WHAT ARE THE RIGHT PLACES?

In my last post, I bemoaned my perennial single status and worried about the recent coffee date trend whereby I chat at length to another presumably single soul and yet never feel the slightest physical attraction. How can that be?! Am I too picky? Do I need a dating moratorium?  Do I need to invest in a pair of rose-colored glasses? And, if so, why can’t I find them on eBay?

On Twitter, one well-meaning fellow suggested, “You’re just looking in the wrong places.” Though unintended, the comment sounded like something my mother would say—if, that is, my mother dared even engage in the topic of my (non) dating life. (She still frets over the notion that Dating = Sex = AIDS = Death despite my father the doctor’s robotic response, rambling on about safe sex.)

Looking in the wrong places. The comment did cause me to YouTube this catchy song from my days living in Texas, but otherwise it comes off as wholly unhelpful. I wondered if the Tweep (Twerp?) noticed my blog name, which also happens to be my moniker on Twitter:  Rural Gay. Let me restate it:  RURAL Gay.

Where exactly are the right places?!

Admittedly, I may be stretching the notion of rural. There are houses on either side of me. There are houses across the street. I live on a cul-de-sac, something that probably does not exist in truly rural areas unless a farmer creates one as a convenient means of turning horse trailers around. (There are horses in the area, but they are a five-minute bike ride away.) To be more accurate, I live in a hamlet where there are no local services or shops other than a small elementary school. I suppose I could change the blog to Hamlet Gay, but the word always makes me think alternately of Shakespeare and that McDonald’s kid-marketing creation, the Hamburglar. (Am I the only one who ever wondered if Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar were a couple? Why are there no women characters?)

Myself excepted, single gay men do not move to hamlets that are a forty-minute ferry ride away from civilization. I am certain I am the only such fool.

Technically, there is a civilization that does not require a boat ride and a good chunk of change. There are two towns on the eighty-kilometer stretch of coastline linked by one winding roadway and bookended by ferry routes on either end. Again, single gay men do not appear anywhere along the route. There are lesbians aplenty and a few gay couples. I am a category unto myself.

So that’s the predicament. Based on where I live, there are no right places.

Every place is the wrong place.

Online dating is the one avenue I have to try to connect. My profile indicates I live in Vancouver. It is my one deceptive statement. By the second message, I make it clear that I am Vancouver-adjacent, at least when one pulls far, far back on a Google map. The hope is that my photos and my charm will interest another desperately single individual enough to consider meeting me for coffee. I always make the trek into the city. On those rare occasions when things progress to a third or fourth date, some guys have been known to venture my way.

Sadly, my last third or fourth date happened eons ago.

If Plenty of Fish is the wrong place, my only other options seem to be other online sites. I’ve tried match.com which turned out to be an even smaller pool of unwanteds. I even tried gay.com but I don’t know how to choose a potential date based on photos of asses and penises in various stages of arousal. It seems POF is best amongst a series of apparently wrong places.

Perhaps I need to take a bigger leap of faith. Maybe I should consider a new website. Here I come, Travelocity! What is the cheapest airfare to New York City? I have a certain attraction to one particular gay man who is apparently single. If I can woo him before he secures a restraining order, my life might change for the better.

Fingers crossed.

Then someone else can have that elusive pair of rose-colored glasses. I’ll happily lie in the arms of my guy, listening to him giggle with abandon.

Until then, I’ll have to make the best of all the wrong places.

 

UPDATE: Oh, the despair! According to Wikipedia, my dear Coop has a partner by the name of Benjamin Maisani. Who am I to stalk--from a respectful distance--now?!