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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
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What??? snooping is the only way to make sure it stops unless? I don't get it. Either it's a typo, or I need help.
The letter from One Very Enraged Romantic sounds like it could be written by the PR department for HBO's Looking since it sounds exactly like the story of one of the characters on the show.
And as great as Dan Savage's romantic/sexual advice is, I think for employment issues, "Ask A Manager" might be a better place for Nervous Supervisor Anxious. If he has an HR department, that's the first place I'd go to get their take. I'd err on the side of disclosure.
You might grasp the statement better if you mentally replaced the em dashes with parentheses, like so: âDonât police your boyfriendâs online activities (snooping is the only way to âmake sure it stopsâ) unless you want to get dumped.â
You could also break it down further into two distinct sentences, like so: âDonât police your boyfriendâs online activities unless you want to get dumped.â âSnooping is the only way to âmake sure it stops.ââ
Note that Dan uses the double quotes because he is quoting the OPâs last words. They are not used to add emphasis.
http://grammarist.com/grammar/emdash/
Mr. Ven: I just picked up my first Barbara Pym ("No Fond Return of Love"), but feel certain that you are familiar with her work. What do I need to know going in?
He didn't point out, for example, that not selecting this guy because he fucked his potential supervisor might well be cognizable as a sex discrimination claim, or that talking to him about it lets him say truthfully in any sort of harassment complaint he may file down the road that his boss brought their past relationship up before he did.
My advice (worth what you paid for it)? Hire him if he's best qualified. Don't discuss the sex unless he does first, and if he does, tell him firmly that you don't date subordinates, that your history won't affect how you view the quality of the job he does, that you look forward to working with him and that as his boss your happy to field any work-related questions he has in the future. You're warm but all business, and half of what you say there is CYA. Let HR know about the conversation and document it. Don't ask for him to be transferred or (god forbid) just order it, if that's in your authority. If he keeps bringing it up, deal with it like you would any other unwanted attention at work.
Okay, I'm neither male nor gay, but I'm turning 50 next week and my life has just started. This girl just wants to have fun like Cyndi Lauper!
Often having a close contact as a subordinate is handled by having them formally report to someone else while they are working for you. This isnât about pretense, itâs about protecting everyone involved so that they can act according to their own best judgement without fear of repercussions. Performance evaluations are done by the formal supervisor, protecting the organization from artificially inflated or severe evaluations that do not accurately reflect the employeeâs contributions to the organization.
The real protection during the employeeâs tenure is in disclosing to HR. The only obstacle to doing so here appears to be that the OP is embarrassed to tell HR that he has sex with men half his age. It might be possible to simply say that you know him socially. Does your company have a non-discrimination policy? Is orientation a protected status in your jurisdiction? Are you a youth pastor?
As far as the horrors of turning 35 go, I just turned 50 and it's fine. Between 35 and now, I've accomplished a lot more to be proud of than I had then and I've checked any number of items off my "life list." Just keep moving forward and enjoying it, OVER.
Gay Movie Fan @ 3, that seems to be a totally justified rant!
As for the third letter, I could let it go as a case of Right Message, Wrong Messenger, but at least it's nice that Mr Savage sees the point of why his lying about his age for so long was such an irritant. (An explanation of when and why he saw the light, similar to that asked of Mrs Clinton regarding some of her well-known positional juggling, would not come amiss.)
Now that's a mid-life crisis.
You're in good company.
And see what he accomplished?
LW #2 / NSA: Whether you talk to HR or not depends on the environment of your office. It's understandable that you wouldn't want people to view you as a predatory older dude who creeps on younger guys (to be clear, I'm not saying *I* have this view, I'm suggesting you/they might). But you're going to be in a position of authority over this bright young up & comer. (Ugh, sorry.) If your office atmosphere is conservative & you have real fear of some kind of recrimination for saying anything, then don't. Follow the other part of Dan's advice & be professional, & document the hell out of every interaction you have with the new hire until the end of his internship. I wouldn't even say anything more than "nice to see you again" F2F with an immediate change of subject later. Corporate culture makes me twitchy, though.
