Email about online dating and cross cultural relationships

A few months ago, a reader sent me the following email:

Dear GB,

I have finally decided to join the queue of those seeking your opinion and that of your readers. I am not sure what my main point is, but having come out to myself (because others could see it much earlier!) quite later in life at the age of 27 a lot of the aspects of life as a sexually active gay man are still new and sometimes puzzling to me. I suppose it all has to do with a certain anxiety of what is going to happen in the future, instead of just enjoying life as it comes which I ought to combat in myself.

I am a 32 year old Greek guy, doing a PhD in the UK. I have been living in London on and off for the past 10 years. I am a total rice queen, a term I learned from you first. I did not use to be, but after my first experience with what the English call ‘orientals’ I somehow got stuck in seeking guys from the Far East. I cannot pinpoint what exactly it is that attracts me, perhaps a combination of looks and the exotic culture. Well, after I started losing my hardon during sex with guys of other ethnic backgrounds, I realised it was time I concentrated on dating mostly Asians!

So far I have been in relationships with a Korean guy and then a Japanese guy, and have dated a few Chinese and others for various amounts of time. It has all been done via grindr, jack’d and other websites. When I go to clubs in Soho I have been lucky to attract the attention of guys I also like, but nothing more than that. I guess my first question has to do with dating. As I have to study a lot and spend more time than I prefer with my laptop, going online and finding someone comes easier, almost natural, to chatting up guys at bars or at uni. I might be posing questions you have already discussed, but can one really build a meaningful relationship with someone one has met online? It is so disheartening to see guys you’ve been dating for some time go back to grindr, or even finding myself craving it after some weeks of ‘electronic abstinence’. Lots of people just dismiss the idea of finding someone for more than sex online. My first relationship lasted 3 years but it started as an online sex date and with sex being perfect, feelings developed and we ended up together. What eventually killed it was turning it into a long distance affair because of my study.

With my second question I would like to turn the spotlight of the blog back to you (and the good old days when you were describing your life experiences) and ask you what, if any, have been the cultural barriers, differences and challenges you faced in your relationship with your latest partner who is Asian. Trying not to stereotype, I have found, for example, the Japanese in particular to be very much attached to their own culture, even after more than a decade of living in London. Understandably, it is difficult to ‘read’ people especially when they come from conservative or introvert cultures. Did you or the readers ever have this problem, and how did you deal with it? I get cross when sometimes friends tell me “ah, you shouldn’t date guys from such different cultures to yours, it is always going to be difficult”.

Have a great weekend.

All best wishes,

The reader who sent me this email also attached a picture of himself to the email, which was a nice gesture. I think it helps me write these responses if I know what the person looks like, because I think it's possible to get a useful impression of someone just by looking at them.

When I first received this email, I sent back an immediate response in which I gave the following short answer to his queries:

I think the brief answers are "Yes" one can build meaningful relationships with someone that one has met online, and that cross cultural relationships can be more rewarding precisely because of the cultural differences!

There's certainly no doubt in my mind that it's possible to find long-term boyfriends online. In my case, I met all my recent boyfriends online! It was almost 4 years ago that I met boyfriend T online. We then became boyfriends about 3.5 years ago, and we're still together :-).

However, I think that some web sites are more sex oriented than others. I haven't done any online cruising myself for 3.5 years, so I'm not the best person to advise on which the best web sites are for relationships rather than sex. I found my boyfriends on gaydar and gay.com, and when I used to use those web sites I recall that manhunt was well known for being sex rather than relationship oriented. Back in 2009 I wasn't aware of either grindr and jack'd, because at that time they were only just starting to become popular. Perhaps a few readers could leave some comments on which web sites are best for sex hook-ups, and which are better for finding guys who want a relationship.

In any case, looking at the reader's email again, I think that he partly answered his own question because his first relationship was with a guy that he met online, and it sounds like the relationship was a success. It didn't end because either of them craved online *fun* with other guys, instead it ended because it turned into a long distance relationship. My relationship with ex-boyfriend P was a long distance relationship so I have some experience in that area. Long distance relationships are always bound to be difficult.

