the name of the road they live in, or their postcode. This helps you work out how easy it is to get to them. I’m a big fan of postcodes because it make it easy to look up where they are on www.multimap.com.

Even when you’ve spoken to them on the phone and everything is agreed, I still continue to try and establish rapport before we actually meet up. My favourite way of doing this is using txt msgs. I’m convinced this reduces the chance of a failed meeting, and helps avoid the wank-factor in situations where meetings occur quickly after the initial contact online.

Finally, when you chat to some guys online, all they’re interested in is how attractive you are to them, whether your sexual requirements are compatible, how big your cock is, and so on. For me, meeting this type of one-dimensional guy usually turns out to be much less rewarding than meeting guys with more to say for themselves. If the guy you’re talking to online is worth meeting they probably think the same way, so my advice would be to try and keep it chatty and witty, as you would in real life.

Are there any risks to meeting guys like this? No more so than picking up strangers for sex from bars, clubs, or cruising areas I reckon. Gaydar used to have a warning about the possible dangers of meeting guys through the internet, but when I went looking for this recently I couldn’t find it.

Of course, I’ve had two failed meetings this year, one in February and the other in May. Both occurred when the guy had neither a mobile phone nor a picture of himself showing his face. Now I’ve formulated these rules though, I for one am going to stick to them!