Email from a guy who wants a boyfriend

A few weeks ago, I received the following email from a guy that seems to be a relatively new reader:

Dear GB,

Let me begin with how I found your blog in the first place: by searching under "monogamous gay relationships" on google in hopes of finding a dating site where gay men are not just looking for sex! Your blog came up. I loved the posting on the Paris trip!

Now, some background: I am a 29-year old guy living in Geneva, Switzerland. I 'm Canadian and moved here for my current job, which has me in a banking environment – all be it in a very small office with little contact to the outside world. I've been out since my mid-twenties – to family, friends, and all who care to know.

I am desperately (big word) yearning to meet someone with whom I can share every day life. Sex too. But I find that lately, I am more and more turned off from the gay scene, from casual sex, and from gay dating sites which merely provide a home to those looking mostly for sex. I guess I'm just really low key, and I'd love to find someone similar. I want everything that the quiet good straight girl dreams about – including the guy ;)

Before I come off as a sob case, I should preface the preceding paragraph with a few facts: I am searching for a cute, handsome, intelligent, professional guy that can flirt with me mentally AND physically. I just can't seem to find one. And also – if he's Jewish and English speaking, that'd be even better! Finding one that I like, and that likes me – a needle in a haystack!

I don't have many gay friends, and my social circle in Geneva is quite small – like the city itself. I am open to meeting guys in other cities – Zurich, Paris, London – wherever – but they seem less open to meeting anyone outside their own. And why should they? There's plenty around them!

Tell me: where can this picky-come-desperate mama's boy find his man?

On the face of it, this email seems a lot like the email that I posted last week. However, the situations of the readers who sent the emails are completely different. Last week, the reader's problem was more that he wasn't yet comfortable being gay. However the reader here has a different problem.

Many years ago before I met ex-boyfriend S, I had a very fixed idea of the kind of guy that I wanted for a boyfriend, much like the reader here. However, when I fell in love with ex-boyfriend S he had few of the characteristics that I originally thought I wanted. Even though he was smart, he hadn't been to university, so he didn't have a profession like I did. Like the reader here, I'd been looking for someone with a similar background to me, but the guy I ended up with was completely different!

I'm not suggesting that the reader should lower his standards at all. But I am suggesting that he should be open to many more types of boyfriend that he's probably open to at the moment. No doubt this reader is Jewish, so as an example, a nice Muslim boyfriend would be a much better idea :-). I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but my ex-boyfriend P was raised as a Muslim, and although I'm not Jewish, I was raised as a Christian. Similarly, my ex-boyfriend R is Hindu.

I think there's often some truth in the idea that opposites attract. For gay relationships where the gender of the people involved is the same that means that it's good if the two guys come from different backgrounds, or grew up in different countries for example. Of course they need to have things in common too, but I don't think it's good to have too strong idea of what kind of boyfriend one wants, or to go looking for someone who's very too similar to oneself.

I'm a big fan of playing the numbers game, and meeting as many guys as possible in as many different ways as possible, and seeing what happens. I also think it's important to be relaxed and cool. Indeed, the last sentence of the reader's email summarises his problem. "Picky" and "Desperate" are both very unattractive in a potential boyfriend. On top of that, "Picky" narrows the field unnecessarily. So if he is desperate he needs to chill out.

Bigger cities like London, San Francisco and Sydney may have more gay guys living in them, but that doesn't necessarily help. Ex-boyfriend P used to think that in cities where there are lots of gay guys, the abundance of choice means that most guys can never commit to relationships, because however good a potential boyfriend is it's always possible that one might meet an even better candidate the following day! So as a capital city which isn't too big, I'd have thought that Geneva would be a great place to meet a boyfriend.

I guess I'm just saying relax, open up, and try and meet as many guys and types of guys as possible, especially guys from different cultures and backgrounds. But do any other readers have any thoughts on this subject?