The reader says that it's disheartening to see guys you’ve been dating for some time go back online, but I'm not sure that I agree. In my case, after I first met boyfriend T online, I still carried on looking online for other guys. After all, we weren't boyfriends at that point. But I grew to love him more and more, so after around 6 months I asked him to be my boyfriend :-). Judging from the reader's email, perhaps he expects too much too soon from the guys that he meets. I reckon that one of the golden rules of dating is to take things very slowly, and don't expect any loyalty unless you've discussed whether your friendship has a future as a relationship. A long time ago, a reader left a comment on this blog (or sent me a private email, I can't remember which) in which he said that one shouldn't discuss "the future" with a guy until you'd known him for 2 years or more. I agree with the sentiment, but not the length of time! I think that you can start to discuss that kind of thing after a few months :-).

Regarding the reader's other question, I think it's good if there's some kind of complementarity between the two guys in a gay relationship. With straight couples, the fact that one of them is male and the other is female immediately provides a lot of complementarity, because men and women often have quite different perspectives on things. Similarly, if a guy's boyfriend is from a different culture, then that too provides complementarity :-). So I think that cross cultural relationships are good, and learning how to 'read' the views, moods etc of one's boyfriend is one of the things that makes the relationship more interesting.

My own experience is that after the initial honeymoon period when everything was perfect, as it always is during the very early stages of a relationship, boyfriend T and me did sometimes argue a bit. Looking back, I can see that it's precisely because of what the reader alludes to, namely that we didn't understand each other properly. But in fact, as time has passed, we have learned how to live and get along with each other. These days, arguments are much rarer :-). We didn't consciously think about why we used to argue, but somehow we muddled through. So if you're aware of this issue in advance, it's even more likely that you'll be able to make a success of a cross cultural relationship.

Do any other readers have any thoughts on these issues?

Suggestions for Christmas Charity donations please

Where has all the time gone? It seems like it was only yesterday that I was writing last year's version of this post!

For the last five years, I've asked readers to give me suggestions for Christmas charity donations (see 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011). This year there's around £800 to give away, and all sensible suggestions are welcome :-).

Email from a guy who wants an open relationship

Right at the end of August, a reader sent me the following email:

Dear GB,

I find myself writing this letter to you because I need to express my feelings to someone and no one in my offline life is appropriate for this subject matter.

First, a little about my situation. I have been with my boyfriend for almost 10 years. We have been together since I was a teenager. I love him dearly; however, I find my mind thinking about other men all the time. It has gotten to the point where I can’t look at a man without wondering what his dick looks like.

To compound things, our relationship is already strained. Money is an issue because I am a full time student and therefore I do not contribute 50% of the expenses. Furthermore, I plan to pursue a PhD, and unless I get an amazing scholarship package, I won’t be able to contribute 50% until after school. This leads into me being sort of financially dependent on him, which muddles the situation even further. Another issue is that we live in a relatively small town where one is two sexual partners away from everyone.

I honestly don’t know how much longer I can stand being monogamous. I find myself cruising gay hook-up sites every other day (as horrible as they are, being out of the dating scene I have no idea what the good websites are). I daydream about other men when my boyfriend is around. I feel sort of lost.

I do not want this relationship to end, (1) because I love him and we basically came of age together, and (2) because I cannot afford it. Another thing is that he has a massive dick, which is somewhat of a fetish for me. He has made it extremely clear that monogamy is the only way to go. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to resist. It has been so hard already. One of the main things holding me back is my fear of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. What are your thoughts?

