Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Goddamnation on October 16, 2009 at 11:28pm

^^
'coz i'm just 16.

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on October 24, 2009 at 8:15pm

Excuses, excuses. :)

Permalink Reply by Orson_Zedd on November 27, 2009 at 12:02pm

Now's the perfect time to be practicing by having relationships. You're unlikely to marry the first person you date, but it makes for good practice later in life, say, when you're 23, and life is slipping through your fingers like sand.

Permalink Reply by Eric on October 28, 2009 at 3:45am

I'm single for several reasons.

Before I was in college, I was in the closet as a gay person my entire life. After I went to college, I had other issues that were more important to me, such as learning more about myself as a gay person and then as a deaf person. I couldn't do both at the same time.

Later when I was in graduate school, I was afraid to get involved with others because I thought it might mess up my studies. I knew someone who nearly failed out of law school in his first semester because he got involved with another man. He didn't get involved with anybody again until he graduated and also passed the bar, and then gave himself permission to date again. My brother didn't date seriously until after he finished law school and passed the bar too. His second girlfriend ever is now my sister in law. But after I left school for a while, I discovered some research on the Internet that surprised me. I was in a PhD program for 8 years, and crashed and burned out. According to this research, married women were more likely than female singles to complete their PhDs, because their spouses could take over other tasks that needed to be taken care of. I'm gay and until recently getting married was illegal for me, but I've interpreted that research more broadly to mean that anybody in a relationship will be more likely than anybody who is single to complete their PhDs. So who knows, I might have been more successful with my PhD if only I had been in a relationship. Well, if true, too late for that now!

I am now planning to return to school soon, and that will likely involve moving to another state too, so now I'm afraid to get involved with anybody or in my current state of residence. But if something does happen, then I will see how I feel about that person and wouldn't completely shut the door and I will try and figure out what to do next. I also don't get out that much because I'm focused right now on getting rid of as much of my stuff as I can before I actually move.

But there are other reasons too. One was something I didn't see for a long time until the pattern became clear to me, and then, only then, was I able to break it. I tended to be attracted to men who weren't available to me. That made those men safer for me, I didn't have to get worried about actually getting involved. I was quite shocked when I saw this pattern one day, I was thinking over how I went about finding dates up to now one day. Reading books about dating and patterns may have helped me to spot this pattern in my own dating behavior. So now I am very careful, when I do date, to make sure I am not unconsciously following this pattern again.

Another reason is that when I try to participate in hearing gay environments, I'm often left out because everyone is speaking in a sound based language that I can't see visually, namely spoken English.

It also often seems that hearing people want to date only hearing people.

I haven't seen any deaf gays who interest me who are also interested in me anywhere yet.

I met one guy who really has inspired me. He placed ads on dating websites and dated one new guy every single week this way for two whole years. He was very dedicated in his mission to find a partner. From these 100 guys he finally found his life partner. So I've decided I will consider trying that approach when I'm ready to date again.

I'm not going to worry if the other person is atheist or not, just as long as they're secular to some extent and comfortable with who I am. (I recently met a nice guy who was an openly gay ordained priest, he didn't know that I was atheist and I thought no way do I want to be involved with a guy who spends his life as a priest. I was nice and just didn't respond to his invitation to get together.) It doesn't matter if the other person is deaf or hearing, or knows ASL or not. They hopefully will have some exposure to college. What's more important to me is where their heart lies. I'd have to feel some physical attraction to them too. I think it will be a few more years before I really find anybody.

I also read dating books and dating advice from elsewhere from time to time and I believe that helps me to see things or get ideas I might otherwise never have noticed or thought of. I've read for example that it's better to avoid guys who are extremely good looking - apparently they also tend to have poorer character than others, because when they make mistakes others are likely to bend over backwards to say nothing so that these guys don't learn as readily from their errors. The rest of us are more likely to face consequences, such as losing friends and contacts, and as a result our characters and maturity have many more opportunities develop much further. So anybody I meet who is an 11 on a 1-10 scale, hopefully I'll be strong enough to look for the nearest exit!

