Editor’s Note: This is Patrick’s first column at QueerVoice.net. He will be writing a new column each week dealing with gay sex and love. Welcome Patrick!

By Patrick Clines
Patrick@queervoice.net

So there I was, alone in my bedroom, laptop resting on my stomach, searching for Mr. Right. Nothing happened, like always. It seems like the more you search online for something real and meaningful the more the reality of the situation appears. As a post-modern gay man it’s frustrating that the only sanctuary in the name of intimacy is worshiped with the clicking of keys and trading of illicit photos, snapped in the bathrooms with your pants down.

I use the words ‘post-modern gay man’ to put a label on what is going on now with our culture. The more we look for intimacy on the tubes (the inter-tubes that run from my house to yours and carry all the information, Al Gore made them) the more we become more disconnected with what is really out there. I must confess that I have fought in the trenches of Manhunt, Gay.com, and a sundry of other sites that cater to more varied appetites. These are websites that deliver exactly what they promise, a few hours of wasted time. I have known friends to find wonderful boyfriends on so-called dating sites (they’re actually for tricking, we all know this).

I have even found a few downtrodden souls in search of nourishment and let them suckle at the teat that is my wonderful personality and demeanor. Kidding. But I have gotten a few really good dates, and even wonderful relationships, sexual or purely platonic.

I remember the days of AOL chat rooms, where all you needed to get dick was a dial up modem and a sundry of lubricants. The adventure of it, it truly appeals to men. We get the search, the delicate conversation that evolves from ‘stats’ to ‘on my way over’, the pornography fix that we save in secret folders kept way back next to dissertations and kitten pictures. At my peak I was pulling a good trick a week, I had a bet going with a dorm neighbor, he won. Not for my lack of trying, his penis was the size of an Aquanet can.

It was a simple ‘hi’, pic exchange, and then the evening was set in motion to bring mischief, danger, and hopefully lubricated intimacy with some guy that could only be later identified by his screen name when I recalled the story with friends.
It was hot.
It was also very dangerous.
And I’m not talking about the kind of danger that involved guns or Republicans.

Real danger, like STD’s and the endless cycle of searching for something you don’t even know you’re looking for. We search for that bond, that little glimmer that someone will hold us when it’s snowing, without a screen name.

But it gets so old. The further a gay man moves away from urban life the less selection of actual gentlemen come our way. We have to rely on friends to set us up with their friends. I once met a guy in a library, he had a huge penis, it lasted 8 months.

So why not just be single and stay off the tubes. Because it’s damn hard. Most of the time I’m not even looking for anything.

Just browsing.

Like everyone else.