Cheers

When I received the email, I thought that it would probably take me a while to get round to doing a posting for him, so I sent him a quick reply which included the following paragraph:

It'll probably take me a few weeks to get round to doing the posting for you, so in the meantime here are my initial (unedited!) thoughts. What you describe sounds like quite a dangerous situation, in the sense that if you don't solve it somehow, eventually it'll all come to a head in an uncontrollable and damaging way. If that happens when you're still financially dependent on your boyfriend then it'll be even worse, so I can't help thinking that for now you should postpone plans for a Ph.D. If your relationship is strained because of money, then that's another reason to postpone the Ph.D. Unfortunately not all relationships last forever, especially because I think people do change very gradually over the years, so maybe the time has come to split up. If that's done in a controlled way then it's likely that you can still be friends. But have you really had a 100% honest conversation with your boyfriend about this? Your email sounds like you're about to *pop* any minute LOL, so does he really know how much this is tearing you apart? If you haven't spoken to him about it recently then the sooner the better, because it sounds like at the moment you can honestly say that you've still been monogamous, which is a good starting point for a conversation. Remember, honestly is vital, without that you've got nothing. Another thought is that relationships aren't worth very much if you can't communicate properly with each other, especially on important issues like this, so I think you should probably start having some difficult conversations otherwise your relationship is doomed anyway. Don't forget, there are many ways of having more open relationships, including threesomes, just being allowed to go to sex parties or gay saunas occasionally, rules about not seeing the same guy more than once, etc etc.

Although the reader didn’t reply to the email that I sent him, I still think it’s worth doing a posting using his email because it may help other readers if they find themselves in similar situations.

Rereading what I put in my reply to him, I think that my quick thoughts to this reader actually constitute quite a reasonable response. But there’s one point that I think is worth emphasising, namely that if you’re in a relationship and you can’t communicate about something that’s tearing you apart, then it’s not a good relationship. We don’t know why the reader thinks that his boyfriend is so completely against any kind of open relationship, but we can probably assume that the boyfriend has no idea how bad the situation has become. So if the boyfriend did know, then perhaps he'd soften his view to some extent? And if he doesn't soften his view, then at least both of them will appreciate that the relationship might be near its end.

One further thought relates to the fact that these two guys "came of age together". That means that they must have been boyfriends for all their adult lives, so although they probably experimented with various sexual partners when they were teenagers, since then they've been sexually faithful to each other. Many old posts on this blog relate to my view that lifetime monogamy is an unnatural state for our species, especially now that we generally live much longer than we used to (see e.g. 1, 2). Viewed from this perspective, it seems quite natural to me that a bit of *fun* outside their relationship looks appealing, because a gay adult life with only one sexual partner is quite unusual.

Of course, as the reader himself points out, there are risks associated with casual sex namely sexually transmitted diseases. Risking one's own health is one thing, but if one ends up passing something nasty on to one's boyfriend then that's a very bad situation, especially if the boyfriend thinks that he's in a monogamous relationship. So all the more reason to communicate with one's boyfriend, and try and find a path through the crisis which works for both of them.

Do any other readers have any thoughts about this?

Comment from a guy who's terrified of being gay

Earlier today, the following anonymous comment suddenly appeared on my most recent post:

Dear GB,

I don't know if you'll get this but I'm going through quite the dilemma. I think I'm gay, which totally terrifies me. My family can be pretty homophobic at times.

My father passed away when I was very young leaving me and my siblings to care for my sick mother. I've become sort of her rock. I help her with so many things and I love her so much that I'm willing to sacrifice my own happiness. I refuse to put her in a home and I will attempt to care for her with the help of a personal care worker till the day she dies. It would totally destroy her if I finally come to terms with my sexuality and came out. She's a devout Christian and I was raised or indoctrinated to think negatively of the word gay. My mother doesn't hate gays but she thinks being gay is a sin. She believes that gays should be allowed to live in peace without being oppressed but she still does not approve of that lifestyle.

A lot of self loathing comes up when I have a thought that isn't so straight. I can never love anybody else romantically until I learn to love myself I am told, but I don't think I can ever fully love that side of me. I don't hate gay people but it's been ingrained in me that if I'm gay it would be wrong.

Even if I do come to terms with being gay I'd lose everything! My family means the world to me even though we may disagree with many of their views. I have the feeling that they would disown me if I was to ever come out. I'm also extremely concerned and self conscious about what every one would think of me. For example the church members, classmates, friend, co-workers, etc. I care too much about what everyone thinks I guess and I'm too weak and fearful of the consequences.

