The Mandates (7 page)

14

HIT ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE

(And Double Your Wardrobe)

Face it. Sharing clothes is a bonus. And as Pearl Bailey said (or
should
have said), “Honey, I've had big and I've had small, and same size is better.” Just make sure he has good taste.

You do not want to tumble off your tasteful perch and end up on a downward spiral. You must avoid a fashion free fall from which your only option is picking yourself up, dusting off those Sergio Valente jeans and bad jewelry, and starting all over again.

You don't want the man who lives for the postcards from Nordstrom announcing their 75 percent off sale. Nor do you want the guy who makes statements like “Oh, I only wear Giancarlo Ferre—his draping fabrics from Turkey cement my signature look.”

You need to find a guy who buys from the same three clothing stores as you. If you are Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Kenneth Cole, and he is Eddie Bauer, Sears, and the Burlington Coat Factory, chances for your longevity as a couple are not promising.

“It's not like I'd ever make sharing clothes a major criterion of dating,” said Jay, a twenty-four-year-old salesman trainee from Connecticut, “but it's definitely a perk.”

It's a perk that guys don't take advantage of enough. While God blesses the “Saint Bernard and Chihuahua” couple combinations that you see all too often, such as the five-foot-one dude with the six-foot-three hulk, you have to admit it's poor planning. Both may be beefy and built, but a T-shirt for one is a leg warmer for the other. Where's the clothes-sharing potential in that combination? How do you double your wardrobe without spending a dime? There are few advantages to a gay relationship. Access to a larger selection of fine attire is chief among them.

Find a man within a couple of inches of yourself from all angles. Try to vary the hair color so you don't look like frosted twins, because who wants to look like Ken and Ken sans Barbie out for the evening? But keep the clothes all in the family. It's one of your inalienable gay rights.

15

MEETING HIS FRIENDS: THE ULTIMATE CORPORATE MERGER

Meeting his friends requires major strategic planning, just like a corporate merger. It will take time and research and cannot be accomplished with any valid rate of success within the first three months of dating. You need to know the players, understand their roles, respect the power hierarchy, and set a realistic two-year time plan for those friends you are targeting for early retirement, downsizing, and transfers.

It's a common misconception that your single friends are just dying to see you happily dating, coupled, or married off. Maybe not so surprising is that a few of his single friends may not want him happily dating, coupled, or married off, either. He may not be aware of this. That's why you have to be smart enough for both of you when it comes to managing friends, his and yours.

The truth is that sometimes you don't realize who your real friends are, or what you need in a friend, until a dating relationship comes along to challenge those friendship dynamics.

When I was thirty-two, it dawned on me that several of my so-called friends seemed to go out of their way to sabotage my dating relationships. Whether the sabotage was excluding the new guy from conversations or bending his ear with inappropriate information about my past or pointedly not inviting him to social functions, I realized that these so-called friends didn't want me to date anyone more than once or twice. It was too threatening to them.

At first I didn't believe it. Surely, people who supposedly cared about me wanted me to be happy. I remember introducing Karl, who became my long-term boyfriend, to a group of friends at a restaurant in the West Village of New York City. These friends drank like fishes, told stupid tales of youthful indiscretions, brought up bad former relationships I'd been in, and asked Karl and me inappropriate sexual questions about our still-forming relationship. Karl was stunned. I was like Glenn Close in the film
Jagged Edge.
In the film, she can't believe that Jeff Bridges wants to kill her, and I couldn't believe my friends were trying to kill my relationship. Glenn finally had her “typewriter” meltdown, the moment where she realized that Jeff was indeed the killer. And I had my moment when I realized that some of my friends were killers, too, and confronted them. Actually, a couple of them needed an exorcist more than a confrontation, but that's beside the point. The damage was already done.

You should be aware of his friends' reaction to you, and your friends' reaction to him. You need to know the different rules for meeting his friends versus meeting your friends.

The Mandates
approach to meeting and managing
your
friends is as follows:

Control the environment.
You pick the place to meet, somewhere where you know you'll all be comfortable, where the conversation will flow without your having to shout above the noisy crowd. One of the first rules of public relations is to never take a client anywhere you haven't been before. You don't want any surprises on a first meeting.

Choose the first few friends carefully.
For the first meeting, invite only those friends with whom you feel truly close. Forgo that new guy who's really, really fun but a bit of a wild card. And don't invite an entire social group. Keep it small and intimate; you want the meeting to be cozy.

