The Offical Skout Blog — Love Geek

I moved to the political, foggy bubble of San Francisco from a very small conservative farming town to finish college.  

Although an hour away from Los Angeles, my hometown was nevertheless a cesspool of  broken dreams and broken families.  Tract homes clung mercilessly onto the brown, jagged hills of lesser fault lines.  Death could  be as quick as an earthquake away, or at a snail’s pace, by drying up in the sub-saharan sun.  I imagined the distant, howling coyotes would tear my life’s remains if I stayed too long after I turned 18.  Dramatic much?  Nahhhh. Not me.  

 The conservative elders of our community muffled many opportunities for cultural expression, ethnic diversity, and most likely, possible friendships with neighbors and peers.  I’m not saying that all conservative-minded communities are like this; this is purely my own observation from my upbringing.  Consequently, as I grew into adulthood, I chose to flee from the conservative grasp of my farm town to a city with a pulse - one that celebrates and much as it protests.  

Now, being politically left of center, I adamantly profess that I will never date a Republican - and I will never date anyone who is anti-gay marriage.  Sure, I’ve got old friends who fall into either or both of the aforementioned categories, but to willingly go on a date with a conservative would mean my big liberal-minded mouth will not be able to keep from turning the “date” to “debate”.  Who wants to be that kind of date?

 Not even a one night stand with a Republican could make me hate myself more than becoming a “Debate Date”.   I’d be known as “Debate Girl” or worse.  Ugh.  If he’s remotely attractive, I’d rather stick to “flavors of ice cream” and “Archie proposes to Veronica” sort of topics, please?  Otherwise, I might just cry into my dessert.

As a city dweller, I can see how the concrete jungle can distract the lonely single. We bust our asses during the 60 weekday to make rent, and of course a few splurges that come from living in a city with so many tempting options to blow your money on.  The mélange of aromas pouring out from the neighborhood eateries, the sorbet-colored assortment of vintage summer dresses hanging from colorful bay windows, the eye candy prospects around every breezy corner are the city’s love ballads to the single girl.  

My first love was Fillmore street when I first unpacked my small town assortments into my new-to-me San Francisco victorian.  You could say my actual relationship I brought up from my small town deteriorated quickly under my blind enchantment of San Francisco.  

And the night time presents itself with another set of distractions:  The bustling heaps of restless bodies, all vying for the attention of the same bartender, live music teeming into the bustling night air.  Even in this economy, the pulse of the city has not been muffled.  You can say in some ways, San Francisco is recession proof, but is it also relationship proof as well?  With the insatiable wonder of plunging into an unwritten novel, a small town gal, me, was lured from the stability of a long-term relationship into the first chapter of my romance with San Francisco.  

With so many wonderful distractions, for some, San Francisco is like Pinnochio’s never-ending romp in Treasure Island - fun, if you don’t stay too long.  Are urban areas the metaphorical graveyard for relationships?  

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The moment is upon us:  Skout will be releasing our exciting new Gay iphone app, “Boy Ahoy!” at Gay Day at Great America on May 22nd!  Join the Skout team from 5pm to 2AM as we meet the Bay Area’s hottest single gay men, dance to the live music of legendary frontman Andy Bell of Erasure and internationally renowned DJ’s The Perry Twins, cheer on the mischievous drag-queen antics of Heklina and put American Idol to shame with your Karaoke skills on our karaoke stage! 

Appease your inner attention whore by uploading pictures of you and your friends at Gay Day on our Skout Screens through your iphone! By documenting your Gay Day fun through your pictures and putting yourself on our Gaydar, Skout will award our prolific picture-posters with our hot Skout Tank Tops!  Look for the Skout team to find out how you can join in on the fun.  We’ll be sharing a tent with our partners, Energy 92.7.  Tickets are $50 per person, or $40 per person if you are purchasing in group of 15 or more.  Please check out the Gay Day links to see more information and read up on all of the wonderful sponsors joining together for this event.  

And kids, remember, Great America’s rides may end at midnight but Skout will be going strong until 2am!  See you there!

Mona from “Who’s the Boss?” Blanche Devereaux.  Samantha Jones.  These were the single, older, “warmer” women of television history.  These were unapologetically sexy, seasoned women who weren’t afraid to be sensual, and still act their age. Leaving a boyfriend in a room alone with these women is like leaving a bag of Meth and an underaged model in Mickey Rourke’s trailer.  No one would ever do that without fully being aware of the consequences.

My girlfriends and gay male friends revere these female characters and my straight male friends only vaguely know who I’m talking about.  The funny thing is, if I met these women in real life, their pedestal status would be knocked down a few notches.  Why? Because these women wield 20 years of sexual experience, and therefore, heaps of confidence over my young, awkward self.  It’s the self assured look in their seen-it-all eyes. It’s the absence of the fear of rejection.  These concepts are still a little alien to me.  Competing with a cougar for a young male’s attention would be like competing with a drag queen.  We are just 2 different animals somehow thrown in the same dating arena.  It’s a strange circus of sorts, very fun to watch from as a spectator, awkward for the poor younger female to be roped into. Trust me.  I know. 

