A bit for fun before work in late February

Gradually, I start to get a bad feeling about the situation. I'm in a taxi on my way to visit a guy before work in late February, but he hasn't answered any of my recent txt msgs or voice calls. I'm on the verge of telling the taxi driver to turn back. I decide to try and call him one last time. It rings for 15 seconds and then

"Errrr hi," says the voice at the other end of the phone.

"Hi mate," I reply relieved, "did you get my txt msgs? I'll be with you soon :-). Where exactly shall we meet?"

"Errrr, I'm not sure."

What does he mean 'not sure'?

"Well I'm in a cab, very close to you I think," I say slightly confused, "where exactly shall I tell the cabby to drop me?"

"Well ... can we do this another time?"

"Another time? WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU MEAN??" I say down the phone in an angry tone, "I told you to send me a txt msg if you changed your mind!"

"Errrr, yes, I know, I mean, well, the thing is ... I've already cum now. And I'm going to be late for work :-(."

What a tosser!

"Well are you going to pay my cab fare?" I say trying to make him feel guilty.

"Ummm, sorry. Well, how about we meet at the weekend. Perhaps I could give you your cab fare then? Most guys who say they'll visit never turn up, I really didn't expect you to either."

A very lame excuse. We exchange a few more sentences before I hang up and instruct the taxi driver to turn back.

A few minutes later, however, my phone rings unexpectedly.

"Errrr, hi, it's me again," he says, "and I've phoned my work and told them that I'm going to be late. So can we meet now? I'm feeling horny again!"

I'm astounded. And pleased because I HATE wasted journeys and no-show situations. After agreeing the meeting point, I hang up and instruct the taxi driver to turn around again.

"Sorry about this," I say, "I don't usually change my mind so much."

"I'll drive you round in circles all day as long as you pay the fare," says the cabbie with a dis-interested tone in his voice. I can't help wondering how much he heard of my phone conversations. No doubt he's seen it all before!

After I get dropped off, I speak to the guy who tells me to take a bus a few stops. How irritating, I thought he was meeting me at the drop off point! Why didn't he tell me get the cab to drop me where the bus is going to take me? Luckily an appropriate bus is just arriving so I hop on. After three stops I get off and he's there to meet me.

"Hi," I say smiling, trying to forget the earlier hiatus, "which way?"

He's got a friendly face, although he looks slightly nervous.

"Just follow me. Sorry about earlier, but I'm well up for it now :-)"

"That's OK," I say. He looks slightly more chubby than in the photos I saw online, but overall I think he looks great.

"Here we are," he says shortly, "I'm on the second floor."

We enter a grubby looking council block, and soon he's letting us both into the flat.

Once we're inside, I follow him into a comfy sitting room.

"We'll do it in here," he says smiling. "By the way, my landlady might be in, sleeping next door. I'm not sure! She's almost certainly out, but just in case she's in, we'd better try not to make too much noise."

"Errr all right," I say feeling a bit confused. I've certainly never been in this situation before!

"What happens if she walks in then?" I ask, "I mean, presumably this is her sitting room? I'd probably find it amusing actually," I giggle, "I'm not shy, but you have to live here!"

"Good point," he says, as though he hadn't considered the possibility. While he's unbuttoning his shirt, he walks over and moves a small table to bar the door. He then goes over and switches on the television.

"That should cover up any noise!" he says smiling.

By now I'm standing there in my undershorts, looking lustfully at his half naked body, while wondering whether he normally entertains other guys like this in his landlady's sitting room with the TV turned on when she might be in.

"... and over to Declan now for our business news," drones the TV.

The cushions on the sofa are wonderfully soft, and make a very comfortable bed for us to lie down on and get to know each other a bit better.

"... with rain moving into South Wales during the course of the afternoon ..."

In spite of all the distractions though, we have a lovely time together.

"So do you meet many guys," I ask him afterwards.

"Oh a few I guess, when my girlfriend's not around."

"I didn't realise you had a girlfriend," I say. "Actually I met a guy for fun last month who had a girlfriend."

"I think a lot of the guys I get chatting to on gaydar also have girlfriends", he replies, "and I reckon there's more and more of them coming online these days".

"Uh huh, how come?"

"Well, there didn't used to be the opportunity. The online cruising web sites make it so easy to find a bit of fun :-)!"

Perhaps he's right, which is good news. The more hot guys online there are the better, I really don't care whether they're gay or 'straight'!

Milano

After our long weekend in the alps, myself and boyfriend number 1 headed down to Milan. Although we've been all over Italy together, we'd never been to Milan, so we spent several happy days there.

