Friendster is fun, but it has a disappointing side effect.
Human beings like to explore. The reason I love American history so much is because of the idea of the frontier. People could cross the Atlantic, leave Old Europe behind for the New World and start their lives over. And then they could leave behind the original thirteen colonies and light out for the territory. If things failed, there was always a safety valve — you could hitch a wagon train, shove off, and be someone new. A whole world of unexplored adventure. You could see some wide expanse of mountains and fields and canyons and think that nobody had laid eyes on it in a thousand years.
But by the 1890s, most of the frontier was gone, as Frederick Jackson Turner famously said. It had been explored, occupied. And today it’s all strip malls, McDonald’s and multiplexes.
Not to be the Frederick Jackson Turner of the gay social scene, but there’s not quite the social frontier out there that there used to be. Friendster is great, because it can easily lead you to new people, but it also takes away the unknowns. Everyone comes with connections now. You can no longer use the excuse that you didn’t know that you and your friend were dating the same guy. Or, you might meet someone and find out that you know six of his friends, or you’re chatting with a friend and you realize you’ve both slept with four of the same guys, all of whom have also slept with each other, or you see someone with whom you want to sleep and you realize your friends have already slept with him, and you find out how good he is before you’ve actually had the chance to find out for yourself, and whatnot. (Some of these are embellishments of things that have happened to me. The rest of them actually happened.)
It’s true even in New York. People come here to escape, to start their lives over. New York is somewhat of a frontier today — you can hide in its anonymity. Or can you? In this city of 8 million people, it turns out that all the gay men are in the same big social circle.
I wonder if there’s life on Jupiter’s moons.
I wonder if they’re gay there.
You don’t have to go as far as Jupiter to find a whole new frontier.There is a whole big world outside of N.Y.C. and yes even the U.S.of A.! And were gay too! We even survive with out Friendster,strip-malls,multiplexes, and MCDonald’s….Bill
I know exactly what you mean Jeff. But Friendster has its good points — I’ve only been out with one guy so far since moving to the city (met him through Friendster, connected through Mike Benedetto), but he’s totally quality. I couldn’t care less that it turns out he’s dated one or two people in my small circle, because it’s my chance to date him now.
Well, I guess I’ll just have to accept this cross-pollination as a fact of gay life, no matter how big a city this is. Actually, I remember when I was in a university setting, it was worse. A friend and I once made a chart of who had slept with whom… and it was really scary.
A friend and I did the chart thing about us and everyone we knew back in our early-mid 20s. It seemed terribly important at the time. If you think New York’s incestuous, try Santa Barbara in the early-mid 90s…we called the chart “the Freeway of Love.” Honey, those bypasses and offramps…
Try to remember that, notwithstanding sad, pathetic examples like D, most guys’ pasts, no matter how much intersection they have with your past, will work to create a totally unique experience when combined with yours. Only you and guy X can create the combination that you and guy X can create, no matter what’s gone before.
And if that doesn’t work, the Jupiter theory might work, too. As the B-52’s sang, “There’s a moon in the sky, it’s called the moon, and everybody is there.” So please don’t worry…