Pushed Crush.

Scottie follows his crush, or is pushed that way by his friends, whichever way you chose to look at it ….

“My friends, quick to ensure that my awkward suffering wouldn’t stop there, convinced me to go to the nightclub that he said he’d be in. I should’ve decided not to, but I’ve never been good at playing it cool.”

Crushed Crush?

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie has a crush, and it makes him blether, possibly in another language …

“I’m not exactly a Picasso painting, I think to myself, but I’m hardly a Mona Lisa either; why would he want to see me?”

There To Be Broken?

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie assesses his rules of dating, at least one of which brands him a prude on the gay scene, and how it took a megadate to break almost all of them.

“Experienced in the lottery of first impressions, I keep a brave face and an upbeat tone, wondering how on earth this was going to turn out. “

The Perfect Man?

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie is caught out by the idea of the perfect man, which then falls down between first impressions and the eventual truth.

“Had we been a few months into the relationship, I might have let him have a bit of a moody strop, but when it’s only weeks into it – no thanks.”

Protecting the Innocent.

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie wonders about the responsibility of ‘the other man’ when he sleeps with someone who is in a relationship that is supposed to be monogamous.

“I couldn’t condone my friend’s actions or attitude, but for some reason, I didn’t feel the need to scold him either. Maybe it was because I hoped that his conscience would take over once he made his confession to me.”

Unfounded Fears About Bisexuality.

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie considers the prejudice against bisexual men in the wake of a friend’s dating troubles.

“They’re not really ‘social’ issues, but just misconceptions – besides, since when were gay men the shining examples of fidelity and monogamy?”

The Post Break-up Rules.

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie gets a taste of his own medicine from an ex of many years ago.

“I started to bump into him again. He’d still ‘blank’ me, walking past me as if I were a complete stranger. It made sense to me when we first broke up, but I was beginning to think it was getting petty.”

After Coffee Text.

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie gets into a text exchange Coffee Guy, the one he randomly gave his number to, which is not all he hoped it would be.

“Despite a bit of eye contact, I couldn’t have been completely certain that he was gay, but I took the risk nonetheless. Now, I was completely giddy, like a kid who was just given the world’s biggest lollipop.”

Rom-Coms and Coffee.

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie catches up on the genre he used to love, the rom-com, and decides that his tastes should be redefined.

“All three were just as cheesy as you’d expect, with endings that you could predict from the opening credits. Still, I found myself going all teary-eyed and gasping at all the right moments, totally lost in the flawed-but-sweet plot of each one.”

Venue and Nationality Confusion.

Gay Relationship Column. Scottie find his very identity challenged when he meets a girl in a gay bar.

“Once she heard my Irish accent, her eyes lit up, telling me how much she loved Ireland and that her ex-boyfriend was from Donegal.”