If you're out at the office, you feel HR wouldn't judge you harshly, & you just wanna CYA (Cover Your Ass), then I don't think it'd be a bad idea to say something neutral to HR, like: you wanted them to have a heads-up, as you would be New Hire's direct supervisor, that you'd met him awhile back socially. Don't give them more detail than that. You don't think it's going to affect your professional interactions with him, but you wanted them to know. You're taking the role of a good team player. They may decide to have someone else supervise him, or they may decide not to hire him after all. I know you want to be fair to the career of this promising guy, but hopefully he's so qualified that even if that scenario played itself out, he'd be able to land a gig elsewhere. & if things do pan out that way, resist the urge to contact/console Potential Intern. He might not be the kind of guy to bring up discrimination charges if he doesn't get hired because of your previous fling..I admit it's a stretch..but since that nurse applied for a job at a family planning clinic who then wouldn't agree to distribute birth control - ie, she obviously applied so that she could sue - I don't put much past people.
I'm paranoid, though, so - YMMV.
And I'm not looking for the straight guy's equivalent for twinks.
'Nuff said.
Are there no examples of older gay men with famously good sex lives?
For those of us who have (or continue to) engage in no-strings-attached hookups, it is inevitable that we will meet some of our past partners in social and professional settings. It is essential that we manage to separate our recreational pursuits from how we deal with day to day relationships. Particularly in professional settings. If one can't, then perhaps one shouldn't be playing around in the first place.
This could actually be a good opportunity for NSA to demonstrate by example, the manner in which one should deal with this kind of situation to his protĂŠgĂŠ.
I guess we could argue about whether this meets the definition of full-on cheating, but it was skeevy and underhanded as hell, and I definitely felt wronged by it in a way that I wouldn't have by appreciative locker-room scoping or flirting with the barista. It's kind of unsettling to see Dan equate these things.
If SOCI's boyfriend secretly met his ex at the gym to exchange nude glances and flirtatious banter--but technically a minimum half-inch distance was maintained at all times, even if a few orgasms were jerked to--could SOCI be upset, even if the letter of physical contact cheating wasn't crossed? How about if the bf went to bars, claimed to be single, and engaged in some explicit discussion of sex acts... but never followed through on meeting the guy in the back, no skin-to-skin contact!
You've done good work on spreading the "porn is normal, most men and some women look at it, no big deal" concept. But I don't think "everyone maintains an online profile on hookup sites, where they claim to be single and exchange sexually explicit e-mails which they like totally promise never to follow up on" is going to fly the same way.
Yes, you either trust your partner or you don't. If your partner spends a lot of time claiming that you do not actually exist, trust gets a bit challenging.
Even if it was the secrecy that was most fun for my partner, I would still want to know in advance that he'd be doing this kind of thing. It's the intimacy with another individual which is the betrayal, when it's not declared and when the main partner has no control over it.
Lots (most?) of the guys posting their status as single, arenât, and everyone knows that. Itâs not lying, itâs creating an online persona that is sexually attractive to the online personae that interest you.
Online sex is something that lots of not particularly skeevy people enjoy and they post that they are interested in chat/cyber and not dating/hookups. Itâs a safe way to get attention and feel hot.
In a relationship, for online sex as for everything else, set boundaries, say what you can and canât tolerate and be honest about what you want and whatâs important to you. If your boyfriend really does stop having internet sex with strangers then youâll probably need to put a lot more effort into making him feel hot and the centre of attention yourself. Dress him up, take him out, tell him how sexy he is and how much you want him. Itâs possible this will be fun for a while but then get old, so careful what you wish for.
If you donât want to put that much effort into feeding your boyfriendâs need for attention, and you continue to find online sex too much to tolerate, you might need a different boyfriend. Youâre in your early twenties. This is not the end of the world.
The only time that youth alone is the most important quality is often in a casual hookup--and even then, if your own standards are reasonable, those folks may return the interest. So maybe OVER, your days of casual hookups will become a bit less frequent or easily-achieved, but you also may be looking for something else (at least primarily) as you get older, too.
Lastly, I have gay friends in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, none Adonises, and none of them seem to have any difficulty finding men to hook up with for a fling. Of course, they aren't only looking for Adonises, either . . .
Dude, I feel your pain. As a mid-forties straight guy, college girls won't even look at me anymore. These days, my draw is limited to women in their late 20's to mid 30's. Talk about a blow to the ego! You are right to panic.
But here's what you do. You take that panic, you harness it, and you use that energy to get yourself into the best shape of your life, spiff up your style, upgrade your condo, get a promotion, and fight your impending mortality with everything you've got! The alternative is this, so really, you have no choice.
