Gay Banker interviewed by Reluctant Nomad

Back in January, Reluctant Nomad was the third person that I interviewed. When I interview someone, if I’ve got time I’ll try to find out a bit about them by reading their blogs. So as a result of the research I did back in January, I feel I know him to some extent. And although we’ve never actually met, we did have have an online chat on gaydar once.

The rules of The Official Interview Game, posted at the bottom of my answers to PJ’s interview questions, don’t force the interviewee to interview the interviewer in return. The interviewer has to request it. So on a visit to Reluctant Nomad’s blog last month, I thought that it would be fun to get him to interview me.

It was interesting to read Reluctant Nomad’s introduction to my interview questions. He did a good job clinically dissecting my blog and Gay Banker identity! But he’s not quite right on one point. He is right that for years when I started meeting other guys for casual sex I would indeed only see them once so as to keep an emotional detachment. However it was in 2002, not 2005, that I “let my guard down" and met a guy who I had first met in 2001. As my first ever posting reveals, that guy was P, and I now refer to P as boyfriend number 2!

Anyway, thanks for a great set of questions Reluctant Nomad, here are my answers:

Question 1: Do you post about all your sexual encounters? If not, what makes you leave some of them out?

The simple answer is Yes, I do post all my sexual encounters. But in fact there are a few exceptions, solo wanks for example! I’ve also never written about sex with boyfriend number 1, and similarly when I went on holiday with boyfriend number 2 last summer I didn’t write about the sex with him either. Recently I’ve been wondering if it’s time to stop writing about my encounters with boyfriend number 3 too.

The reason for posting all encounters was originally because this blog was just for me, so that when I’m old and grey and the Alzheimer’s has kicked in I’ll be able to remember everything that I got up to. Indeed, after the first three months of blogging I only had about two visitors a day. As I’ve acquired a readership though this blog has taken on a life of its own to some extent, but even so I’m still following the posting guidelines that I originally set myself.

Question 2: Most (all?) of your sexual encounters are arranged through gaydar (mainly) and gay.com. I’d have thought that your blog could be another source now that you have an established readership. Have any sexual encounters resulted from your blog?

This is a very interesting question. Of course, for the first six month or so when I started blogging there were also opportunities in the gym sauna, but last summer the sauna at the gym I go to was closed :-(. More and more though, I do in fact get propositions as a result of this blog, currently at a rate of about one a week. The light hearted propositions that appear in comments to my postings are typical (thanks sunshine wallflower, thanks closetalk), a kind of throw away remark which, in some circumstances, could just possibly lead to a bit of fun. But I also get propositions in my e-mail inbox, or sometimes when I’m chatting to a reader via gaydar or MSN. (NB: although I’ve got a Yahoo e-mail address, in fact I use it in conjunction with MSN instead of Yahoo Messenger!)

I’m always flattered when any guy thinks, purely from reading my blog, that I’m worth jumping in the sack with. But, so far at least, I’ve refused all offers. For my own peace of mine, I want my identity to remain completely confidential, and meeting anyone as Gay Banker would compromise that. I don’t feel that I could write about my sex life if anyone knew who I really was. On top of that if I ever did meet anyone they’d have such an advantage over me, because if they’d read my blog they would know a lot about me, so I would probably feel quite uncomfortable. Beyond even that, any guys I met through this blog would know that I’d probably end up writing about them too, so that could make the whole situation very artificial.

I don’t want guys to stop asking of course, because it’s always an ego boost. But just don’t expect me to accept!

Question 3: You obviously have a good body and have no difficulty in attracting many varied sexual partners based on your gaydar profile. Without giving us your gaydar profile (you can, if you want!), what do you think it is about you that makes you attractive to all these men?

This is a hard question, because I’m not sure. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, so how can I know what other guys think? As you suggest, I am reasonably fit because I do go to the gym regularly. One thing that hopefully comes across when I’m chatting to guys online is my optimism and sense of humour, I think that probably helps.

I’m also convinced that online cruising is a skill, just like cruising in a bar or club is a skill too. So just sometimes, I’m probably successful in meeting a guy that I fancy when a guy who's less experienced at online cruising would fail. Legal-ize-IT alludes to this skill in a comment to one of my recent postings.

Beyond those thoughts I’m not sure. My cruising profile on gaydar doesn’t advertise me as the hung top sent from heaven or the perfect compliant bottom. I'm fact I'm often open to the different suggestions that guys online come up with, which keeps things interesting, as well as making it easier to find guys to meet.

As I’ve got older, I find I enjoy the body contact, kissing, and cuddle aspect of my encounters as much as the orgasmic aspect. So whatever people think about the hard core nature of gaydar and gay.com, my experiences prove that there are definitely guys like me around who enjoy the softer side of gay sex too.

Question 4: In discussing how some Asian men seem very keen on Western men, you make this statement: ‘With me the more I get to know someone like P, the more I care about them, whatever race they are.’ However, on a purely physical level, your experiences may have led you to conclude that some men are more sexually interesting to you than others. So, by race/nationality/age/etc, do you have a preference? Incidentally, have you ever thought of creating a map of the different countries from which the men you’ve had sex with come from (like the map you did of countries visited)?

I know it’s a bit of a cliché but for me, it’s the personality that counts most. However, this does have implications in terms of race/nationality/age. In particular, I find that Asian guys tend to have less attitude than Western guys. So if I’m online and I spot two guys that I fancy, one Asian and one Western, it’ll be the Asian guy that I’ll start chatting to first. But I can (and do) find guys of all races, nationalities and ages to play with. In terms of physical attributes though, for sex I guess I’m less attracted to stocky guys, although I do have many friends who fall into that category.

Even before the implied invitation in your question, I had thought of creating a map showing the country of origin of the guys that I’ve met for fun. But then I’m not always sure where the guys I meet come from, and I also wonder whether I should focus on ethnic origin or country of birth. Furthermore, even if I did know how to categorise a guy when I met him, the further back in time the meeting was, the less sure I am today because I know my memory isn’t perfect (and country of origin is one of the details which I sometimes change in blog postings to protect people’s identities). So for now I’ll pass on that one.

Question 5: In one of the answers to PJ’s questions you say that you have two completely separate identities, a cruising one and a home/work one, that you don’t mix up. Are they radically different from each other? If they were two different people, would they get on with each other?

Haha, very clever, but I was talking about identities, not personalities. Think about the film The Bourne Identity where hunk Matt Damon has several passports with different names. So it’s the same personality, but when I’m Gay Banker I talk about boyfriend number 1 and sign my e-mails GB, and when I’m using my home/work identity I talk about my partner X and sign myself Y. I do sometimes wonder though how easy it would be for someone who knows one identity and accidentally comes across the other identity to make the connection between the two. If I keep the GB identity ‘alive’ for long enough it’s bound to happen eventually!