For a comprehensive list of gay venues in Milan, including those venues where one can find activities, visit the Arcigay di Milano website. On this trip however, I didn't visit any such venues. So for readers wanting a few random ideas for other things to do, here are GB's Three Top Tourism Tips for Milano:

• Walk all over the roof of the famous Duomo. Only 6 euros, and magnificent views of the surrounding area and of course the Duomo itself.



• Visit the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum for Science and Technology, another win for only 6 euros. There's lots of impressive stuff, including a huge old sailing ship which was dismantled and reassembled inside the museum, and a big shed of old steam trains. There's also a gallery dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci's weird and wonderful inventions. And in the basement, I found the following information about manual nail manufacture:

  An average blacksmith who's never made nails before, if he had to try for some reason, could make around 200-300 nails a day. But they wouldn't be particularly good quality nails. A blacksmith with some experience, but whose main job wasn't making nails, could make maybe 800-1000 nails a day. And even an expert blacksmith, who had spent his entire life dedicated to making nails, could only make 2300 nails a day.

  Well I thought it was fascinating anyway!



• Visit Peck, perhaps the best delicatessen in Milan. In the basement, they've got what is without doubt the best wine selection that I've ever seen for sale off the shelf. There's Chateau Petrus 1979, lots of first growth clarets including 2000's and other great vintages, magnums of 1st and 2nd growth clarets, 5 litre and 6 litre bottles of first growths from 1990 and other good years, bottles of de Vogue Musigny vieille vignes 2000 and other top Burgundy grand crus, Montrachet (if you like white burgundy), lots of Sassaicaia of course in bottles and up to 5 litre and 6 litre format, the only thing missing was DRC (maybe I just missed it)! It's interesting to see such an impressive selection, however I wouldn't advise buying the expensive stuff. Wine of this quality should be stored in in the dark, lying on its side in carefully controlled conditions, so I'd worry about what the effect of shop storage would be!

And yes, of course we went shopping too. All the designer brands have stores there, often big stores, so make sure you've got your credit cards with you!

Abolition

At the moment, the BBC are running a series of programmes about the abolition of the slave trade 200 years ago. It poses some interesting questions and as a result, there's a discussion in the UK media at the moment about whether the UK should should formally apologise for its part in the slave trade. Some people are even saying that reparations are somehow appropriate.

From a gay point of view, reparations would set a nice precedent wouldn't they? Gay people suffered enormous persecution in the UK until 1967 when homosexuality was decriminalised. If reparations are payable for the slave trade, reparations should also be payable to all gay people to compensate us for the errors of history too. But who pays for all the reparations? Most of us do, because most of us are taxpayers.

I've got a better idea. How about we all accept that history can't be altered, that everyone's ancestors will be guilty of something if you go far enough back, and instead spend time worrying about how to address today's important issues!

An email from a young gay reader in a relationship

About a week ago, I received an e-mail from a young gay reader in a relationship:

Dear GB,

Well im 19 goin on 20 and me and my bf have been together for a long time. And we're pretty serious. Well only problem is i love him tons but hes not everything i want. Hes so stuck on me he will do whatever i say slash want. which sounds good on paper, but sometimes i want a mans man. Sometimes i wanna be held and i want to follow someone around let them make the decsions sometimes. I dont really know what i should do. Sometimes i catch my self thinkin of cheatin on him. i think thats bad but i read ur blog and sometimes i think it be ok. not that i have options on that anyway. Only problem is that wouldnt fix the relationship. So do you have any advice.

Since I got this e-mail I've been thinking about the situation, and it's not an easy one. Definitely a situation where readers comments will be important.

For what it's worth, I reckon that good relationships are balanced between the two people involved, and it sounds to me as though this relationship isn't balanced. I've seen situations before where one guy will do anything to please the other guy because the first guy is scared that the relationship might end. But if it gets to that point, the relationship is in serious trouble. The first guy becomes really clingy, and the other guy feels trapped, and it sounds like this is what the reader is describing.

This situation can arise when the first guy develops low self-confidence for whatever reason. They end up thinking "I can't let this relationship end because I'll never find another boyfriend", and then do anything they can to try and please their boyfriend. In this situation, one solution is to try and help the guy rebuild his self-confidence. But it's not an easy thing to do, and sometimes in this situation, the guy who has developed low self-confidence might refuse to be helped. A good boyfriend should stick by his guy for a while, but eventually there comes a point when the best way to help the guy is to end the relationship so as to force the guy to help himself.

