Queercents

Planet Out has a rather fun writeup on common gay dating myths. My favorite is here:

2. If you pay for dinner, you should get sex. Unless you are dating an escort, sex does not come with the meal. A date is an opportunity to get to know each other and see if there is chemistry. Paying for dinner doesn’t even guarantee you a second date.

I would also add that unless the dinner is over $100, you’re selling yourself for less than street value. The article also has some good advice about a lot of other common misconceptions such as making the first move and the three day calling rule. (When will it die??)

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Mike created Broken Cupid, a dating blog for single gay guys. He no longer updates it, but the archives are located here.

Photo credit: stock.xchng.

For those of you who don’t know, eHarmony has come under a lot of pressure in the last year, both from Chemistry.com advertising and lawsuits, because the company does not provide services to gays and lesbians. While it’s clear that the matrimony-centered dating service has strong Christian roots, their stated reason for not accepting gay money has always been that their matching system was based on heterosexual relationships.

eHarmony labs are constantly studying relationships and compatibility to tune their questionnaire which determines a whopping twenty nine dimensions of compatibility. Whether you believe computers can predict love or not, eHarmony boasts almost 200 marriages a day. The success of their model has inspired variations, like Chemistry (a Match.com company) and gay versions like MyPartner.com.

While eHarmony pursued business in markets as diverse as China and India, they never seemed very motivated to invest in expansion into the lucrative gay markets. When you consider that gays are one of the most prolific users of online dating services, the old standby of “we don’t have any data on gays” smelled of a lame excuse. After all, how hard would it be for one of the largest and most successful dating sites in the world to get data when you’re pretty much guaranteed a return on investment?

Now, under the terms of their settlement they have until March 31st to provide service to gays and lesbians in search of love. So, can we expect to see a revolutionary service that changes the way gay life partners discover each other? Read the rest of this entry »

If I had fifty bucks for every coffee date I went on, I’d be rich. Well, my wishes have been answered by this “revolutionary” new dating site. This one screens serious daters by only allowing them contact if they pay you a minimum fee to date you.

I like the idea of merging the seriousness factor (the biggest appeal of dating sites) with an ad hoc purchase plan. That way you know someone is serious but you don’t pay a monthly fee for a service you don’t use. But giving the money to the site’s users and having it start at fifty bucks seems like they want to offer more than coffee if you get my drift.

It gets dodgier. You have to make an account to search and in my experience that never ends well. Once you sign up, you’re presented with a standard pay-to-play site that’s feature restricted to anyone who isn’t a gold member. Wait–I thought I was getting paid for this. Oh and then there’s that: everyone on the site has to set a price before they can even look at other members. If we’re all for sale, who pays whom? Oooh that sounded deep. Read the rest of this entry »

I worry about my parents’ retirement plans and future medical care. As I’ve gotten older and more involved in the personal finance community, the prospect of my own retirement has come up more and more. I find I’m faced with the possibility of having to care for four elderly people. A little background: I’m 32; my parents were both divorced and subsequently remarried when I was 10. There are no step siblings.

My half-sister is fifteen years younger and I’m not sure she’ll be in a financial position to provide assistance when its needed. The good news is that my dad’s financially stable and already in a comfortable retirement. My mom, not so much—she’s self-employed, smokes and has no health insurance. I thought I’d collect some insight and wisdom from QC readers on this issue.

Is it okay to criticize your parents for not being financially responsible? Clearly I wouldn’t tell a friend or stranger how to manage their money unless they asked me or were reading my thoughts within the contents of a blog. But if their savings decisions have a long term impact on me then it seems like I should have some input.

For now whenever I get a birthday check from my mom I slip in into a CD. Read the rest of this entry »

My friend recently had extensive liposuction done and it’s been fascinating to see people’s reactions. At first some find it a bit comical, or at the very least, superficial. However the immediate follow up reaction is: “Did it work and how much did it cost”

Over the years my opinion on liposuction has shifted somewhat. At first I’d always thought liposuction is one of those places in American culture where “too rich” meets “too thin”. However after suffering through several friends’ vicarious diets and disappointments I’m starting to come around. After all, I’ve never had to work at being thin—why should I judge other people for how much effort they put into it?