Itâs not lying, itâs creating an online persona that is sexually attractive to the online personae that interest you.
Creating a fictional version of yourself that will attract desirable partners, first by claiming your annoyingly inconvenient significant other doesn't exist, can legitimately feel cruel to the person whose existence needs to be erased so you can feel sexy. Whether you do that for real-life encounters or just online. (And I disagree that it's not lying, assuming you're not in the SIMS. Buyer-beware does have to co-exist with people who legitimately would never have flirted with you, or had cyber sex with you, or met you in a motel room on that business trip had they realized you weren't single.)
*For a fictional example, on The Good Wife Alicia, considering taking her estranged husband Peter back, wanted to know if there had been anyone besides the definitively-proved hooker. He told her that was it--a lie, but if he told her the truth she would just have gotten upset! And it wasn't like he didn't love her while nailing the one hooker she knew about and the various other people that she didn't yet know about (or at least couldn't prove), and because he loved her he didn't want to tell her something that would upset her. This philosophy comes back to bite him in the ass: turns out, telling someone that you always tell them the truth, unless they might get upset in which case you say whatever thing will cause them to not be upset, is not the way to build trust.
If you don't have them at 40, chances are very high you didn't have them at 30 either.
I enjoy reading the British tabloid coverage of Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black. Since Daley is a household name there, and Black is virtually unknown, despite Daley being 20 and Black being 40 Black is the one treated like a "boy toy."
One more thing, regarding OVER's letter to Dan:
I'm in better shape and overall health (BMI= 22.8)
approaching 50 than I was going on 30 and exiting
the United States Navy. It has taken me 21 years to
finally correct what the VA wouldn't acknowledge, and
an amazing naturopath to bring to my attention a year
and a half ago.
It's all how you see and take care of yourself, and what
you're willing to do with what you learn as you grow older.
You nailed it, too.
And I said that whatever attention and validation the boyfriend was getting from it would need to be supplied elsewhere and that the burden was likely to fall mostly on the OP.
When someone describes themselves as a single 22-year-old Adonis with a 13" cock and the only contact they want is chat ... they are not a single 22-year-old Adonis with a 13" cock. No more than the paid phone sex operator is Angelina Jolie wearing a black bustier and a lacy black thong calling from her clifftop aerie. This is not buyer beware, this is just how it works. If you need to be sure that the stranger youâre chatting with is single before describing your own 13" uncut cock to him or illustrating it with a photo pulled from the net, youâve got a problem.
It's sort of like shrieking "WAAAAAIT!!!" and lunging across the room when they try to use your open browser to check the weather radar, because you don't want it to auto-complete to your cheating-spouses account. You sign out as yourself, sign in as "guest," then let them look up whatever quick small thing it is, while trying to appear suave and like you definitely have nothing to hide, it's just that you feel strongly that no one check the radar from your account.
We now keep everything--old love letters, current illicit assignations, directions to Pat's house, zucchini recipes, coupons for the new bungee jumping place, the time of Saturday's play, etc--in one spot. Someone who would not purposely snoop can nonetheless innocently pull up e-mail or browser history and stumble onto your secret life. It's the balancing act between allowing each other a zone of privacy, and not filling up your zone with evidence of your secret gambling habit and grindr account and other things that would hurt your partner.
Lead left.. Getting old and blunted-
@ seandr #41 - aaaargh! the socks! Where did you find that picture?
Ask him to stop; he'll pretend to stop; you pretend to believe him (and don't snoop). Or just dump him now, because people don't stop doing what gets them off well.
And good luck finding a guy who is into hot sex but never does anything that freaks you out.
And really, I don't think it matters if dick pics are generally bad, or generally okay? There's no set group of actions that count as cheating, because cheating is when you break the rules of your own relationship. Some couples don't consider it cheating when they fuck other people, or even when they date other people. Some of those couples still define certain actions as cheating, like if you fuck or date someone without telling your partner. To SOCI, dick pics are against the rules, and I think his boyfriend knew he felt that way, because said boyfriend put so much effort into keeping it secret instead of just checking in about it. Defining your own relationship rules is a great idea in principle, but in practice, it seems that lots of people only want it to apply to people who want more sexual freedom than conventional monogamy provides (and people who want more monogamy just have to suck it up and deal with it, it seems?)