Perhaps the situation that this reader faces isn't as serious as that. He says that he's been in the relationship a long time, but he's only 19 so the two of them have probably spent all their early adult life together. It still sounds as though the boyfriend has become clingy though, perhaps because he can't imagine adult life without the guy he's known for so long. It also sounds as though the relationship is monogamous, but there's no reason why it has to be. The easiest step away from monogamy would be for the reader to suggest to his boyfriend that they start having threesomes. A more open arrangement could be a subsequent step. I would suggest that the reader should discuss these ideas with his boyfriend, so as to avoid cheating on him. If they have indeed been with each other for most of their adult lives this would have advantages to both of them, because it would broaden both of their horizons. If the boyfriend resists this idea, then perhaps he does have self-confidence problems.

At the relatively young age of 19, the reader hopefully has a very long life ahead of him. It may well be that the guy that he's been with so far isn't the best guy for him to spend the rest of his life with. It would be convenient if he has found his soul-mate for life, but just because it's convenient doesn't make it true. Above all, he needs to be able to discuss important issues like monogamy with his boyfriend, and if such discussions are difficult it's a bad sign for the long term prospects of the relationship.

As I said above, I reckon this is quite a difficult situation. So do any other readers have any other advice to offer?

A short trip to the alps

"What do you think the situation is on that table over there?" I say to my friends over dinner, "eight people, all guys, they're probably all raving homosexuals eh!"

Myself and boyfriend number 1, together with a couple of friends, have come away to a smart hotel in the alps for a long weekend. Although they're not married, our two friends have been a heterosexual 'item' for many years. And sitting in a 2-star Michelin restaurant on the first evening, I spot what may be a table full of gay guys.

"We never think to assess the sexuality of the other diners," says M, who's the female half of the couple. "We've led a sheltered life GB," she jokes, "although we do sometimes try to spot blokes with their mistresses, or straight couples who really shouldn't be together!"

"Well myself and boyfriend number 1 enjoy looking for other gay guys in restaurants, especially top restaurants like this," I reply. "It's a great sport, and that table is a perfect example. About three of those guys DEFINITELY look gay, but the others are a little harder to read."

"It'd be interesting if you saw Amanda in a restaurant with her partner," pipes up M's boyfriend, "I wonder what you'd make of her!"

"Who's Amanda then?" I ask, "and what's unusual about her?"

Our friends grin knowingly at each other. "Oh, she's just a colleague from work," continues M's boyfriend.

"I guess you could say she's got an interesting background!" adds M.

"Well if she was here I could try and guess her interesting background, but it's a bit hard to work anything out without seeing her!" I protest.

"Yes I suppose so. One thing about Amanda is that she's a lesbian."

"OK, well that's not that unusual. What does she look like then?"

"About 6 foot 3 inches tall, deep voice, and built like a big American football player," laughs M's boyfriend, "she used to be a man!"

For a few seconds I don't know what to say, I've never heard of a lesbian who used to be a man!

"It almost seems like a contradiction in terms," I say eventually, still confused. "I mean, if a guy likes women that's quite standard, but how on earth does a guy decide that he likes women from a lesbian point of view? I've never heard of that before!"

"Well, we were all quite surprised in the office too!" M's boyfriend replies. "But she's definitely much happier now. She's got a girlfriend, so everything has worked out for her. She'd wanted to have the operation ever since she was a teenage boy, but she only managed to get it done a few years ago."

I can't imagine what it must have been like, being a teenage boy, and genuinely realising that I want to become a lesbian. I've said before on this blog that I didn't find it easy coming out as a gay guy, but I must have had it so much easier than Amanda did.

Adverts and sponsorship

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I've been getting a few e-mails from guys interested in meeting me. On a similar note, I've also received a couple of e-mails asking me whether I'd be interested in carrying any adverts, or being sponsored by anyone. For the moment at least, I don't need the income, so I've declined the invitations.

I use www.statcounter.com to monitor visitors to this blog and where they come from. Given the adult nature of some of my postings, it's not surprising that many of the searches that find their way to this blog are indeed the result of adult-oriented searches. Which would pose an interesting dilemma should I ever decide to start carrying adverts.

When I interviewed GBD, I suggested that blogs which carry adverts look a bit cheap. In general I still think that's true, and I reckon that adverts of a more adult nature make a blog look even cheaper. The dilemma is that those would be exactly the adverts that would probably do very well on this blog!

In fact my number of daily visitors seems to be going up at the moment. January saw an average of 520 page loads a day from a daily average of 350 unique visitors, February was an average of 630 page loads daily from 450 unique visitors, but since the start of March there's been an average of 810 daily page loads from 580 unique visitors. I know that these figures are small in the big scheme of things, although one good thing is that there's reasonable consistency from one day to the next.