It’s a paradoxical fear and wonder of mine, whether or not I will be a Mona, Blanche or Samantha when I cross the threshold into ripe old womanhood.  The older, sexier, single character of Samantha Jones is much more vibrant and intriguing to watch than say, the Gossip Girl characters, or Heidi from The Hills.  Those young fawns are lunch meat for cougars.  I’m just sayin…

You know what?  I wanna be Samantha Jones at 30 and 40.  I see the advantages to being a hot older cougar.  But I want my cake and eat it too.  I recoil when I think of being single and childless in my late 50’s.  But it happens.  All the time. Cultural values of the nuclear (or as Sarah Palin says, nucular) family abound in my rigid mind.  Gasp!  What’s fun and sexy?  Being single and living life at 50, or ready with a rigid life plan at 25, like me?

What a better way to launch our upcoming Gay Skout iphone application than to celebrate with a Skout Out in The Castro?  We want all of the beautiful boys of Skout to come out and celebrate with us at The Lookout this Wednesday at 7pm!   

If you don’t already know, our Skout Out events are where Skout singles can meet, mingle, and have a cocktail. Join thousands of singles and sign up to Skout.com to get the scoop. Wear our Skout shirt to future Skout Outs and get one free drink! Another way to win a free shirt is to upload your pictures onto the Skout Screen. We’ll be awarding the skouter with the most iphone picture uploads to our Skout Screen one of our limited edition sexy tank tops (pictures of these to come) as well as FREE TICKETS to Gay Day at Great America!  If any of you handsome men have already won a Skout shirt at our previous events, feel free to wear it to our Gay Skout Out this Wednesday for a drink on us!

Know why else you should come?  We’ll be giving away free tickets to May 22nd’s event Gay Day at Great America!  

Skout and Energy 92.7 proudly join forces once again to bring together our gay community for an exciting night of music, thrills, and hot boys.  Come celebrate Skout’s Coming Out party this Wednesday at The Lookout and May 22nd at Great America. We want your support!

I resent the term “Cougar,” but not at first.  

I learned it from my ex-boyfriend.  He worked in a predominately male, hedge -fundy boutique office which gonads outnumbered the fallopian tube 10-1.  From second-hand knowledge, I heard enough comical material to fill 3 seasons for an entourage-like HBO series. The boys were pretty tight-knit.  It’s been a few years, a more than a few drinks for me so the stories are fuzzy, but during this relationship is when I first heard the “C” word.  Cougar!

Living in Marin and touring the few bars there, I garnered field expertise on the profundity of this word.  To my amusement, I even called bar hopping in the 5 bars in Marin County Cougar Watching.  And of course, the above 40 and wealthy population far outnumbered the younger crowd, so it was amusing to watch an occasional alcohol-fueled spectacle of The Hookup.  

It was all fun and games until I tried to come up with an equally comical name for the elderly single gentlemen that, throughout human history, have ritually preyed on younger female counterparts. And that’s when I realized I couldn’t think of anything that stuck.  Panther?  Puma? Leopard?  It’s just not as funny!  And that’s when I began resenting the C word.  I mean, I’m all for agism, but sexism is where I draw the line.  Not. Funny. Anymore.  

So this brings me to my question:  Why is sexuality in women viewed as comical and unnatural and in men, expected?  Let’s touch up on this subject next time, shall we?  Also, I want to discuss “How Old is Too Old?” for both sexes.  Next time.

Ingredients:

3 parts east-coast assertiveness 

2 parts artistic sensibility

3 parts compassion

4 parts emotional intelligence.

4 parts symmetry of body parts and features

3 parts financial literacy

Mix ingredients in a bowl, pour into a nice-looking mold, and let it sit for 30 or more years…  

Then yummo!  (Yeah, I went there).  Now, that’s how you make catch of the century man-gumbo.  

Did I just reduce the male species into a Rachel Ray recipe?  Shoot me.  

On my last blog, I was discussing the issue of what men and women look for in a partner, and came to the conclusion that everyone is essentially bat-shit crazy to compile a wish list when it comes to long-term attraction to another human being.  But we do it anyway. All the time, everyday. I’ll admit that I’m guilty of this.  I know within 5 minutes of meeting a guy whether or not I am attracted to him. And it’s not just in his features.  It’s the body language, the way he orders a drink from the bartender, the way he interacts with me, the steady or unsteady look in his eyes (I call them cRaZy EyeS!), the steadiness of his breath, whether his body is shifted towards me or away from me when he’s speaking, and how often he faces the Mecca.  