You shouldn't do anything to prevent his hiring since he's qualified, but you need to put a word to HR about socially knowing the guy - so that you're not the one making decisions about him, and in the improbable event that he tries to blackmail you, you have some recourse.
And you need to act as if nothing had ever happened between you with the intern : no allusions, no jokes, fun rememberances etc. That should protect you further. And document every interaction, of course.
You say you're romantic. That means you connect to people in another way than just sexually, right ? Well, people who have lived longer and who have had time to have lots of experiences have grown a more refined personality and have a lot to share, more than just their awesome-looking body and their hopes and their ignorance. Your biggest sexual organ is your brain - feed it !
As for older male heterosexuals : some women, among myself, prefer them to inexperienced younger hot-looking pieces any day of the week. Cute arm candy often doesn't translate in fun in bed.
I'm 54 and as desired as ever. In fact, it is almost a problem. Any dating/hookup site I go onto will fill up with 20-somethings who want to meet me, and do other highly specified and often tawdry things as well. I actually wish there were more men my age who were happy, and healthy, and relationship-capable, as I've always preferred partners around my own age. (I have to acknowledge... I am of the age of scarcity as most of my peers, or at least the most fun and outgoing ones, died of AIDS, which makes those of us who made it through more rare, and we all know scarcity raises the apparent value of the thing.)
OVER thinks his life is only of value if he is a youthful sex object. The problem is therefore obvious, and it has very little to do with age.
I don't know---lately men closer to my age bracket are giving me appreciative glances, too, but I'm really not seriously looking for any kind of LTR. Maybe that (for me, not necessarily anyone else) could be a side effect of two possibilities, socially: A) I am still adjusting to a more accepting and less hostile social atmosphere after making some changes for a healthier and better lifestyle, and B) I have grown happily accustomed to living just plain single.
He was being honest with himself.. Maybe the good sex life ain't enough for him. Rather than shaming him, perhaps you guys could re negotiate the boundaries of your relationship, to include him?
LW2, nothing to add to comments already made.
LW3, where to start? Shallow people inhabit the straight and gay world. Maybe branch out and meet some people who value different aspects of their humanity- might rub off on you.. And don't assume you'll live to 70;
I think snooping is a confirmation that you want to spend your life hurting, and feeling jealous.
I couldn't look. I have no wish to know. Ignorance is bliss..
I have a 'don't ask' policy, I am happier that way.
Adopt a 'monogamish' policy, and all will be well, but only if you don't act like a jealous twat.
Ooh, awkward one night stand! Make it humorous. Make the first move in that conversation, right from the get-go, and make light of it. I Like Dan's advice on that.
A perfect answer.
How nice for you!
On those occasions I've snooped, I've never regretted it.
Ignorance is like opium - a bliss for fools. I'd rather endure all the pain that comes with knowledge for those moments of true bliss it sometimes provides.
Depends what ignorance youâre talking about. I want to know if my beloved is having sex with other people, for instance.
I know that my beloved looks at porn on the internet. I am careful not to look at the sites because I know I wonât like them. Any time Iâve looked at someone elseâs internet porn itâs upset me for one reason or another. So I donât.
There are only two kinds of information - that which matters and that which does not. If it matters, I want to know about it. If it doesn't, then knowing about it can't harm me.
If I find myself getting hung up on something that doesn't matter, then I see that as an opportunity to retune my attitude so that it better harmonizes with reality.
âThere are only two kinds of substance - that which is poisonous and that which is not. If it is, I want to know about it. If it isnât, then eating it can't harm me.
âIf I find myself spitting out something that isnât poisonous, then I see that as an opportunity to retune my taste buds so that they better harmonize with reality.â
Sure. Yay you. But there are lots of things that arenât poisonous that arenât necessarily agreeable. I know I donât like chalk, ash branches and my belovedâs cigars. So I donât eat ash branches and my beloved smokes his cigars outside after Iâve gone to bed. My beloved knows he doesnât like the smell of baked beans or veggie dogs, so I eat them when heâs not around and leave the windows open.
I know my beloved smokes gross cigars; my beloved knows I eat gross beans. That doesnât mean we wish to be confronted with the evidence.
Isn't rule #57 of SLOG "Opening an unhappy relationship doesn't work"? Not to mention that some people actually prefer monogamy, or prefer forms of non-monogamy way beyond monogamish, so advice along the lines of "Figure out if you can get on the same page regarding boundaries, and if you can't you need to find new partners" would be better advice.
