DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m gonna keep this short and sweet for you. I have a childhood friend, we’ll call him M, that I have had a crush on for the better part of a decade. I’m seeing him for a dinner get together this weekend.
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What advice do you have, if any, in regards to me telling this man, who also happens to be gay, single, and interested in a lot of the same things as me, how I feel?
Sincerely,
A Conflicted Romantic
DEAR A CONFLICTED ROMANTIC: Ok the fact that you already know that M is gay and single is going to make things a lot easier, ACR, otherwise the first half of this was going to be “…are you sure he’s into men and isn’t going to turn into a screaming rage monster if you lightly flirt with him?”
(The fact that it’s 2023 and LGBTQ folks still have to think about this says a lot, especially as the GOP tries to roll back every inch of progress queer people have made.)
So. If you’re a regular reader, you know my general rule on confessing your feelings: don’t. If you’ve got feelings for someone, you get better results from demonstrating interest than just making a love (or lust) confession. Treating them like a potential partner is generally a better option than saying “here are my feels, do something with them, would you?” My general advice in those situations is to just ask them out on a date, rather than making a confession.
But seeing as you’ve got dinner plans already, what do you do? Well, you treat it like you would if you were having dinner with an attractive single man who you might like to swap mouth-bees with. You send out a ping – one ping only, Mr. Vassily. You give a little light flirtation and see how he responds. If he responds positively and meets you at that level – or exceeds it – you can send another ping of a slightly higher intensity. Does he respond to that at the same level or higher? Well at this point, you can probably assume that he’s interested in something with you; it’s a question of what happens next.
But what happens next is also where the heartache is more likely. One of the tricky things when it comes to finally consummating an unrequited crush is managing the dismount (er, as it were). Even if you’re both devoted cocksmen who see commitment as something that happens to other people, when friends hook up, there’s often a question of “ok, so… what happens next?”
While the gay community tends to be much better about such things than the straights, it’s still an area that has tripped up many, many well-meaning romantics. Some folks, regardless of gender or sexuality, can’t do the “friends with benefits” thing. The more you know about how you operate and how he does will make it easier to figure out what you’re doing when the afterglow fades.
Understanding your own needs and patterns is going to be important. Knowing what you want and what you don’t want (or can’t handle) is going to inform how things go. If you have dreams of domestic bliss, accepting a hook-up but in hopes that you’re going to parlay that into something more is more likely to throw your heart into the blender. On the other hand, if you’re mostly hoping to climb him like a tree (or be the tree), knowing if you’re at least open to more will be important.
Granted, that’s a lot to put onto one dinner (and possibly one hook-up). But ten years is a long time for an attraction to build, and it’s rare that a one-time hook-up satisfies it. So even if it’s unlikely that any pillow-talk will involve future plans, knowing what you’re down for and what you aren’t is helpful. Especially if it means knowing that just having a one-off would be worse than not doing it at all.
So, TL;DR: know yourself enough to know what you’re actually cool with, what you can’t do and what would make things worse and let that inform whether you decide to shoot your shot. Then start with mild flirting, see how he responds and work from there. Hopefully, it’ll lead to something mutually satisfying and very sweaty.
Good luck!
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com