Relax! Dogs smell fear.
Don't worry about the planning and organizing to the extent that you forget to have fun. If you are tense, you will set the tone for the whole evening. Set up the meeting as best you can, then relax.

Keep him at the epicenter.
This evening is all about him, and the two of you. It's not a college reunion where you sit around reminiscing with old pals, or a catch-up session with your buddies. Only discuss topics that everyone can participate in, and when there are references to past events, make sure you bring your date into the conversation.

When you meet
his
friends without the “home court advantage,” here's what you should do:

Be aware of the dynamics.
Just being aware of the possible array of reactions to you is an important step. You don't want to be cynical, but you'd be naive to think that all his friends and family are waiting to welcome you with open arms. Of course, it's possible, and maybe meeting them will be friction-free. But chances are good that someone will be threatened by your presence, fearful of what it will mean, and consciously or unconsciously sabotaging.

Don't take anything personally.
This is a good rule in general for life, but when it comes to his friends, remember that in their minds, you might be the reason that their fun and freewheeling pal is no longer available to them 24/7. They might resent you for it.

Make pals with the leader of his pack.
Who is the alpha dog in his group of friends? Pay a little extra attention to him or her. Chances are this is the person who will rule either in favor or opposition to you, then influence the others.

Be patient with your guy as he handles his
friends' reaction to you.
If he has friends who are difficult, or not supportive of your dating relationship, I'd bet he already knows this is a problem but does not know what to do about it. You will get a lot further if you bite your lip before criticizing than you will if you start bad-mouthing his friends right off the bat.

When you reach a comfortable place in your
dating relationship (not before a couple of
months), gently point out any sabotaging
behaviors from his friends.
You'll have a little time and credibility under your belt, and you will slowly have amassed the evidence to then gently make your case.

16

WHEN MALE EGOS COLLIDE: MR. TITANIC, MEET MR. ICEBERG

You are a guy. Socialized and trained from birth to expect that your needs will be met in a timely fashion. You probably invest much of your identity in your job. And you internalize hurt way too much. And of all the aerobic exercise you do, you are probably most adept at “jumping to conclusions.” Probably to a good techno house beat.

Even though you're gay, you are still a guy. The gay gene is not always as dominant over other character-trait genes as we might think, and remember, you are fighting what Carl Jung refers to as millions of years of male “collective unconscious”—a history of male patterns and behaviors passed down from generation to generation that then become part of our genetic makeup.

So the question is, on paper, would you want to date another you? Would you jump at the chance to date someone who has your same issues? Well?

Unfortunately, we don't live on paper or the answer might be simple. “Hell no!” you might shout in defiance. But don't forget you are fighting powerful forces of sexual chemistry and rules of attraction. Most of the men you crave will be similar to you in core ways, so accept that his traits, and yours, have advantages as well as disadvantages.

Mike and Will, two twenty-something, ambitious business consultants at competing companies, met in East Hampton, New York, during a summer picnic. The sun was shining, they were relaxed, and their conversation led to dinner, which led to dating.

Their work schedules were similar: seventy-hour weeks, getting paged at random by clients, and when duty called, dating came to a standstill. Despite similar schedules and demands, each kept getting his ego bruised by the other's work focus. Big egos often mean big insecurities. Mike acted nonchalant when Will had to cancel a date due to a fast-approaching deadline, but bitched to his friends about it. Will felt tremendous insecurity when Mike had to work all weekend out of town. They allowed seeds of doubt to grow, which almost sank the relationship. After about three months, they finally let down their guards and talked honestly about their insecurities that arose from work issues. Solid negotiators that they are, they set up the following agreement to manage work overload:

He who breaks the date for work must reschedule with something exciting, like dinner at a top restaurant or concert tickets.

When work schedules result in changed plans, both parties agree to talk about their feelings honestly.

Both parties agree to acknowledge that their jobs are equally important.

Both parties agree to speak every night, no matter what, even if only for five minutes.

Like a lot of guys with big egos, Will and Mike expected the other one to mind read and pick up slack in the relationship. They laughed over setting up a faux relationship contract, but were happier once they accepted how alike they were about work, and that they needed to check their egos at the door to communicate.

When you date, you spend a lot of time sizing up prospects. Imagine the shoe is on the other foot, and a potential date is sizing you up. How do you rate yourself? I don't mean to scare you off dating, though there are plenty of reasons to be afraid. After all, how many shrink couches are full of men on their backs unburdening dating horror stories?

If you plan on dating another man, you'll have to accept the very things in him that you have a hard time accepting in yourself.