Since I don't intend to carry adverts, this whole subject is really of academic interest only, but I'd still quite like to know what this blog's revenue generation potential is for different types of adverts or sponsorship. Even though I don't need the income at the moment, if it is possible to generate any meaningful amount of money perhaps I should take adverts and donate the money to charity somehow? Anyway, if anyone out there can give me any insight into this subject I'd be very interested to hear what they have to say.

An email from a young reader who's not sure if he's gay

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from a young reader asking for some advice. Underneath my e-mail address in the right hand column here, it says "Requests for advice welcome, but please be prepared for anonymous publication in the Dear GB category", but none the less I still usually check with the sender to make sure they're happy for me to publish their e-mail. However when I replied to this reader's e-mail it came back "mailbox unavailable", so I unfortunately I haven't been able to check in this case. Furthermore, without any other means of communication with this guy, the only way to respond to him is to do a 'Dear GB' posting so that is what I've decided to do. The e-mail was as follows:

Dear GB,

hullo. im expecting you get a lot of emails from people so i dont have high expectations of a reply :). hmm this is kinda weird me writing to you but i like to think im a good judge of character and from what ive read on your blog you are a really awesome person.

i have a problem and im just going to write simply: im not sure if im gay.

im 18 (and your probably going to think im some immature idiot), but already working (i dont really enjoy studying!!) and im pretty good at what i do :D.

for about 2-3 years at high school (i went to a boys only school) i was sorta completely obsessed with a guy there (was one of my best friends). like, very strong feelings about what id like to do (i never said anything) and im sure you can imagine hehe.

i actually have a psychiatrist but since i dont even know if im gay i dont really want to talk to him about it because i dont even see him as my psychiatrist anymore but just as an adult who always makes me feel better (i dont see him very often only when im feeling a bit sad, maybe like once every few months).

so i was hoping you would be able to let me know like how you knew you were gay or something along those lines, any advice would be fine.

im quite attracted to girls, im a bit uncomfortable around them sometimes, but with guys i dont know why i liked that one guy so much but (sorry i cant even express what im trying to say here). im not sure if i like guys or liked him cause he was a substitute for a girl

anyway i really like gay people. i can see myself being really happy being gay. i kinda wish i knew girls who were as nice and friendly as gay people.

im very confused (and yeah probably an idiot)

btw great blog and i wish you lived here so i could meet you

ciao

So how DID I know I was gay? It's a good question. I've often heard gay guys say that they 'always knew deep down', but couldn't admit it to themselves. That was certainly true in my case.

Whenever I used to think about who I wanted to share my life with, and share intimate moments with, I always used to think about my close male friends. I never felt attracted to women in that way. Actually I've never really had any close female friends, like some gay guys have. I'm the sort of gay guy who feels most comfortable in the social company of other men, gay or straight, rather than women. I'll happily chat to women in the office, or at parties, but I never seem to make any close female friends.

In terms of the situation of this reader, if it was just the one guy that he was attracted to as a teenager, my guess is that he's not gay. He also says that he's quite attracted to girls, so perhaps he's metrosexual or something similar, but not gay. I never found find women sexually attractive. I've often heard people talk about teenagers of both genders 'going through a phase' where they find their friends of the same gender attractive. It wasn't a phase for me, but it could well have been a phase for this reader.

The one caveat is that sometimes, in these situations, it can be hard to be honest to oneself. I'm sure that I told myself when I was 18 that I was attracted to girls, because I didn't want to be be gay. Sometimes, honesty with yourself can be the hardest thing of all. So if his old school friend really is the only guy that he's found attractive, and if he really is attracted to girls, surely he's a straight guy who just went through a phase.

If you're reading this and you're the reader who sent me this e-mail, I hope you find these comments useful. Please let me know. It was strange that your web-based e-mail address didn't seem to be available when I tried to reply to you. And I hope you don't mind me posting your e-mail here.

Do any readers have any other thoughts on this subject?

Lesbians and the London gay interbank drinks event

I've mentioned the monthly gay interbank drinks evening on this blog a few times. The original posting I did on this subject last June describes the event quite well. I myself sometimes go along when I have the time, most recently last month. But it is quite a male dominated event.

In the original posting, I offered to try and put any gay bankers who read my blog in touch with the organisers if they're not already aware of this event. I've done that a few times now, however all the readers who've contacted me in this respect were gay guys. Not a single lesbian, even though there must be lesbians who work in the City who don't know about this drinks evening.

This month, the event organisers are trying to attract more lesbians. So if I have any lesbian readers who work for banks in London, and you don't know about this event, please get in touch.

Totally Gay?

I love South Park. Myself and boyfriend number 1 are huge fans, even though the characters on the program often say "totally gay" meaning "totally pathetic". For people who don't know the program, it's one of their catch-phrases, and perhaps it's becoming a bit of a problem. These days, if someone says something stupid at work, sometimes I actually find myself thinking "totally gay"! But there's no way that gay=pathetic when I think about it rationally.

