Dear Dan: I’m a hetero guy in need of advice. Back in college, I met this girl. Suffice it to say she was into me but I had some shit to work through. So we ended up being a missed connection, romantically. Despite that, we still became fast friends. I’m less awkward now, in large part because our friendship changed my life. We each married other people, and everything worked out great. Except I still love her. I think about her often, want to share things about my life with her, find myself wanting to rely on her when things are tough. I don’t know what to do with it. On one hand, she means an awful lot to me — she is the kind of friend that comes along once in a lifetime — and I know that I mean a lot to her. So this is a relationship worth protecting, even as asymmetrical as it is. On the other hand, these feelings are starting to seem kind of pathetic. We are barely part of each other’s lives anymore — do I even have a right to feel the way I do? I see three options, each of which is shit. (1) Keep my feelings to myself and endure/ enjoy a painful but deeply meaningful friendship. (2) Disappear, either abruptly or gradually, with no explanation. Or (3) damn the torpedoes and bare my soul, which might painfully explode the relationship. After years of option 1, I am strongly leaning toward option 3 — just blowing shit wide open and dealing with whatever happens.
— No Good At Acronyms
Dear NGAA: You’re going to need a gay dude to act on the advice I’m about to give you — and not just any gay dude, NGAA, but the kind of gay dude who obsesses about Broadway musicals. And not just any gay dude who obsesses about Broadway musicals, but the kind of Broadway-musicalobsessed gay dude who has good taste.
(Look through his record collection: If Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is in there and Mame isn’t, he does not have good taste.)
Okay, here’s my advice: Listen to the original Broadway cast recordings of Company, Follies and A Little Night Music — music and lyrics, in all three cases, by Stephen Sondheim (peace be upon him [PBUH]). Yes, you can get all three recordings on iTunes, NGAA, but you need to listen to them on vinyl, and you need to discuss these shows, and three songs in particular, with someone who already knows them by heart. Hence the need for a gay dude with good taste in Broadway musicals and an extensive collection of original Broadway cast recordings on vinyl. As any Broadway-musicalobsessed gay man will tell you:
Epiphanies, insights and breakthroughs come most reliably in moments of silence, i.e., when you have to flip the record over.
Here are the songs you need to pay close attention to: “Sorry-Grateful” from Company, “The Road You Didn’t Take” from Follies, and “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music. (You might be a little too fragile for “Too Many Mornings” and “Losing My Mind,” both from Follies.) Listen over and over again — until you know the lyrics of all three songs by heart. Discuss what these songs mean with your new gay friend. Then you’ll know what to do.
Dear Dan: I was stroking my partner and went for the lube, when he informed me that he prefers to have his handjobs sans lube. He says that lube is messy. For the past three years, he has raved about my handjobs and said my skills are professional level, and never once did he complain about the lube. I attempted to follow through, but all my old techniques didn’t work. I asked him to show me how, what he likes, and he said just do the same as I’ve always done. The sliding, gliding, twisting motions that I usually use, all with a reasonable amount of squeezing, just DO NOT WORK without lube. My hand stuck to the dampish skin and would not slide. He says I am making a big deal out of nothing, but I am upset. One of the best tools in my sexual toolbox has just been rendered unusable.
— Sincerely Laments Obstructed Wanking
Dear SLOW: You need to listen to the original Broadway cast recording of Wicked, music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (PBUH). When Idina Menzel sings “Defying Gravity,” pretend she’s singing “defying aridity.”
Apparently that’s your boyfriend’s superpower, or his cock’s superpower: aridity — “being without moisture, extremely dry, parched” — is no impediment to pleasure. And it’s not an uncommon superpower, SLOW. Lots of guys prefer lubeless handjobs. So have your boyfriend jack himself off while you listen to Wicked, see what works for him, and then try not to make a big deal — try not to make any sort of deal — out of his handjob preferences going forward.
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