10 Things You Should Know About Dating an Introvert

Alan, Lane, David, Yuri, Troy, Gabe, Dustin -- almost all of my friends and boyfriends have been extroverts: outgoing, aggressive, the life of the party, never wanting to stay home, always eager to get out there and meet new people.

But Zack, the assistant manager of the Hy-Vee who I dated back in 2017, is an introvert.  Shy, quiet, doesn't like meeting new people, never wants to leave the house.

Not that I mind.

Dating an introvert has some intense pleasures, but it's very different from dating an extrovert. You have to be careful -- it's easy to misunderstand his intentions.

Here are 10 things you should know:





1. Cruising. Meeting new people is always intimidating for him, so even if you're a twink magnet, he won't make the first contact. He'll wait for you to approach him.

2. The Initial Interview.  Those small-talk exchanges of  "How are you? Fine -- how are you? Fine" make no sense to him.  He prefers to ask and answer real questions.

3. Getting Coffee. He doesn't understand why people hang out in coffee houses, gay-friendly or not. There's coffee at home. (Which is your excuse to get him home).

4. The Date.   Bright lights, noise, and crowds are not fun, they're exhausting.  They can deal with them for short periods, but they will need occasional breaks to go somewhere quiet and recharge.  Take him somewhere nice and quiet, like a play, or a museum.









5. Saturday Night.  Don't be surprised if he doesn't want to leave your apartment at all, even on Saturday night.  He thinks of staying in for an evening as a blessing, not a curse.  He looks forward to it.

6. The Kiss. Touching someone is always intimate, so he does it only if he has a strong emotional or erotic connection. He dislikes casual touching by strangers, like shaking hands.  Lay off the groping until the end of the date.

But once he's ok with touching, he won't stop.  You might never make it out of the bedroom.  Or the shower.

7. The Phone Call.  He won't initiate the after-date phone call or text.  It's not that he didn't have a good time, it's just that initiating contact with someone is very stressful, so he will constantly put it off.    You'll have to contact him.

8. The Duck Around. If he sees you on the street or in the hallway, he might duck around the corner to avoid contact.  He's not trying to be rude; it's just that seeing someone outside of a familiar context is very stressful.  What should I do?  What should I say?

9. The Introductions.  By the third or fourth date, you will want to introduce him to your friends.  Don't do it with a party -- he is uncomfortable in large groups.  He will stick to your side and not mingle (See #1.)  Introduce him to one friend at a time.

10. The Intensity.  Be prepared for nights of quiet intensity, where every statement is meaningful and every touch is passionate.  In the morning you will be physically and emotionally exhausted, but anxious to see him again.

The G-rated version of this list is on Boomer Beefcake and Bonding.

See also: 15 Simple Rules of Gay Dating.

We Search for the World's Biggest Penis

Vittoria-Gasteiz. Spain, July 1999

The Basque language, spoken in northeastern Spain and southeastern France,  is not related to any other language on the face of the Earth.  It is the original language of the people who occupied the Iberian Peninsula, so old that some of its words come from the Stone Age:
Knife is labana, stone-that-cuts
Roof is teilatu, top-of-the-cave

I find that fascinating.  Who wouldn't find that fascinating?

My friend Yuri didn't.

Ok, how about this: the penises of Basque men are among the biggest in the world, topping the already-impressive 13.5 cm average of the rest of Spain.

The Basque word for man is gizon, which is similar to the phrase big penis (giz lun) in ancient Sumerian.  Coincidence?

Yuri was very interested in that! Last year he competed with me over Jaan the Estonian Mountain Climber solely because of his enormous proportions, and picked up Kalle, even though he looked like a serial killer.

So in the summer of 1999, when I was in Paris, he came to visit, and insisted that we take a side trip to Basque Country.

Um...the Basque Country is 8 hours from Paris by train! Couldn't we go to Amsterdam instead?  It's only 5 hours by train, and there's the Horsemen's Club, with a strict size requirement.  Or we could pop over to England and see the naked, aroused Rude Man of Cerne Abbas.

Ok, we'll go there, too, but first, Basque penises!

Any reasonable person would check to see if the ancient Sumerians were correct at a gay sauna, like Ego in Bilbao or Venconmen ("Come with men") in San Sebastian, but Yuri was a sports nut, and wanted to go to a bike race.

Basque Country is very rugged, with mountains and the seacoast, perfect for bicycling.  There are so many amateur races every year, it's almost the national sport.  We went to see the Euskaldun Tournament in Vittoria-Gasteiz.

