The Smiling Boy at the Gym

The other night at the gym, a college boy cruised me.

This might not seem unusual.  I've been a twink magnet for years. I picked up the waiter at a restaurant in Indianapolis just a couple of weeks ago, and last week I picked up a guy at the campus food court.

But this was different.

1. In the straight world, no one cruises at the gym, except for little kids who haven't learned the norms yet.  Some of the guys are homophobic, and will respond with violent rage.  You check out biceps and bulges with very brief, nonchalant glances, and never make eye contact with someone you don't know.  I rarely pick up guys at straight world gyms.

2. It was at the YMCA, not the campus gym.  Very few college students go there.  The cardio center is occupied primarily by older men, the free weight room by serious bodybuilders and an occasional group of giggling high school boys.

This was a twink.  Around 20, cute, with a long face and sharp features.  Wearing a red baseball cap, so I couldn't see his hair.  Too far away to see his physique.

On an exercise bicycle that faced the weight machines, staring at me while I did incline presses.  Smiling.

At me, or in my general direction?

One way to find out: the preacher curl was the only other machine that faced the exercise bikes.  It wasn't nearly time for biceps, and I don't use the preacher curl, but I sat and did a few sets.

I have nice biceps, but you can't tell from a distance.

But the twink kept smiling at me.

There were half a dozen buffed older men in the weight machine room.  Why me?

I went back to the free weight room, did three set of butterflies and some ab crunches, and returned.

The twink had finished his cardio and was on incline press machine.  I chose another incline press a few feet away.  Both looked directly at a mirror.

He was wearing one of those slit-side t-shirts.  Pale skin, pinprick nipples, tight but not muscular -- I could see his ribs, and some tattoo writing on his chest.  He was lifting only 130 pounds (I do 270).

Smiling at me.

I looked away, flustered.

How could I concentrate on my weight training with this kid gaping at me like a lovesick puppy dog?

Was he mentally unbalanced?  High?

I returned to the free weight room, did some tricep pushdowns, and grinned like an idiot at the high school kid struggling with his shoulder press across from me.

He smiled shyly and looked away.

That's the way you're supposed to do it!

Back to the weight machine room.  The twink was sitting on a leg press machine, his cell phone in his hand.  He looked up and smiled.

He didn't speak, but kept smiling, his eyes followed me all the way across the room to the drinking fountain, and then all the way back.

I rushed back into the free weight room and hid there for half an hour.  When I returned, the twink was on an exercise bike again, this one facing away from the weight machine room.

There was only one way out into the lobby, except an emergency exit -- you had to go past him. But at least he wouldn't see me until it was too late to smile like an idiot.

Or not -- the moment I rushed past, I heard a "Hi!"

I turned.  "Sorry, have we met?  I'm not too good with faces."

 "No, I'm not from here," he said, smiling.  "I'm in town visiting my Dad."

"Where are you from?"

"San Francisco.  Well, Berkeley.  My Mom is a professor, but I just work for Verizon."

That explains why he didn't know the rules of straight-world cruising!  

We ended up at the gay-friendly coffee house, and then at my apartment, where I went down on the twink -- his name was Cade.  Average sized but very hard, very big spurt.   Then he threw his legs in the air, but I pushed him down and topped him in the interfemoral position.   We washed off, and then he tried interfemoral with me.

"I loved San Francisco," I told him as we lay in bed afterwards.  "It's Gay Heaven."

"It's nice -- lots of hot guys around.  But the competition is fierce.  I can never meet anybody."

"You need a gimmick," I told him.

"Here on the Plains, it's easy -- all I have to do is smile, and they line up.  You're the third guy I hooked up with at the gym this week."

Maybe I should start smiling at guys at the gym.

See also: My Ex-Student Naked at the Gym.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Fred to Fred's First Lover

They say that everyone on Earth is connected to each other by, at most, six degrees of separation, networks of "a friend of a friend of a friend."  That's especially true in the gay world, where men move from gay neighborhood to gay neighborhood, seeing the same faces, seeking the same hangouts.

So look carefully at your next date or hookup: chances are you, or someone you know, has been with him before.  If you dig deeply enough into the histories of your lovers, you will run into your ex lovers there, a chain of emotional and erotic experiences that extends back through history.

1. Fred, my first boyfriend, We met in December 1979, during my sophomore year in college, when he was a 28-year old intern at the United Methodist Church in Rock Island.  We dated for a few months, lived together during a disastrous summer in Omaha, and then stayed friends for the next thirty years.

2. Matt. While working as a mental health counselor in Kansas City in May 1987,  Fred met Matt, a recent graduate of Harvard University, snobby, elitist, and crazy, with the habit of talking constantly during sex, in three languages.  "Oh, mon etalon...nearly there..soon, soon...ich werde kommen...."  They stayed together for ten years, in Claremont, California, then San Bernardino, then Fresno, breaking up in the fall of 1996.  Then Matt moved to San Francisco and started a housekeeping service.

















3. Seth.  A graduate student in chemistry, later a chemist, who taught a horribly heterosexist lab section, before Kevin the Vampire and I convinced him to lay off.  And hook up with us.

Seth dated Kevin after we broke up, and then moved on to Matt.

That's right, the ex-boyfriend of my ex-boyfriend dated the ex-boyfriend of my ex-boyfriend.

4. Fangorn.   In 2009, Seth moved to Santa Rosa for a job and met Fangorn (named after the forest), a white-bearded nature boy, pagan, and fan of The Lord of the Rings.  He had a farm near Santa Rosa, where he grew mostly onions (and marijuana).

I don't know what the eminently empirical scientist saw in the aging hippie, except maybe his Kielbasa beneath the belt.  But they were together for a couple of years.

5. Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky.  Back in the 1970s, when Fangorn was a Cute Young Thing named Dennis, he enrolled in the Naropa Institute in Colorado.  He and Beat poet Ginsberg and his partner Peter Orlovsky enjoyed romping about in the nude.










6. Justin.  In the late 1950s, when Peter Orlovsky was a student at Columbia University, he dated a young Classics major named Justin.  Who went on to graduate study at Harvard, got his Ph.D., and for some reason chose to teach in the Midwest, Knox College.

7. Fred.  Where, twenty years later, with a beard and a belly, he taught -- and dated -- the theology student who would become my first lover.

See also: Fred's Nine Lovers; The Blue Power Ranger Dates Fred and Matt

Nude Photos of Prince Harry

Prince Harry (1984-), the younger son of Prince Charles and fifth in the line of succession to the British crown, has been raising eyebrows for years for his wild and crazy exploits, his aggressive gay-friendliness, and his physique.

Especially his physique.

Here are 10 photos of Prince Harry that you have to see.

1. This poster advertising London's Manbar, which has since closed.  That's not Harry's actual physique however.

2.  This is.  Smooth chest, nice hands and biceps, a little belly.

3.  Wait -- where did he get the six-pack?

4. And the chest hair?

5. And the bulge?

6. This photo was taken about ten years ago.  Ever since, every gay man in the world has been trying to figure out what else it could be.

It's nowhere near his pocket, and it doesn't look like a stray fabric flap.














7.  TMZ leaked this "candid" photo of Harry and his girlfriend frolicking in Bermuda. Odd that he chose that moment to cover up.

8. From DNA magazine.

9. Apparently Harry is into butts.

10.  I can't resist a photo of a cute guy with a puppy.

See also: Prince Charles is Gay.