Another piece of advice I've read that it's important to get photos, including a minimum of one headshot, taken by professional portrait photographers who are experienced with what looks terrific on dating online websites, and that's an idea I plan to try eventually. I've seen the website lookbetteronline.com, unfortunately none of the online photo samples of photographers located near my zip code that I've seen blow me away.

So I'm single for now, but I fully expect eventually that I'll find Mr. Right someday. I have absolutely no desire to spend my entire life as a single guy.

(BTW, I hope Dallas Gaytheist or somebody else will be willing to create a positive version of this thread, where everyone gives what worked for them in the past, perhaps advice from those who are currently partnered, or what advice they would give that would work, for those of us who are single who would like to find someone someday.)

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on October 28, 2009 at 8:39am

Eric, please fill free to jump right in. You can start this discussion yourself if you'd like. Just select 'Add a Discussion' at the top of the page. :)

This is a good idea.

Oh, but first, search the discussion thread to see if anyone has already started that topic. It might be there already.

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on October 28, 2009 at 1:14pm

married women were more likely than female singles to complete their PhDs

IMO, I always take statements like this with a grain of salt, as there are many factors that contribute to this, I think.

Reading books about dating and patterns may have helped me to spot this pattern in my own dating behavior.

I've never read anything like that, and must admit that I am skeptical about them, or any kind of self-help book. I always feel that if I am genuine, sincere, and respectful, that that should account for a lot. Though I'm not sure that it does.

I'm often left out because everyone is speaking in a sound based language that I can't see visually, namely spoken English.

Are you able to read lips at all?

I've read for example that it's better to avoid guys who are extremely good looking - apparently they also tend to have poorer character than others

Possibly. One thing beautiful people have, for sure, is greater opportunity.

Is there not much of a deaf gay community where you live? Dallas has a lot of gay people, but I am not that involved in the community, though I live in it. I don't notice much of a deaf gay presence here.

Permalink Reply by Eric on October 28, 2009 at 5:08pm

Some self-hep books are better than others, and different self-help books work differently for different people. They only work if you're reading relating to an issue that's important to you. Some of them have helped me and some of them have been a waste of my time. One problem is that the same words can trigger different meanings in different people.

I can always do my best to read lips. It does require full knowledge of the target language ahead of time. If it works, great. If not, fine, other ways can always be found to communicate. But it really only works for one on one communication and only in certain kinds of settings, and even then it doesn't really work very well. There's the context, plus how long have you known the other person, and it still may not work at all. It's very high maintenance to have to get a notetaker or and even more so to get an ASL interpreter.

I also remember reading somewhere, it might have been a letter to the editor in a gay paper somewhere, about a lesbian who said that she had had four lovers. The first three were drop dead gorgeous, and all turned out to have fatal character flaws. The fourth time around, she decided to look for someone who wasn't as drop dead gorgeous, and she wrote that that fourth relationship has been the best relationship of her life so far.

Efforts to create a deaf gay group in Michigan have occurred five times in the past 15 years, and all have failed. The deaf gay community in Michigan is currently very weak. We all invariably end up in the beer drinking tent area on Gay Pride Day in Detroit, it's been the same every year. That's pretty much the extent of it. Some of them are even in my other online social networks, but we don't really talk either online or when we run into each other face to face. There is also an annual summer deaf gay camping event, it was held every August for some 10 years at a gay-owned campground near the gay summer resort town of Saugatuck/Douglas on Michigan's west coast. This past summer, for the first time in years, there wasn't apparently anything organized at all. However, the weak economy might have had something to do with that too.

I don't know if there is a deaf gay community in Dallas. If there's one, it's an informal one. Phoenix has an informal deaf gay coffeehouse that has a page on Facebook, I haven't looked but there might easily be something similar for Dallas. If there's a formally organized group, it'll likely (but not always) be a chapter of the Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf, which covers both the U.S. and Canada (rad.org). Just now I looked at RAD's website, and I don't see any apparent Dallas chapter. According to the RAD website, RAD did have a successful convention in Dallas in 1991 which was hosted by a group called the Dallas Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf. I remember hearing afterwards that some 400 people attended, including one who came from Germany. It's my guess that the chapter in Dallas probably folded since then. 1991, that's almost 20 years ago.