The reason these thoughts are surfacing today is because of GIL's amusing post about his new cats. Two male cats who like each other's company, but because one is more dominant than the other, the dominant one who fights for his territory is labelled 'straight' whereas the timid one is labelled 'gay'. I definitely have the mentality of the cat who fights for his territory, and there aren't many people around who would call me straight!

Of course it's true that some gay guys do have a more timid nature. And some gay guys could be called pathetic, in exactly the same way that some straight guys could be called pathetic. But why does the pathetic label stick on gay guys in general and not on straight guys? I guess it's because that there's still, even these days, a general notion in our society that it's somehow pathetic to be the effeminate type of gay guy. The so called straight-acting gay guys blend in, and because they don't fit the traditional male stereotype, the effeminate gay guys get noticed and labelled "totally gay".

I guess if people were to try and label me, they would call me 'straight-acting'. I haven't worried about these kind of labels for many years, but with the word 'gay' attracting these negative associations, I've just about had enough. From now on, if anyone tries to call me straight-acting, they're going to have a fight on their hands!

A couple of stories from boyfriend number 3

Back in January, I get talking to boyfriend number 3 about offline cruising.

"Do you ever pick up guys in the street GB, or on public transport?" asks boyfriend number 3.

"You know me," I reply, "how often do I take public transport!"

"Well you must SOMETIMES mix with The General Public?" laughs boyfriend number 3.

"True, but in fact I don't think I'm very good at offline cruising! What about you?"

"Haven't I ever told you any of my stories?"

"No I don't think so, what stories?"

"Well," starts boyfriend number 3 with a satisfied grin on his face, "in the past I definitely have picked up guys on public transport, or at least got a phone number off them!"

"Uh huh?"

"For example, when I was on a crowded bus a few years ago it was standing room only downstairs, so I went upstairs and the only seat was at the front next to quite a cute guy who looked as though he was asleep. So I sit down next to him and because he's kind of slouched across more than his fair share of the double seat I have to rest my leg against his. He stirs and starts waking up, and moves his leg away but only slightly so that our legs are still just about touching. And there's something about the way he glances at me! So I leave my leg there, and he leaves his leg there, and after a while I move myself around a bit so that my leg gets just that little bit closer to his. He stirs a bit more, but he doesn't move his leg away. I pretend to concentrate on playing chess on my mobile phone, but I rub my leg slightly against his and when I risk a sideways glance at him he seems quite awake. He looks over at me and I smile slightly at him, and then I know I've scored because he rubs his leg slightly against mine now! I actually start to get a bit of a stiffy of course, and as I rub my leg against his again I can tell that he's noticed my excitement and that he's getting a stiffy himself. We catch each other's eye, and we're both grinning mischievously, and we continue to rub each other's leg a bit until he gets up to get off the bus."

"You're dragging this out a bit mate," I say, interrupting, although of course I am enjoying the story.

"Well yeah sorry. Anyway he squeezes past me allowing me to get a good look at his groin, and when I look up to him he kind of indicates with his eyes to follow me. So I do! I actually get off the bus a few stops before the one I'm travelling to! It turns out that his house just over the road from the bus stop, but sorry to say when we got our kit off and finally got down to it, it was the worst sex ever!"

I burst out laughing. "That's a very long winded way of saying that bad sex can be found anywhere!" I say slightly disappointed. "But you told it well :-)."

"Yeah, and there was another time when I was on a train. It was a virtually empty carriage and this guy gets on, and although he could sit in almost any seat, he notices me and comes and sits right next to me, almost touching me in fact. Then looks over at me and grins. I take no notice, but then he opens up a broadsheet newspaper and tilts bottom of the paper away from him to give him a good view of his crotch, and deliberately looks down at himself. Then he's trying to look me in the eye, and looking down at his crotch. I don't know what made him thing I was gay!"

"Nothing to do with the '2 qt 2 be str8' t-shirt you were wearing then!" I say grinning.

"Right, get out!" jokes boyfriend number 3, "how could you POSSIBLY think that I'd have a t-shirt like that, let alone wear it! Anyway, he wanted me to get off at his station but I couldn't 'cos I'd waited ages for the train we were on, and I would have had to wait ages for the next one too. But I got his phone number though :-)."

"That kind of thing never happens to me :-(!" I say sounding mildly upset, "Perhaps you should give me some offline cruising lessons?"

"So you've never picked anyone up in a sauna?"

"Errr, well apart from that."

"Or the gym?"

"And apart from that too!"