Let's say as well that I end up pursuing a relationship with man would he be able to put up with my constant fear of being discovered? We wouldn't be able to act like a couple in public, he'd never be able to meet my family and I have lots of trust issues as well so I think it would be cruel to ever get in a relationship and put someone through all that baggage until I learn to sort it out but I don't think I ever can sort it out.

I'm not even sure if I'm gay (I could be asexual) but I most likely am. I find myself attracted to guys but yet I hate being around them at the same time. I never feel comfortable around men since my father was very into physical discipline I have grown to fear men. All my friends are women and when I'm around other males especially the same age group as I am I become extremely defensive and cold.

I honestly kind of think sex and human contact is kind of weird. I've test my sexuality by watching porn and I able to be aroused by straight or gay. I'm a 26 year old virgin and I have no issues about being a virgin for the rest of my life and I have no desire to be with anyone sexually either. I do however enjoy watching porn but I just have no desire to ever want to have sex. So I could be asexual I guess.

I don't know this is a lot to take in but it feels so good to just vent and have someone listen. I'm pretty sure I'll need therapy and loads of it.

Thank you so much for reading this all of this.

The first thing I need to do is to apologise to the two people who're in the "Dear GB" queue in this blog's right-hand side-bar, because by re-posting this comment I'm obviously allowing a bit of queue-jumping. Nonetheless I think it's the right thing to do. This comment is probably the first thing that this reader has ever done regarding the fact that he might be gay, so I think that's it's important to respond as quickly as possible and hence reassure him that he's not alone.

The reader mentions the Christian religion a couple of times in what he says, so my guess is that one of the reasons for the conflict that he feels is the attitude of Christianity to homosexuality. I was also brought up as a Christian, and my mother is a devout Christian as well, so I can understand what effect that can have.

Christian hostility to homosexuality has its roots in the bible. However, since Christianity means following Christ (a.k.a. Jesus), I think it's very instructive to look in the bible and see what Jesus himself actually said about homosexuality. The answer is, nothing at all! The few homophobic passages in the bible are all the views, stories or interpretations of other people, not Jesus himself. Indeed, having studied the bible at Sunday school when I was a boy, my overriding memory of Jesus's teaching was one of compassion, love and forgiveness. It certainly wasn't a message of hatred. It makes me so sad when I think of all the terrible things that have been done in the name of Christianity when the original message of Jesus himself was so pure and beautiful.

I was very lucky when I did finally come out to my mother. I was a couple of years older than this reader, and I finally did it when there was just me and her having dinner in her house. We're sitting facing each other across the table. I know that this has to be the moment, but I start crying

"Mum," I say, with tears in eyes, "I ... I've got something to tell you."

She can see that I'm very distressed, but all she does is to stop eating and smile at me in the most loving way.

"Well don't worry," she says kindly, "what is it?"

"Well, ... I ... I ... I'm gay! And I've got a boyfriend!! And I want to introduce you to him one day!!!"

And with that I really can't help myself from crying, as though I'm a little boy. My mother gets up from her seat and comes round to hug and reassure me.

"Don't worry," she says, "I'm sure I'll like your boyfriend, because I've always liked all your friends."

She goes back to sit in her seat, and looks at me lovingly again.

"You've always been a good son to me."

"But, I was so worried about telling you," I reply, starting to get my composure back, "because of your faith, and ..."

"But it's not for me to judge you," she answers, still with love in her eyes for me, "one day, that'll be for Him."

Of course, by "Him" she meant God. But given that Christianity isn't known for being pro-homosexuality, I couldn't have hoped for a better response. If only all Christians followed their religion in the same way that my mother does.

Anyway, this is kind of an express response to the comment that was posted this afternoon. There are many more things that could be said, although I'm sure that a lot of the appropriate things to say are scattered through previous "Dear GB" postings on this blog. Also, by giving the comment some prominence with its own posting, hopefully some other readers can leave a few further comments, and hence start to give the reader who left the original comment some of the help that he needs.