I’m just kidding about the last part.  

And, I wish I was kidding about the other parts, as I am afraid that list will probably come back to bite me in the ass, but that’s what we do, don’t we?  Perhaps females do it a little more than straight males.  Perhaps we all do this more and more with age.

And I should add that a lot of this is subconscious.  Some people are more intuitive, meaning, they pick up on body language quicker than others, while the rest simply don’t care as much, as random play for them is a whole lot funner.  Nothing wrong with that.

But for the rest of us, now it’s not just about finding the right person with the right amount of the right ingredients, it’s also how quickly you can find this person, and not waste your time on the wrong person, is it?  

Hmmm.  It depends on whether or not you can have fun with the wrong person.  

I’m a bit of a prude.  I hate regrets, and I always abstain from buying things, saying things, and humping things that I will later regret.  It’s just written in my DNA. I know, I’m no fun.  I live vicariously enough through my “fun” friends”.  And my friends are fun.  Oh, boy are they fun!  Am I teasing?  Maybe.  Did I add “sense of humor” to the list?

Like a long novel, the list is always being edited, evolving, written on top of White Out.  My list is faded, has coffee stains, and notes between the margins. Ah, life.

For those few hundred of you who attended Thursday and Friday night’s shows presented by Energy 92.7 and Skout at the Mezzanine in SF, the Skout team had a wonderful time meeting our Skouters, old and new!  Please  welcome all of the new Skouters who signed up to Skout on their iphone. We are excited to see fresh new faces to our site, and hope to make being single a little more fun.  

Special thanks are in order for Groove Armada, who welcomed the Skout team for some backstage fun!  There was no doubt that Groove Armada rocked the house! You can check out some of our backstage antics here. Also, we would like to thank The Presets for putting on a fantastic, danceable show on Thursday night.  

We love being a part of the positive energy and see the beautiful Skout faces that graced 7 screens across the entire venue. Since we gave away every one of our Skout T-Shirts, you’ll just have to wait for our next Skout newsletter to find out how you can get your hands on one. If you haven’t signed up to join (flirt with) the thousands of other singles who are ready to meet you, sign up here. Wear our Skout T-Shirt to any of our official Skout Out events to get a free drink!

As the economy is careening down its spiral destiny, I’m noticing the luxuries I came to expect a year ago, like a nice Friday wine and dine time with friends, were taken for granted.  The more I’ve tighten my wallet, the more I’ve realized just how much money I could have saved before - if I hadn’t ordered so much, or drank a little before going out.  I could still have fun, but now I know to just be a little more mindful of old habits, and more creative with my budget.  I could have saved for a trip to Argentina, and be sun bathing on a nude beach with a Malbec in hand, harlequin novel in the other.  Right now.  Anyway, I digress.

As a reformed night owl, the new me ventures bravely through the wafting waves of saffron and a window full of shoes without a whimper.  I am free of Want.  Of course, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t greatly enjoy a nice night out at Zuni, or go hog wild at a Marc Jacobs sale.  It just means I’ll know that I’ll be able to do that again someday, with a greater appreciation for the privilege.  I harbor a secret hope that this freedom from Want will carry through my love life as well.  I hope that I won’t take a relationship for granted, like I did with my budget.  

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume that most intelligent adults don’t consciously enter a relationship to find a partner to complete them.  I believe at this stage of the game, it’s mostly subconscious attraction, a good time, and hopefully decent sex that keeps each partner coming back for more….for a while.  But what keeps a couple together?  

Now we are leaving the calm harbor of puppy love and entering the turbulent waters of a real relationship. On the last blog, I mentioned that couples with a long history together can get away with talking freely about finding completion in their partner.  A handful of my friends’ parents are open about this subject and personally, I want to hug them, rather than vomit.  But I’m a sentimental sap, so that’s just me. I know, it’s a curse.  

Anyway, my point is… I think most people don’t start out truly knowing what they Want, or specifically, what they lack that they are seeking in another.  I think Wants change as life changes.  Now that I have less, I’ve had to make myself want less as well.  If I was sick, I’d yearn for a healthier body.  Maybe this M.O. applies to relationships as well?  Perhaps we can never truly know what we want, until it happens.  Sooo should we just all stop thinking about who fits into our lives and why, and focus on having fun and seeing how it naturally unravels?   Pfffft.   Easier said than done, I’m sure.

Next time,  I’ll talk about what I think I want, just for kicks.

Hi Skouters,

Our comfy shirts are not just your average PJ shirt. Wear our Skout shirt to future Skout Outs and get one free drink!  Skout Out events are where Skout singles can meet, mingle, and have a cocktail. Join thousands of singles and sign up to Skout.com to get the scoop.  Another way to win a free shirt is to upload your pictures onto the Skout screen. We’ll be awarding the skouter with the most uploads our comfy Tee!

The Mezzanine