Sunday, February 20, 2005

Gay relationships between Asian and western guys

Just read an article on Fridae about relationships between Asian guys and western guys "in it for the long haul?". The article says that many western guys often mislead their Asian partners about how serious they are about their relationship. It made me think about my own experiences with Asian guys.

When I've been in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, I have been amazed by the demand there is from the locals for western guys like me. For example, on my last trip to Singapore I logged on to gay.com and with in 5 minutes there were over 10 guys wanting to talk to me (see my previous bloc entry Singapore trip Feb 2005. Saturday night in Singapore). But when I log on to gaydar in London and wait to see if anyone wants to contact me, sometimes I'll wait forever. I do not regard myself as a rice queen because I like all type of men (westerners, black guys, Asians, Latin, ...), but I think the local Asian guys I've met must have been searching for western boyfriends.

Indeed, in the tiny sample of Asian guys that I've got to know on my travels, they've all had or are having relationships with westerners. H moved in with a German boyfriend in Shanghai six months ago, L in Hong Kong has had a British boyfriend for around two years (I think they travel backwards and forwards between the UK and Hong Kong), and although P in Singapore is currently single he used to have a western boyfriend too.

In any market where there is more demand than supply there will be disappointed consumers, Asian gay guys in this case. But gay relationships are quite fickle anyway, is the situation really any worse for western-Asian relationships compared to western-western? Perhaps the problem is just that guys from the different cultures have different expectations. It could be that western guys dump Asian boyfriends at the same rate that western guys dump western boyfriends, but that the Asian guys dump each other less frequently so there's a mismatch in relationship expectations.

Wherever I go in the world, if I'm not traveling with boyfriend number 1 I do like to try and meet local gay guys if possible. I like the idea of having a few surrogate boyfriends around the world in the different cities I travel to, because its much more fulfilling to get to know a few people well rather than having lots of one night stands. Although I advertise myself as a single gay man in the chat rooms, if I start to get to know someone like P in Singapore I'm always honest with them, and I do encourage them to get a proper boyfriend. And in spite of what it says in the article about western guys, with me the more I get to know someone like P the more I care about them, whatever race they are.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

are you interested in Vietnamese guys:)) by the way, i'm T, nice to meet you!

GB said...

Sure, T, nothing wrong with Vietnamese guys! As far as I'm concerned, they're just as likely to be attractive to me as any other ethnic background :-).

GB xxx

gaywidower said...

As a "Rice Queen", or somebody who is attracted to Orientals, I suppose Chinese plus ASEAN types I find this interesting. My partner of 37 years recently died and he joked I would find myself a cute Oriental for my declining years. Since you wrote your article gay.com has become more or less defunct for Europeans and gaydar.co.uk has a Singapore room but precious little activity. So for internationalists, like myself, trying to get a toe hold without getting into "the scene" (URGH!) to meet gay guys, life is becoming more complicated.

Sorry to ramble.

GB said...

@gaywidower have you tried fridae?

GB xxx

Anonymous said...

Thank you. I had forgotten it existed.

Unknown said...

Hi! Nice text. I am from Brazil and i love asian men.