"Hmmm, judging from what you have told me GB, I think I should be taking lessons from you!"

A bit of fun with a bi-sexual Aussie

When I was first chatting online with the wonderful guy that I met in mid January, at the same time I was chatting a bit to a bisexual guy from Adelaide who'd wanted me to visit him while his girlfriend was out. However, when it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to do that, we exchanged mobile phone numbers with the intention of getting together after work one day.

So late Monday morning I send him a txt msg, and within the space of about ten minutes we have a brief txt msg conversation:

GB: Hi mate, we chatted online at the weekend, I'd like 2 visit u 6pm ish one eve, if ur still up for it? Is Tuesday eve 2mrw any good?

guy: Sounds good

GB: Great, I'll send u a txt msg 2mrw to confirm and get ur exact address etc.

guy: OK whats your profile name on gaydar?

I can't help myself laughing. This guy has agreed to meet me tomorrow evening, but if he needs me to remind him of my profile name he can't have known who I was! I send him another txt msg with the answer, and I get a swift reply saying that he's looking forward to meeting me.

And indeed, he is keen. The next day, soon after 9am, he sends me a txt msg asking if I'm still going to visit him. So I confirm, and as the morning progresses we exchange a few more txt msgs to sort out all the details. For some reason, in one txt msg he reminds me that he's got a girlfriend, but that doesn't bother me at all of course. Late afternoon around 4:30pm he starts sending me horny txt msgs, which is amusing, albeit a bit distracting. At first it's just

guy: can you be hard in your pants when we meet turns me on

but a couple of txt msgs later and he's being a lot more explicit about what he likes, and what he wants me to do to him!

With the thought of a bit of fun at the front of my mind, I manage to leave work shortly after 5pm, and head for the tube. Although in general I prefer taxis, in rush hour traffic the tube is probably faster, and people-watching on public transport is always fascinating. Is that innocent looking middle-aged man off to meet his mistress? Did that smart chap standing a few feet away just try and cruise me, or is that just wishful thinking on my part? And in very crowded trains, there's always the mystery as to who it was who just gently caressed your left buttock!

It doesn't take long to walk from the tube station, and as I enter the road where the guy lives, I can see someone standing outside one of the houses about half way along. Looking at the house numbers, I realise that whoever it is is standing approximately outside the house where the guy I'm visiting lives. Could it be the guy himself? As I approach, I hope not because with the scruffy woolly hat that he's wearing and the cigarette in his mouth he doesn't look at all attractive to me.

"You found me then :-)," says the guy as I get to within talking distance.

Bugger! It is him. Should I stay or should I go? He smiles at me, and he looks slightly more appealing. So I smile back.

"Is this your place here then?" I say in a neutral kind of way.

"Yeah mate, well it's a shared house," he replies. "Cold out here though," he continues, stubbing his cigarette out on the wall that separates the house from the pavement, "shall we go inside?"

I nod, and it turns out to be the right decision. Once we're inside and we reach his room, he takes his scruffy hat off, and soon everything seems much better.

"Wanna drink mate?" he asks.

"Yeah, just water would be great."

"Hey bud," I hear him say as I'm taking my coat and scarf off. I look round and hear "Catch ..."

He lobs a small bottle of mineral water in my direction and I have to react quickly to catch it. I find myself lusting after him all the more now.This macho guy-with-guy environment is a huge turn on for me! For some reason, gay guys just don't behave like that.

Soon we've both stripped down to our undershorts, and are looking each other up and down. Both of us react in the same way, with a growing bulge downstairs. He walks over to where I'm standing and rubs my torso up and down with his right hand, slightly roughly, although not too roughly.

"Yeah mate," he says "I can tell you work out!"

In fact it feels really good to be felt and admired like that by another guy. The next downward movement he makes with his hand goes down further than before, and now he gently caresses me through my undershorts. It's wonderful and again feels great, because although he's slightly rough on my torso, a guy knows to treat another guy with a bit of care downstairs. Soon we're on the bed and we have a great time together.

And afterwards we have a great conversation too. In fact, this guy was the inspiration for me to write the post about the film "There's Something About Mary".

At one stage we start talking about globalisation. I'd only done my posting about capitalism a few days before, so a lot of the issues were still in my mind.

"Firms in the UK are doing well at the moment," he says, "but it won't last! Globalisation hasn't bitten them yet because they've not been forced to compete."

"I really don't believe that," I reply. "The UK government has been one of the champions of globalisation, and I reckon it's why we've been doing so well over here recently. Globalisation has caused the decline of our manufacturing industries, but that's ultimately been good because it's forced the economy into the more lucrative service sector, including finance where I work."

We chat a bit more, and he seems to have one or two counterexamples, but I'm not convinced.

