Dear Sugar,
I am a bachelor in my early 30s. I don’t share an apartment with a female because of my high moral standards, and I am not yet ready for marriage. When I used to share an apartment with another bachelor, people assumed that we were gay.
I now have a very nice place of my own. However, if I have bachelor friends over, I am still perceived as being gay. And if I entertain a female friend, people say I am bisexual. (I just can’t seem to win!) Why is it that a single man cannot have friends over for a simple card game or to watch TV without people thinking there’s something sexual going on?
I am straight, and I am sick of all this ugly talk. What can I do to stop this vicious gossip?
Gaylord Perry
Gaylord!
It’s hard for me to respond to someone with “high moral standards.” The last person I encountered with “high moral standards” was a Mormon missionary. There were two of them, actually, and I sucked them both off. But – crucially – they didn’t suck each other off. As I understand it, that would have been a violation of Church Doctrine.
Where were we?
Ah yes, you’re gay.
Oh, wait a second. You’re NOT gay. Really really NOT NOT NOT gay. Got it.
But people keep thinking you’re gay because you have friends over to watch gay porn TV and play strip poker. Is this what you’re telling me? If so, I have no earthly clue why these “people” perceive you as gay. They sound like unreliable bigots who target sexually insecure card players.
In other words, it sounds like something you should totally worry about. “People” are constantly referring to me as a “washed up hack with slut issues” even though I don’t even play cards. And I make it a point to worry about this constantly and to spend all my free time with them. Except when I’m sucking nubile Mormon pipe. There’s just no winning with “people” is my point. How the fuck they ever got that magazine off the ground baffles me.
Hello Sugar,
Here is my question: just got divorced. The bad news, I’m 45, and got a couple kids. The good news: I’m in great shape, no beer gut or love handles, have all my hair, all my teeth and my professional-level job. So what do you think are the youngest women I can honestly try to talk up without looking like some child molester or being laughed off e-harmony? Obviously the 18-21 crowd is off limits but what is the rule? Ten years?
E Brown
Dear E,
If you can find a 22-year-old on e-harmony who’s prepared to serve as a stepmother for your children and monitor your cholesterol levels, I see no reason for you not to make that incredibly stupid decision. Isn’t that what e-harmony is for in the first place? (Do I sound bitter about e-harmony? I’m just tired of people using the Almighty to pimp a dating service. It’s demeaning to the seediness of on-line matchmaking.)
Here’s what I’m thinking, E: the way you describe yourself makes me think of Kevin Spacey in that movie American Beauty. It may be that you got married young and never had a chance to go through your idiot oat-sowing twenties, in which case, uh, okay, flex those abs and find a sociology major who thinks it’s super-cool that you have a “professional-level” job.
But here’s the thing: I don’t want to think about Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. Actually, I don’t want to think about Kevin Spacey ever. I want to think about the guy who considers it good news that he has two kids and that he’s a little older and that he’s survived a divorce without losing hope and that he’s emerged from that failure determined to stop primping and chasing young thangs because he gets how sad and empty that game is. So if you’re actually that guy, E, fuck me already. I’ve got a beer gut, but I can pass for 45 from behind.