And for a lot of people the thrill of cheating is that it is cheating: offered permission to be m-ish within certain boundaries, they promptly figure out how to still be cheating according to the new rules.
As for you, OVER, stop bitching. Life can be good after 35, even after 40, gay, straight, or bi. Just so you know, straight people can be just as shallow, too. If you think someone has nothing to contribute because s/he doesn't have a perfect body, you're the one with the problem. Do something with your life. Volunteer. Take a class. If you can afford it, travel. Pick up a new hobby. Do something to fill your life.
I'm closer to 50 than to 40, and yes, sometimes I think I'm getting old, especially around my birthdays. But I can still contribute, even if not on the scale of the people Dan mentioned.
Wait 'til you hit 5-0. LIfe just started for me.
SOCI seems to have figured out all that he wants out of this relationship, future plans and all, but it sounds to me, like LavaGirl pointed out @ 70, that he forgot to take into consideration the actual person his BF is.
Is to keep developing a rich inner life- of course others loving you is needed( as you are), but exploring , knowing, watching ones own mind- reading, learning, feeling- the absolute wonder of having life..
"Managers" and Human Resources are very likely to make this a much bigger deal than it is.
And as for the guy who "flirted" online, chatting with someone who happens to be next to you on a barstool is not the same as seeking people out online to talk to and exchange photos. The guy had never met any of his online friends in person, but why was he seeking them out in the first place?
People go to the gym and the bar for reasons other than getting laid.
I mean, I wouldn't. But I hear people do.
Yeah, those clueless, zit-faced 34-year-olds...
When OVER says his life may as well be over, itâs not clear to me what he means. He will never have sex again so he might as well kill himself? His friends will shun him so he might as well kill himself? The only value a gay man can have is as a sex toy within the gay community and once that disappears in a puff of smoke on his 35th birthday he might as well kill himself?
There are lots of women hotter and younger than me â Iâve been older than most Canadians for ten years now, older than most Americans for fifteen â but my sex life has never been better. My preference is to have regular partners, though. Does OVER think that the only sex that counts is hookups with strangers?
Whatever he means it sounds like all-or-nothing thinking and he should probably talk through this drama with a therapist.
Sam Shepard 70
Gabriel Byrne 64
To answer the spirit of the question instead of the phrasing (which is akin to the question about whether the person asked has stopped beating hes spouse), and to do so in very broad stereotype, we're much deeper. Straight men can't really force themselves to believe that they are not the epitome of the standard of attraction at any age. It's why so many MRAs think they're entitled to date Eastern European supermodels.
My apologies to Mr Married and perhaps to Mr Finch as well, who have given no indication of ever having felt at any time entitled to date a supermodel of any national origin. (There may be others; those are the only two who spring readily to mind.)
The OP complained about gay men being shallow, not bi men, and I was responding to him. The anecdotal evidence I have for being more and more appreciated as I age has so far been supplied by straight men (not an assumption, I inquire).
Didnât mean to paint anyone into a shallow, wife-beating corner. I presume everyone has an equal liklihood of being shallow. (People who have suffered more may have more empathy but they may also be more damaged, so I donât make blanket assumptions about any group.)
Itâs possible that I am more and more appreciated by straight men as I age because the pool of libidinous and available women tends to shrink over time relative to the pool of libidinous and available men, so straight men my age treat me as a rare and precious commodity.* They may thus appear less shallow but in reality simply be more desperate. In this model itâs possible that men who can draw from the male pool of available-and-libidinous partners donât perceive the same penury and therefore do not experience the same pressure to adjust their expectations.
Itâs possible that as a non-parent I am less worldly or careworn than other people my age generally, and that Iâm getting disproportionate attention because of that.
Itâs possible that I am the one who has become more open-minded about possible partners and that where I perceive more attention all that has changed is that my pool is larger.
It might be cynical experience, like the Russian mobster with an ugly fifth wife who explained: âYes, a gorgeous wife is wonderful but you get used to beauty. You get used to ugly too, and you can enjoy her because you know nobody else is trying to steal her.â But this shallow logic should apply to MSMs just as much as MSWs.
I donât know. I donât know if the attribution of shallowness to âthe gay worldâ is accurate, an artifact or simply false.
I donât believe the OP knows either.
*This is a hypothesis. Itâs a common belief but may or may not be correct.