"So I guess your girlfriend knows you sometimes get guys round for a bit of fun?" I say in a 'matter of fact' kind of voice as I'm getting ready to leave.

"Errr no mate," he replies, very surprised that I'd asked the question, "Are women usually OK with that over here??"

"No of course not, just kidding!" I laugh. "It's just that I was trying to work out why you reminded me by txt msg this morning that you've got a girlfriend. I was worried in case your girlfriend was going to be here and wanted to watch us! I guess I've been in this game too long," I admit, "nothing surprises me any more."

Having a bit of fun with another guy while a woman is watching would definitely first for me. But I don't think I could go through with it. I'm pretty relaxed about most things, but even I'd get embarrassed in that situation!

Hot guys

Since he started blogging last year, Close encounters has done a couple of posts about 'afterwards'. Back in December, he wondered whether its possible to tell if a guy has just ejaculated, and more recently he wondered why he still seems to be horny after a good session.

Reading these postings recently reminded me about one thing that I've noticed over the years. Immediately after orgasm, in terms of temperature, some guys are really HOT. And I mean really boiling to touch, for example I'll swear that you could almost fry an egg on the stomach of my gorgeous Japanese masseur immediately after his climax. I reckon most guys get slightly warmer, after all, a bit of fun can be quite energetic, but some guys get much hotter than I'd expect from the pure exercise element of their activities.

Has anyone else noticed this, or can anyone explain it?

Offline meetings with people who know about this blog

When Reluctant Nomad interviewed me last May, his question 2 asked me whether I ever meet up with guys as a result of this blog. My answer back then was "No, Never, Absolutely Not"! After I'd answered that interview question I received much fewer e-mails from guys wanting to meet me, but now I seem to be getting quite a few e-mail propositions again. So I want to be clear about why I almost never meet guys who know that I'm the blogger Gay Banker.

One reason why I don't meet guys who contact me at my Gay Banker e-mail address is that there's such a huge mismatch in what we know about each other. Guys who've read my blog know a huge amount about me, because everything on my blog is basically true. Anyone who thinks that I've spent the last 25 months and 360 posts constructing some consistent elaborate lie is very much mistaken! How ever many private e-mails I exchange with someone, it's not the same as having access to their secret private diary, which is effectively what this blog is for me.

I'm sure that a lot of the e-mails I get are genuine, but then, how can I be sure? How can I be sure that the sweet e-mail isn't from some professional hustler? How can I be sure that there isn't a hidden motive? Of course, I'm used to meeting guys after chatting online on gaydar or gay.com, but whenever I do that the situation is balanced because we both start from the same point when a conversation begins.

Another vital issue is trust. I'm used to building trust when chatting to guys online. When engaged in a private online chat, one can tell by how quickly they respond how interested they really are. And then, will they tell me where they live, what their name is, what their mobile phone number is? When cruising online, one gradually goes through an exchange of information, and gradually one builds trust along the way. Unfortunately there is no reason to trust anything that I get told by e-mail.

And does anyone who sends me an e-mail think that all my friends, boyfriends, family and colleagues know that I write this blog? The fact is that almost no one knows. So why would I risk compromising my identity with a complete stranger? Unless trust has been established somehow, it would be an absurd risk for me to take.

In fact though, my attitude to meeting people who know that I'm the blogger Gay Banker has changed slightly since the Reluctant Nomad interview , but not much. I guess the change occurred when I broadened the scope of this blog last November. The logical consequence to everything I've said above is that if trust can be established somehow, and if I can plausibly learn enough about the other guy in advance, then I should be prepared to meet up. And that is indeed my current view on this subject. I still don't think that activities with people who know that I'm Gay Banker is a good idea, but in principle I am prepared to have purely social meetings if there's sufficient trust, and if and there's some sort of equality in terms of what we know about each other before the first meeting.

At the moment, the only way that I think it's possible to reach that point is if the other person is an established blogger, and if we've managed to build trust on top of that somehow. Given that I want to keep my offline identity separate from my Gay Banker identity, the ideal situation is if the other person is in the same situation. Another thing I like about bloggers is that to become an established blogger one needs a certain amount of discipline and intelligence, because I reckon those attributes can be well correlated with trustworthiness.

I am always flattered when I get e-mails from guys wanting to meet me, because it's nice to be wanted. It's nice to know that there's someone out there who thinks that I'm worth getting to know. But please think about my situation here. Unless we know a similar amount about each other, and unless we've built mutual trust, it really doesn't make sense from my point of view!

