Gay Dating & The Dead Cat Bounce

 

Everybody who’s single goes through the “Dead Cat Bounce.”  Wall Street uses the term when the stock market plunges, bounces up, and then continues dying.  Dating’s like that.  There you are, in a date-less free-fall, when you suddenly meet somebody great, bounce up, and think your industry sector is on the rise.  But then it doesn’t work and you plummet like the Dow Jones Average after news of a big oil spike.

Never confuse short-term hope with the Dead Cat Bounce.  Otherwise your diary is going to look something like this:

Thursday

Met a dreamy guy named Jake.  Problem is, he’s giving me that classic “come here/go away” vibe. He introduced himself at the bar, said he’s wanted to meet me for a long time and then 10 minutes later he leaves without saying goodbye.  I saw him a few days later at a party.  He sneaks up behind me, whispers “How are you, handsome?” and gives me a hug.  And 10 minutes later he leaves without saying goodbye.  What am I missing?  He always acts so interested but he never stays put long enough to get my claws in him.

Friday

Jake emailed and asked me out for Saturday night!  Or at least I think he did.  I swear, if he were the editor of a fashion magazine it’d be called Vague.

Saturday

My plan:  Charm the pants off him.  I’m taking him to three different places.  This will create energy and a quick change of scenery as his ambivalence moves from lusting after me to forgetting my name to wanting to marry me.

 Jake’s loft.  8:00 p.m.   Awkward as hell.  Greeted me by shaking my hand.  Shaking my hand!

Drinks.  8:15 p.m.   I made sure our hands touched at the bar; I made sure our legs touched under the table.  I tried to make sure my signals were unmistakable.  No dice.  He pulls away.  But he seems to moon over me, his wide-set brown eyes seemingly incapable of looking away from me.

Restaurant.  9:00 p.m.  Better.  When I touched his hand on the table he didn’t pull away.  Incremental steps in a restaurant make for great leaps in the bedroom, I always say.

Dessert.  10:30 p.m.  We walk over to the place next door and get ice cream cones.  Come on, Jake, ask me for a taste, I think.  I want to see you lick my cone.  I offer him some.  “No thanks,” he says.  Rats.

 Jake’s loft.  11:05 p.m.  We’re sitting on the couch.  I make my move.  He makes a counter-move.  I give up; he moves in.  I respond; he pulls away.  

Shit.

I guess I could have tried my best to seduce him, but I don’t want to feel like I manipulated somebody into bed.  He yawns and says he has to get up early in the morning.  At the door I went to shake his hand.  He pulls me into him and gives me a deep, soulful kiss.  Then he nudges me out the door and shuts it.

Monday

Good news:  Jake called me after our “date.”  Great news:  He wants to go out again.  Bad news:  He wants to do it in 3 weeks.

Well, I don’t think you have to know algebra to do the math on that one.  In a few weeks I got a text saying the worst three words you can hear in the dating world:

*  Let’s

*  Be

*  Friends

And in that order, too.