Monday, May 05, 2008

Email from a guy who received a message on gaydar

Last Friday, I received the following email asking for my advice from a reader who I've corresponded with in the past. Perhaps the surprising thing is that I myself have never been in this situation:

Dear GB,

I received this message on Gaydar this morning:

Hi you!!! Well I take it you are XXX....?
Just wanted to inform you that I have been involved with YYY since August last year and I understand you 2 had something going?
Would like to know when this happened since me and him are working through our issues and trying to have a healthy relationship.
Came across your nr on his phone, confronted him and yes, it seems to me you 2 have regular contact and obviously I don't approve of it. no hard feelings and sure you would understand. Take care.......


Well I certainly "understand" ... but ... some months ago this guy's partner contacted me on Gaydar and we had an awesome one-night stand. It was one of those rare chances where everything just seemed to gel and we had a great time! For a few weeks we had contact via text messages, sort of "How are you buddy?" etc etc and that was it. Hadn't heard from him for two months and now this!

My question is: should and how do I react to this message? I obviously don't want to compromise my friend and cause problems in his relationship. Should his boyfriend be going through his phone records etc etc? I personally believe we are all entitled to our privacy even if we are in a relationship. I don't have to share everything with my partner and I accept the same from him. I don't believe that we were intended to be monogamous, but that's a long story.

You have often written about these problems (which seem to be the core problems of relationships) so what do you think my response should be? Or should I simply ignore the message?

Regards


What a fascinating situation. I must agree with the reader that the guy who sent him the gaydar message shouldn't be going through the phone records of his partner. If monogamy has been agreed in a relationship and one party to the relationship has concerns about cheating on the agreement, I think the best course of action is a direct discussion on the subject rather than underhand snooping into the other persons affairs. Then if the suspicious person doesn't believe the answers, that probably signals that the relationship is at an end because the trust has disappeared, just like in the story I wrote last month.

So what should the reader do? In my immediate response to the email last week, I suggested that the reader should contact the guy who he had the one night stand with, and now I've thought about it a bit more I still think that's a good idea if he wants to try and help the couple sort themselves out. It might be best to phone rather than sending a txt msg, because that way the reader could be sure he was communicating with the guy that he had the one night stand with. Although I like emails and txt msgs, it's clear from the gaydar message that was sent that electronic forms of communication might not reach the right person in this situation!

If the reader does manage to contact the guy with whom he had the one night stand, there would be two purposes. Firstly it would be good for the guy to know that there are trust issues in his relationship, given that his partner has been through his phone records. If the guy wants to save his relationship he would then be able to try and address this. Secondly, by contacting the guy they could decide on whether to reply to the gaydar message or not.

Gaydar messages have a feature that allows the sender to be notified when a message has been read, so almost certainly that feature was used when this message was sent. Given that the sender knows that the message has been read, perhaps the best message to send in response is something non-committal such as

Regarding your recent message, I don't know who you are so, if you have any problems with your partner I suggest you discuss them with him.

Another gaydar feature allows online messages to be blocked from particular people, so I think that it would be good to use this feature here, to avoid future messages from the sender. Ultimately the issue is between the sender and the guy who the reader had the one night stand with, so the reader should try and exit the situation as quickly as possible.

Do any other readers have any thoughts on this subject?

4 comments:

Superchilled said...

I think your advice is sound GB. I'm not sure there's anything I'd suggest differently.

Anonymous said...

I like your advice too. I personally was in a relationship where the bf would go over my text messages and even my msn chat history....and i don't think a relationship like that lasts very long, unless something changes.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your feedback GB, I answered the guy very much in the way you suggested. Also referred him to your blogsite, though maybe reading about other peoples experiences would help him.Anyway...I dont have any regrets, afterall his friend contacted me.The problem is this very conservative and Calvanistic soceity we live in here! I should have lived in Roman times where every man had his toyboys and nodoby thought anything about it!
Keep well and keep blogging.

GB said...

LOL Peter, when most guys ask me for advice they're usually keen to keep their identity a secret from various people! I see you've taken the opposite view. Anyway, thanks for the referral, perhaps I should have included that in my original advice!

GB xx