An amusing and surprising day

I hadn't been to the gay interbank drinks since last November when I went with my friend P. In December I was away on holiday with boyfriend number 2, and then I had other commitments which prevented me from attending in January, so I was looking forward to going along in February :-). But in early February, a colleague asks me to go an a business trip with him.

"GB, I need to visit a client in Geneva, and it would be good if you could join me because I know they'd like to hear your views on their situation :-)."

As soon as he tells me the date I know that it's the interbank drinks in the evening, so I make an alternative suggestion.

"OK, perhaps we should have a conference call with them then, wouldn't it be better to discuss this now rather than later in the month?"

"But they're a very important client, and meetings always go better face to face. And you'll get a good lunch out of it!"

Ahhh well, business has to come first of course. Anyway, since it's just going to be a day trip, I may get back in time to go to the interbank drinks after all.

The day itself turns out to be quite amusing, beginning as soon as I leave my house. A Swedish woman is trying to persuade my pre-booked taxi to take her to Heathrow.

"Sorry, I thought you were MY taxi," I hear her saying as I'm walking up to the cab, "I don't know where my taxi is. If I wait any longer I'll miss my plane."

Since my Geneva flight is flying from Heathrow anyway, I agree to let her share my cab. But as we're approaching Heathrow, I use my PDA's Internet connection to check which terminal her flight is leaving from.

"Err, I think you've got a problem," I tell her, "According to this your flight leaves from London City Airport, not Heathrow!"

London City Airport is East London, Heathrow is West London, so she's stuffed! And she's not able to share the cab fare with me either, because she's got no cash, only a credit card, and this particular cab only takes cash. I've got my own flight to catch of course, so I give the cabbie a bit extra to take her to the Heathrow terminal that's most likely to help her, and say goodbye. What a disaster area she was, no taxi, no cash, and wrong airport anyway!

Once in Switzerland, I need to take a short train journey and a short cab ride to reach the client. But on the train, an old woman starts asking my advice about how to get to the place where she's agreed to meet her son.

"Should I take a taxi, or walk?" she asks. "I'm worried about the one-way roads you see. It might be quicker to walk if the taxi is going to have to go a long way round to get there."

I offer her the map that I'd printed out from multimap.com the previous day, but she declines and continues chatting. She seems mostly harmless, but then I had to get a cab.

The cabbie turns out to be a North African guy who speaks perfect English. He's quite chatty, but as he talks to me, I can't help thinking that he may be a bit unbalanced.

"I like to joke with people," he tells me as we're driving along, "but some people have a bad attitude!"

"For example," he continues, "yesterday there was this fat guy, very fat in fact, so I told him that he looked like a woman who still hadn't had her baby seven weeks after the usual 9 months. I was just joking with him of course, but he wanted to hit me!"

Fancy that mate, I can't imagine why! I decide to give the cabbie a big tip, 'keep him happy' I think to myself, I don't want any trouble.

The lunch and meeting go well, and on my return journey no other members of The General Public come forward to amuse me. The flight lands on time, my pre-booked taxi shows up on time as well, and with no bizarre Swedish women to divert me I decide that there's time to pop in to the interbank drinks after all.

But at the interbank drinks, there's one more surprise in store for me. I'm chatting to cuteCTguy when I spot someone I know on the other side of the room.

"Hey, do you know that guy over there?" I ask him.

"Errr, yes a bit, not very well though, why?"

"Just tell me this, is he gay or straight?"

"I always assumed he was gay," says cuteCTguy, "and this is the gay interbank drinks you know GB!"

Indeed it is. So I guess that clinches it. Even long time readers of this blog will probably have forgotten the mystery of the sexuality of a guy in the gym called S, but as soon as I saw him there at the interbank drinks that was all I could think of. It's nice to tie up loose ends :-)!

Me love you long time!

I may as well share with everyone the Russian e-mail that was sent round on fridae recently:

Hello friend!!!!!!!!

I saw your structure and have decided to write to you. My name is Igor. I write to you from Russia. I hope that I have made a correct choice and have written to you. We can find much in common. We can create friendship. To me 31 year. You can look my photo on a site. I dream of good relations. I hope that my dreams will be a success. If I have a little interested you write to me on mine Email. When you write to me, I shall send you a photo. I shall look forward to hearing from you with impatience.

Igor.

I got this e-mail sent to my GB fridae account, as well as another fridae account that I have. But when I looked at the account that sent the above e-mail, the fridae administrators had suspended it. No doubt everyone on fridae got the same e-mail somehow!

In fact, I feel a bit second rate. The Russian e-mail that GBD received was MUCH better, so I nicked the title of his post on this subject out of jealousy. Unless he's a Russian guy who's promising "large and strong love" and that "our dreams will come true also we probably we shall embody them in the validity", he's just not going to float my boat!