Permalink Reply by Orson_Zedd on November 27, 2009 at 12:05pm

I am very interested now. Please continue. You have my full attention.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on October 29, 2009 at 2:58pm

"I've always wondered how one distinguishes between God appearing to them in a dream and simply having a dream about God."

Eric, when I come back in my next life as a gay man (which I really should since half the guys I crush on turn out to be gay), I will absolutely go out on a date with you. ;-)

I've always thought it would be kind of cool to date a deaf person. We'd never have to argue about what kind of music to listen to.

Permalink Reply by Eric on October 29, 2009 at 4:52pm

Ha. I'd argue the music wasn't loud enough for me yet, you'd say the music was too loud already! You'd say it's a great piece of music, and I'd say there's no rhythmic beat that I can detect, so it can't possibly be that good. Grin! :-)

Actually, deaf people do enjoy music just like hearing folks, just not in the same way. I sense bass better than high sounds, and I look for not only vibration I can sense but also a rhythmic beat to that vibration. So for example iPhones can play music, but I can't sense it at all because the iPhone doesn't vibrate at all.

In schools for the deaf, children often play with wet fingers sliding along a dry glass window pane, that make sounds that deaf kids can hear. The way they play with that sound in that way probably qualifies it as music in some sense.

When I was at Gay Pride in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was with other deaf gays, and we all danced next to extremely huge loudspeakers. The music was so loud you actually felt a wind blowing out of the speakers and you didn't have to touch the speaker to hear or feel the music. There was also a good rhythmic beat too, or I wouldn't have stayed around. When I evaluate a night club or bar I look at the size and location of the speakers.

There is a snack bar at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC called the Abbey. Gallaudet has 2,000 deaf students, the entire campus signs, and hearing people tend to stay away from the Abbey because the music is too loud, but the Abbey is really for deaf and hard of hearing students, not hearing students.

There is a group called D-PAN, short for Deaf Professional Arts Network (www.d-pan.org). The founder is a hard of hearing guy named Sean who creates music videos that are accessible to deafies. There is also a Facebook page and a MySpace page for D-PAN.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on October 29, 2009 at 8:56pm

Very cool, and I've always been fascinated with the way deaf people 'hear' music. Since I enjoy a lot of subwoofer and bass in my rock/industrial/techno/dance/more rock, we'd get along just fine.

Permalink Reply by Eric on October 29, 2009 at 10:17pm

I've seen the word 'subwoofer' before, but I don't really know what a subwoofer is or does. Is that a sound or a device?

'More' rock? I hadn't heard that name before. Those names don't really mean much to me, mostly because I can't tell them apart. I can tell if there's a beat and whether it's a great beat. My idea of a great beat could easily be very different from how hearing folks decide whether it's a great beat. But I couldn't tell you if it was Beethoven or what. I probably wouldn't relate to blues music or country music, I don't think they have the kind of beats I can connect to. I can tell if somebody's talking on the radio as opposed to music, but I can't tell the difference between a radio news bulletin and a radio commercial.

When I had my first car, I had a stereo in my door right where my elbow was located. So when I drove, I'd drive with my left elbow touching the stereo. My 2nd car, the stereo was located further to the front, about the middle of the driver's door. So I started to drive with my left elbow extended forward and left hand touching the door. When I got my 3rd car, the stereo was built even further to the front, close to the dashboard. I remember thinking, Jeez! So I started driving with my back down the seat and my left arm stretched forward so my left hand could rest on the stereo built into the door. It wasn't a very comfortable way to drive, so I no longer do any of that. Someday I may experiment in putting a boom box into my car. It would be nice if car engineers took deaf drivers' enjoyment of music into account.

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