If the ends truly justify the means then I will say this: My friend looks much thinner. His chest is flat for the first time ever and he’s happy. He confided that he wished he’d done it fifteen years ago. Of course, at the time of writing his chest is wrapped in a compression garment and hides some fairly hideous bruises—not the kind of thing you can run out and flaunt at the club. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve always found bars socially frustrating. Unlike clubs where you can go dance, there’s not much to do at a bar if you don’t know people and are of a shy disposition.

My friend offered a great, if expensive, way to pick up guys at a bar. If you see some cute guys at a bar, buy a round for everyone. The problem with the direct approach at bars is that of you face rejection and go back to your spot it can look like you’re working your way down the line.

The drink makes you seem generous and gives you something to connect with guys over while not seeming like you’re buying him a drink specifically. Unless I happen to be really low on cash and already well into a binge, I chafe at guys who offer to buy me drinks. I’d rather not feel like I owe anyone. But, if I’m caught in an area effect, then why not enjoy it? Read the rest of this entry »

When I switched from a cruddy old Dodge Neon to my fabulous new Toyota Corolla I was intent on keeping my insurance provider, Progressive. Their customer service was excellent and dealing with them as a company was always pleasant. I paid around $500 a year and thought that was reasonable. However when they found out about the new car my rate skyrocketed to 700 bucks for six months!!!

Progressive’s mistake was that they got greedy. Here are five tips to consider when thinking about Insurance:

You could probably be paying less.

Insurance coverage goes down over time with a clean driving record, but very few companies adjust for that. The advent of the Internet has increased competition between insurance brokers as well so if you’re going by prices you got before 2000 you could really be saving a lot of money. Read the rest of this entry »

When I used to work in customer service it always used to amaze me when people on the phone would walk out to their cars to get their credit cards. These same people were invariably the ones who were calling in to change their number because their last ones were stolen. While it’s easy to chuckle at sometimes obvious mistakes, I recently left my American Express at a McDonalds drive through.

D’oh!

Someone was kind enough to notify me that my card had been stolen by charging $45 worth of gas. This is the second time I’ve had this happen and Bank of America has been (mostly) good about handling it. It’s a big pain in the butt to deal with but I’ve put together some tips and thoughts on how to minimize the impact of credit card theft or even human error.

Read the fine print.

Read the rest of this entry »

My first time buying a car was absolute hell. I came on the used car lot to pick up a Toyota and left with a 2000 Dodge Neon, which later became known as the Dodge Death Trap. It was the first car I ever bought with my own credit (such as it was). It was a mostly reliable car, until I finally paid it off by transferring the last of my 14% interest loan to a 0% credit card.

It overheated. Not too badly at first, then just on hot days… or when it rained … or in traffic. The solution was always to pour more coolant into its insatiably hungry engine and keep an eye on the temp. Taking it in to Jiffy Lube for a coolant flush seemed to work for a little while. I put the car in neutral at stop lights and when it got hot vented the heat through floorboards of my car. In the summer.

Finally in 2007, as it was warming up, I’d had enough. Repair was one option but I’d had the car for five years and truthfully hated driving it. Automobile repair is worse than the dentist for me and once a car really starts to break I don’t feel safe driving it. It was time to buy a car. Read the rest of this entry »

There are essentially two kinds of financial dilemmas: happy and unhappy. Unhappy dilemmas are the ones where you have to decide which credit cards you aren’t going to pay so you can keep electricity on in the middle of winter. There are also dilemmas that we still agonize over even though they’re a result of a good situation. An example would be choosing between a driving tour of Tuscany or a cruise to Mykonos.

My happy dilemma came with the tentative decision to purchase an iTouch, a portable wifi device that runs about $300. It’s apparently also some sort of iPod, but who cares? I love the idea that I can access the net anywhere there’s wifi, especially for my upcoming trip to Los Angeles. I intend to eat at some of the newly rated Michelin star restaurants before hitting wine country.

I easily snagged seats at Urasawa, a three-star sushi restaurant. A single Michelin star is considered a great honor, while three set the global standard of excellence. The meal is “exquisite” raves the Gayot reviewer—gold leaf flaked tofu as a starter and sushi so delicate it must be eaten within ten seconds lest the rice warm the fish beyond its optimal temperature for consumption. And it’s one of the only places in the US licensed to serve blowfish; mmmmm sweet, deadly blowfish.

But it comes with a price… about $275 for a single person, without alcohol, tip or tax. Even for a three-star, that’s a lot of clams. My platonic life partner, Russell, normally handles the financials but he recently returned from Europe and felt it out of budget… unless I was willing to pay my own way.

Read the rest of this entry »