It takes all sorts ....
By Emma Pomfret
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Queer Guy for the Straight Gal
Who better to give you a no-holds-barred glimpse into the male psyche than Match.com's gay columnist Dave Singleton? The author of Behind Every Great Woman There's A Fabulous Gay Man explains why every girl needs a gay best friend, how to bypass losers, and why you must avoid turning into your mother at all costs.
Who can a woman turn to when she's at the end of her tether after disastrous coffee dates with every loser within a 100-mile radius?
Or when the guy she's dating is just not that into her, so she needs a strong hand to pull her away from the torment and into a fabulous, sexy frock?
"A smart woman turns to the one person in the world she can trust completely - her gay best friend," explains Dave Singleton, Match.com columnist and flamboyant author of Behind Every Great Woman There's A Fabulous Gay Man (pictured below).
"Just ask Liz Hurley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Roberts, Madonna, and thousands of women across the UK. They're on the phone with Rupert Everett, Elton John - or me," he laughs.
"Do you have a gay boyfriend? I don't mean the closeted kind who surprises Liza Minnelli every few years," continues Singleton, who describes himself as being the 'Will' to several 'Graces' in his life for the past 20 years.
"No, my kind of gay boyfriend is the guy who gives you a valuable male perspective on life and love without pretence, agenda, or endless ogling of your breasts."
In fact, Singleton has even developed a watertight theory on the gay man/straight woman dynamic: while most relationships have some sort of agenda attached, gay boyfriends are neither brother nor husband, boyfriend, dad, or girlfriend.
"These days, we're consultant, confidante, non-judgmental, not competitive with women, empowering, and funny," he says.
"The relationship between gay men and straight women is an agendaless friendship that's bigger than friendship, steadier than romance, and responsible like family."
What men really think about
As someone who is far more intimate with the male psyche than the vast majority of your girlfriends, Singleton believes that it's his sworn duty to reveal what men really think about when they don't think there's anyone else around.
When he talks about his dates they don't mean much. "Guys are full of bravado - there's talk of games won, worlds conquered, envy of Hugh Hefner's sextuplets and hot girls on the street who lust after them. And when it comes to sex and playing the field, guys love to talk about quantity," Singleton explains. "If they bring up specific girls, chances are they're playing around. Guys don't talk about the girl they want as a wife and mother to their kids, but they laugh and joke about the loose girl at the bar who's kind of slutty and fun," he warns.
Please, no more 'Am I fat?' questions. "Of course questions like, 'Does my butt look fat in this?' have less to do with whether you've gained weight than they do with confidence," Singleton says. "Guys like confident women - lack of confidence is a big turn-off. Look around, guys are hot for girls with luscious, full and adult female bodies, as opposed to the waif ideal espoused by fashion magazines. Staying in shape is important, but learn to like your curves," he advises.
Men smell desperation like dogs smell fear. "Guys hate the desperate, clingy thing. It's especially grating early on in a relationship. Without getting too Freudian, if a woman is that desperate, it means she wants a man, any man. It's deeply unflattering to a straight man to think a woman sees him only as a straight man, not a real person. Of course, he'd never articulate that to you. Are you kidding?"
They don't have the venting thing down at all. "You'd think straight guys would learn that women need to vent about problems and not get them fixed. Sorry, they're not there yet!" Singleton says. "I know, I know. You've told me a million times. Women want their guy to listen, so why does the guy insist on giving advice if he's not really listening?"
Singleton's most fabulous tips
Focus on the repetitive, fatal dating flaw that's ruining your love life. "Reviewing the chronology of a woman's dating life, it's rare that I've encountered a sequence of unrelated dating disasters," Singleton smiles. "There's usually one trait in particular that sinks the love boat every time, so I give clear-cut advice on how to isolate the deadly trait and chart a course of correction before it's too late."
Stop overestimating a guy's intentions. "I hate to see women waste time on the endless debate about men's intentions," Singleton says. "Cut your worry in half by remembering this fact - women overestimate the evil of men's motives. You think straight men are acting awful when in fact they are just clueless! Women blame themselves, take it personally and then waste time plotting revenge."
Never stalk him after a date. Know the difference between a sunny follow-up email after a first date and a three-page email to the poor lug at his office the morning after, Singleton advises. "When you feel the breathless urge to write such a treatise, pouring out your heart and soul, call me so I can yank your internet line out of its jack! Keep post-date emails short and simple so that you don't risk annoying the guy and/or revealing too much too soon."
For every new first date, there must be a back-up. "It's time for women to embrace the numbers aspect of dating like gay men do. Treat it less personally and more like gambling in Vegas - when the right one comes along you'll know it," Singleton says. "It doesn't matter if you trawl the internet and drag some loser from a chatroom out to Starbucks for an hour - you have to have a back-up date for every date you agree to go on so that you don't put all your eggs in one basket."
Behind Every Great Woman There Is A Fabulous Gay Man: Dating Advice From A Guy Who Gives It To You Straight, by Dave Singleton, is published by Corgi Adult, priced £7.99. Available April 2 - order it now from Amazon.
