How to make friends and influence people...

I am, it must be said, quite a social animal. As a general rule I like people. My main problem is that most of the people I know are either from work, or scattered all over the UK/world as they are people I met online. In short, I want to make new friends who live in the same city as me and if they may be interested in a bit of recreational sex (either with me or with both of us) that's cool too. I guess the term is 'friends with benefits', but the emphasis for me is on the friends. I really want people who like me as well as fancy me (even after all this time I still boggle a bit that people fancy me) - which I have been told is remarkably well adjusted.

So, where do I go to meet new, interesting and sexy people? Well - the internet of course! There are numerous sites where gay chaps can get in touch with each other. The main one I use, which I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with, is Gaydar. The BBC rather innocuously call it a 'gay social networking site', but to be brutally honest Gaydar is for cruising (with the advantage of not requiring lurking in the bushes of cold parks, public toilets or propping up the bar at the local gay pub). Despite the cruisy nature of Gaydar, or maybe because of it, I've made some new online mates, and met a good few guys that live locally. There are lots of timewasters (if you say you are going to come around and then get cold feet tell me! There is no obligation, but I will get annoyed with waiting around for no-shows), people that can't/won't read a profile (no I'm not looking for a boyfriend - I already have one thank you) and people that don't tell the whole truth (lovely picture on your profile, shame it is so old it may as well be of someone else) but when it clicks with a nice guy (for sex, socialising or both) it kinda makes it all worth while. I've tried other sites, including more Bear specific ones (like Eurowoof), but I keep going back to Gaydar and its city specific and bear chat rooms...

Open up...

One of the biggest changes in my life in the last year or so is that my long term relationship has gone 'open'. We've always been fairly OK about occasional lapses from monogamy, but as time as gone on we've come to realise that we can't always get everything that we want sexually from one partner. In many ways making the relationship open has strengthened it. We still have a great sex life with each other, but we also have recreational sex with other people.

We haven't really set out rules, but it is mainly about being honest with each other, not hiding anything and not doing anything un-safe. We've had threesomes, we both have regular 'friends with benefits', I go to Bears Day at saunas and so far it is working out really well for us.

The biggest thing for me, and the reason why I couldn't have done this in my 20s, is that I've finally got to a stage where I can disassociate sex from love. I have a few regular sexual partners that are becoming good friends, but I have no romantic feelings for them and couldn't imagine having the comfortable domesticity that I have with my long-term partner.

I still feel like I'm having my cake and eating it, and I can see that it wouldn't work for everyone, but I'm really content with this part of my life right now....

Hello, good evening and welcome...

This is a bit of an experiment. I have a blog over at wordpress, which never really got of the ground, and a Livejournal which is mainly used for keeping up to date with the folks still there. The question is - why am I starting another one? I've had a lot of thoughts rumbling around in my head that I quite fancied blogging, but they didn't really fit with what I was doing (or not as the case may be) with the other blogs, so I figured making a fresh start was best.

In the last couple of years I've started to self-identify with the bear sub-culture and things have changed a bit in my life so I can get involved with that scene. I'm never going to be a complete bear scene-queen but I've been having fun dipping my toe (and other parts of my anatomy!) into the delights of the world of the furry gentlemen and their admirers.

So, what are my plans?
Expect fairly explicit discussion about gay sex, sexuality and relationships.
Expect my thoughts on the gay scene, specifically the bear scene in the UK.

People that know me from my other blogs may get a bit of a shock!