I found it quite boring.  The cyclists all start with a flourish, and then you wait around for two hours for them to get back.

But the bulges made it worth the wait. The winne was 24-year old Ruben Oarbeaskoa (second from the right, later photo), from the Ollara-Ercoreca team.

He actually looked to be among the smaller of the team, but Yuri fell in love anyway, and said "I'm going to touch it!"

"How are you going to do that?"  I asked.  "Sneak up on him in the locker room?  There are reporters and fans everywhere."  The crowd was enormous.

"Russians are smart!  How do you say 'Writer for a sports magazine' in Spanish?"

I told him.  Wielding his camera, he began piecing his way through the crowd.  "Escritor para Sports Seminal!" he yelled, alternating with the Russian "Pisatel dl'ya Sportivnogo Zhurnale!

He made his way up toward Rubin. Eventually I couldn't see him anymore.  After awhile he came back, beaming.

"Basque men are the best in the world!" Yuri exclaimed.

Vittoria Gasteiz

"What happened?  Did you....?"

He grinned.  "I told Ruben I'm a writer, and I wanted to ask him some questions about the race.  He was surprised -- no Russian sports journals talked to him before.  So he reached out to shake hands.  And I fell....I show you."

He mimicked the motion of  reaching out, tripping, and "instinctively" steadying himself by grabbing at -- my crotch.

"Did he get mad?  Did he yell?"

"No, he laughed.  I said I'm sorry.  But boy, I'm not sorry!"  He put his arm around me  "Ok, so tomorrow we go to the gay sauna."

I think Yuri got the idea of the trip-and-grab from an episode of Seinfeld.

The Gay Russian Teenager Comes Out

Long Island, December 1997

In West Hollywood in the 1990s, we practiced a strict age segregation: dance clubs when you were a Cute Young Thing, then leather bars when you started greying, balding, or getting a belly.

If you had muscles, you could go anywhere you wanted, but you were expected to date guys within about a five year age range.  Much older or younger, and the tongues would wag.

In the fall of 1997, after trying several careers, I started a new graduate program on Long Island.  I was 36 years old, pushing 37, so I figured I would be dating guys in their 30s, maybe early 40s.

Instead, I was swarmed by Twinks, Cute Young Things, even teenagers.

On the first day of classes, I was walking toward the Social Science Building, when a slim, feminine guy who looked about 16 came rushing up.  "Vi iz Ruski?" he asked excitedly.

"Huh?



"Futbolku s Ruskoi Reki !" he said, pointing at my chest.  "Your football shirt -- it says 'Russia River.'"

Oh, right.  I forgot that I was wearing a t-shirt from the Russian River.  "It's a gay resort...um, a town where gays go."

He frowned.  "Ok, but what does gays mean?"

How long had he lived in New York?  "Gay...men who like men...for dates and falling in love."

"Oh, oh...goluboi...blue."  He grinned broadly.

Yuri turned out to be 23, a little older than I thought, but still much too young for me, a grad student from Russia, studying meteorology.  A pretty, feminine face with soft features, but nicely muscled -- from the day we met, he dragged me to the gym every afternoon to work out for two hours.



Remembering my brief obsession with Russia in college, I considered changing my age rule.  But was he gay?

He claimed to be heterosexual: "Some day I will get married and have a lot of kids."  But he had never met anyone gay before, and he wanted to know everything about it.

Everything.  Names, dates, sizes, positions.  Especially cock sizes.

"Tell me about Raul.  How big is he?  What does he do in bed?"

"When you were in West Hollywood, did you have sex with Tom Cruise?  How big is he?"

"Ok, what about Lane?  How big is he?  Do you have pictures with his clothes off?"

Most heterosexuals don't ask a lot of questions about sizes.  But I still wasn't sure.

In October, I invited Yuri to a Halloween party, and chased him around with a giant foam dildo.  He didn't mind a little surreptitious fondling in the back seat of the car on the way home, but when Josh, who was giving us a ride, asked "Do you want to be dropped off at your dorm or Boomer's place?" he said "Dorm!"

In December, I invited Yuri to a Christmas party.  Tickets cost $15, with a catered dinner and dancing. But he refused to dance with me!  Instead, he approached a girl and asked her to dance.

When he got back to our table, I told him, mostly in jest, "I paid for your ticket, so you owe me.  Either get up on that dance floor with me now, or get into my bed later."

He chose my bed.

See also: Yuri's First Boyfriend.