Read Online The Mandates by Dave Singleton - Free Book Online Page B

remember that old Florence Henderson “Wessonality” TV commercial that included the line “Treat your family like company and your company like family”? That’s great when you are entertaining friends and family, but it does not apply to dating. Don’t treat your tricks like a lover, or your lover like a trick. Figure out what stage your relationship is in, and act accordingly.

19
    AX THE WORD EX

    Don’t make the word
ex
the most important one in your vocabulary. Don’t talk about more than two ex-lovers on any date, as in “Oh, my ex ate that way” or “My ex said the same damn thing about Barbra’s new album.”
    Let’s be honest here. In describing past relationships to someone new, you are either going to make yourself sound like the hapless victim (again!) of a dastardly dysfunctional man (how rare!) or, my usual choice, you’ll end up sounding like the gay version of Heathcliff from
Wuthering
Heights—
so noble, so loving, so pure.
    How could all twenty-seven of those relationships have soured so, given your perfection? A family curse? A pox? Cruel fate? The plague? What Shakespeare called “ill conceit”? Just skip it, okay?
    Playing the victim will get you the “pity look” and a nod of understanding and compassion that, believe me, will last as long as a snow cone in San Juan. You will never live up to the Heathcliff role, so step off the stage before your makeup runs in act 3.
    As Shakespeare once said of romance gone wrong, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” But that doesn’t mean this should be the obsessive theme during a first date. Thirty-year-old Brent from Delaware, a self-described “romantic fool burned to a toasty crisp by my past three relationships,” went to the movies and then dinner with good-natured Richard, also thirty. After mentioning for the tenth time that his “exes” treated him terribly, Brent came across like one of those lonesome losers on
Jerry Springer.
At dinner, Richard kept ordering margaritas in a futile attempt to literally drown all this pain, but Brent found an increasing number of ways to insinuate his dastardly exes into the conversation.
    â€œOh, yeah, my ex cheated on me, just like in that movie, but worse,” he said. Richard listened silently (as if he could get a word in edgewise!) to sad ex stories and to tales of dates subsequent to the last ex that mysteriously hadn’t flourished.
    Three hours of ex stories later, they parted, and Brent drove home thinking Richard was physically attractive, a great listener, and someone he wanted to see again.
    Richard drove home thinking Brent was physically attractive, way too in love with his own drama, and obviously damaged beyond repair.
    Unless your last boyfriend’s name really was Damien, don’t waste time demonizing him to a stranger. You could be spilling your pain to a stranger, I should add, who might know your ex and have his own opinions given the small concentric circles of “gaydom.”
    You need to strike a balance of at least a little mystery and general acceptance of the past. Just indicate that it was bad timing, a great learning experience, irreconcilable differences, or that you have served your time for knocking him off and your parole officer says you don’t have to discuss it anymore if you don’t feel like it.

20
    INTERGALACTIC INSTRUCTIONS ON CONQUERING CYBERSPACE
    (Avoid the Darth Vaders Who Lurk in Chat Rooms and Find Your Own Luke Skywalker)

    The term
lost in space
takes on a new meaning as thousands of men take to the Internet. Special gay Internet services like Gay.com and PlanetOut.com want to serve all of your gay needs, from travel to love to news. There are thousands of gay porn sites, and even
Business Week
acknowledged that the only two industries making any money on the Web are porn and ISPs. If you are in the mood to meet a man, AOL chat rooms