Email from a French guy who's worried about being gay

A couple of months ago, a reader sent me an email with the title "Catch 22". The email was as follows:

Dear GB ,

I hope you are doing well and enjoying summer,

I know you are a busy person and get a lot of emails, but please take a few seconds to read the following. I would greatly appreciate your wise point of view on my situation.

I am a 21 year old French guy living in London since I was 16. So far so good. Everything is going well for me, well, most of the time at least! I really like London and I study interesting subjects in good universities and all and all, so I cannot complain about that. I am quite a lively person who needs to leave a mark on the world and get some attention. I like all things big, nice restaurants, going out a lot, studying hard, best clubs, etc. Most guys ask me how I manage to be always surrounded by all the hottest girls (arts students, management, fashion). I tell them that I don’t know, but the truth is that since I don’t really care about girls, I don’t get intimidated by them. I also like hanging out with guys, normal straight ambitious competitive guys and to me being friends with them is really important, way more important than being friends with gay guys. They’re not all the same obviously, there are so many types, but the more identifiable ones do live a certain lifestyle and act out all vaggy and flamboyant. So here’s the Catch 22: I have a straight guy mentality and vision, but not the same sexual drive or objectification of desire. What should I do? Because the problem is, there is something missing in my life, and though I like hanging out with my straight friends, they are still a bit different. And sometimes it shows. I feel like they are much ‘simpler’ than I am, and more aggressive too. Hanging out with straight guys is a bit like hanging out with very simple minded creatures who have basic desires and needs. And it makes it all funnier to play the game. Up to a certain extent.

Sometimes I do betray myself. When I am drunk. I start touching some guys because, they’re just ... so hot you know? And so straight as well? And a bit stupid? The more ‘fratish’ they are the better. Or I may do a movement that is a bit weird and suddenly there is a disconnect with the person I am talking to. They start wondering. Also I treat all the girls I go out with quite badly. But somehow they seem to like that. Whatever. Woman’s sexuality and mindpoint is really fucked up too. So I guess people wonder, there are rumours, it’s a sort of running joke. Is he gay? But it’s ok, because it’s all so mysterious and ho-ho ha-ha, he dresses better than everyone else, he’s a metro, he’s not so sporty, he doesn’t watch football or top gear. He’s ambitious. He’s sick. He’s insecure. He’s overconfident. He’s a player. He’s a psycho. Ho-ho ha-ha! It’s funny for everyone watching. The only reason I am getting away with it obviously, and I should feel quite lucky about this, is because I am French, living in big cities, evolving in certain circles amongst challenging people. So I get a free pass because I am French and basically eurotrash. Which is fine by me.

Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. That boy is very sick.

Indeed.

So what should I do? It seems to me that life is so hard and like a marathon. Why would I want to run it handicapped? Yet there is something missing. Yet I know the minute I will allow people to label me (which is unfair because I can still fuck a girl, it’s just that living with her is so grotesque to me, let alone really loving her, while I know fulfilment would be so simple otherwise) I will lose half my life. Most of my guy friends have told me confidently in the eyes several times they could not be friends with a gay guy (yeah, there goes the Oscar) because they get uneasy around them, or might feel that something awkward is developing. That kind of convo happens when talking about some friend from school or wherever who has turned gay, and since then ‘transferred’ to the gay scene (exile?) and I am caught in a sort of in between. And there seems to be no space for me. I want to be successful and express my abilities. Yet I feel like I am gonna get pigeonholed and left aside of all the real business action and important social circles if I get labelled as gay. In the same vein I don’t want to lose the thrill that is going to a restaurant with a beautiful lady and getting approval from the waiter and the room and being all proud and stuff, or getting in a good club easily with your lady. Though you’re not that into her, really. It seems to me that I should rather live a double life. Because it really isn’t worth it. And it isn’t getting better. This is bullshit. I feel like it’s actually getting worse.

Any advice, my dear GB?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

PS: I realise this situation is in a way quite ordinary, laughable, and you may have yet answered similar ones many times, but the process of writing the above has already 'helped' me in a certain way so even if you don't answer, thank you for having such a cool blog!

I’m sure that there are quite a few young gay guys who go through the kind of thing that this reader is describing. However, I don’t think I’ve answered exactly this kind of email before, and this is certainly a good one to answer because I think the reader expresses his feelings about his situation very well.

The first thing to say is that I think the reader has a few misconceptions that are hampering his decision making process. Although I think he’s right that in some ways life is like running a marathon, I think he’s very wrong to say that you’re handicapped in that race if you’re known to be gay. Another misconception that he has relates to being "labelled" gay, because the reader clearly feels that the label "gay" is a valid insult. But the fact is that when one person tries to insult another person, the person who’s the target of the insult needs to accept that he’s been insulted, otherwise the insult hasn’t worked. In this respect, before I came out I felt much the same way about being called gay, but these days I regard the fact that I’m gay as just one my many characteristics that make me who I am. It’s certainly no handicap or insult :-). However, one thing that the reader is right about is that this situation will slowly get worse for him, so it’s a good thing that he’s thinking about it and emailing people like me as he starts to address the problem.

The most important aspect to address is the reader’s concern that as a gay man he’s going to be " ... left aside of all the real business action and important social circles". In term of business, there’s certainly no danger of that happening. Gay people are definitely valued in the banking world, which is why banks have encouraged internal networks for their gay employees, which has led to things like the London interbank GLBT forum which I blogged about recently. Outside the banking world, for example in the world of strategic management consulting, firms such as McKinsey have their GLAM network (GLAM = "Gays and Lesbians At McKinsey").

There’s a good reason why gay people are valued. A gay person has had to indulge in some creative thinking to realise that they’re not heterosexual, because we’re all brought up to expect that we’re straight, and creative thinking is vital in today’s competitive business environment. One of my previous bosses in the banking world used to call me an iconoclastic thinker because I was sometimes able to break established norms and find new approaches to problems. So at least in the Westernised business world these days, there’s really no valid concern that gay people are left out. Outside the business world, for example in the music industry, gay people are common as well. Because X-Factor is on TV in the UK at the moment, the example in my mind is the X-Factor creative director Brian Friedman. Each week one or two of the judges thank him during the live shows for his excellent work.

Much of the same thinking applies in terms of the reader’s social life. The easy part is that it’s common for gay guys to be friends with straight women. At the moment though, it seems likely to me that some of his female friends see him as a potential boyfriend, so the current situation isn’t fair on them because those women are clearly wasting their time. So he’ll have much more honest friendships with his female friends if they know that he’s gay, and hence potentially much deeper and better friendships with them. I’d be very surprised if he were to lose any of his female friends because he’s gay.

Regarding his straight male friends, perhaps some of them will keep their distance from this reader if they know that he’s gay. However, the good thing about this is that it will select the more important straight guys from the less important ones, and he’ll find that he’ll remain friends with the more important ones. What I mean by that is that young straight guys who worry about having gay friends have little imagination, and typically lack confidence in their own sexuality. Those are the guys that the reader describes as "much ‘simpler’" than he is, and they’re not likely to be important for the world economy. Most likely is that they’ll end up with dull jobs, get married, have kids, all without making much of a mark on the world.

However, the more important straight guys are much less likely to have those hang-ups, they’ll be ambitious, and will probably think it’s good to have connections in the gay world as they develop their careers. Putting it another way, why does the reader think that there’s any long term benefit from hanging out with dull, simple, unimportant straight guys? Similarly, why is being friends with normal ambitious competitive straight guys way more important to him than being friends with normal ambitious competitive gay guys? My guess is that it’s just because he feels safe with what he knows, so he hasn’t looked further than his existing narrow circle of friends and so he doesn’t know any of those kinds of gay guys. Here, perhaps the reader just needs to grow up a bit!

The reader says that he has a "straight guy mentality and vision, but not the same sexual drive or objectification of desire". But the fact is that lots of gay guys say the same thing, often summarised as simply "straight acting". So to answer the reader’s main question about what he should do, I think he should stop being afraid of what will happen if people find out that he is gay. Indeed, when eventually they do find out, it’s most likely to lead to lots of good things happening to him :-).

Do any other readers have any other thoughts for this guy?