Gay-man-loving straight girls like to complain that all the hot guys are gay, but I’m here to tell you that simply isn’t true. All the hot guys are straight. And by hot, I’m not talking “tweezed metrosexual with plump, androgynous lips” hot. I’m talking “toned, brawny man with sun-kissed skin, a chest lightly peppered with hair, and a five o’clock shadow that hugs an angular jawline” hot. I’m talking Hugh Jackman / Matthew Fox hot.

Gay men who look like Hugh Jackman simply don’t exist. Now, I know what you’re going to say. I’m setting the bar too high. There just aren’t many men, straight or gay, who look like Hugh Jackman or Matthew Fox or that guy who played the human torch in The Fantastic Four. And you may be right. But I’ll even go out on a limb here and say that gay men never resemble approachable, ruggedly adorable men like John Corbett (Aidan Shaw of Sex and the City) or Dylan Walsh (Dr. Sean McNamara of Nip/Tuck) or Bobby Cannavale (Will’s boyfriend on Will & Grace). The terms “ruggedly handsome” or even “ruggedly cute” and “gay” just don’t appear in the same sentence (unless that sentence points out that the two terms don’t belong together).

Granted, there are cute gay guys out there, but they only come in a few flavors, and those flavors rarely include the term hot and NEVER include ruggedly handsome hotness. The sooner we all accept and this fact, the sooner we can all learn to love our cute (but not ruggedly hot) boyfriends and stop fantasizing about being verbally abused by Christian Bale. In an effort to identify, classify, and promote greater understanding of this strange occurrence, I submit for your approval FrugalFag’s General Taxonomy and Field Guide to Potentially Cute (but Not Hot) Gay Male Species:

1) The Pretty Lady
Fatal Flaws: excessive lip shine, feminine features or haircut, willowy frame, cheek puckering, and/or overuse of the word “girl”.
Cute (but not hot) Example: Lance Bass
Hot Exception: Dustin Lance Black (screenwriter of Milk)

2) The Nerd-’Mo-Tron 3000
Fatal Flaws: pasty skin, bad posture, and/or unremarkable features
Cute (but not hot) Examples: John Cameron Mitchell, T.R. Knight (Debatable cuteness level, I realize, but bear with me.)
Hot Exception: Anderson Cooper

3) The Emo She-’Mo
Fatal Flaws: flat-ironed hair, nail polish, eyeliner, and too many giant rings
Cute (but not hot) Example: Adam Lambert of American Idol Season 8
Hot Exception: Does Pete Wentz count?

4) The “Almost Ruggedly Hot but Something Is Kind of Wrong with His Face” Guy
Fatal Flaws: Neanderthal-esque forehead, thin lips, protruding granny chin, distracting nose and/or mole
Cute (but not hot) Examples: Rupert Everett, George Michael (but only BEFORE he came out and started sporting weird facial hair that made him look like one of those hair models from a hardcover look book you peruse at Mastercuts to show your stylist what NOT to do. George Michael further proves my point that gayness absorbs and removes all evidence of rugged hotness like a ShamWow.)
Hot Exception: Neil Patrick Harris

5) The “Almost Ruggedly Hot until He Speaks or Moves” guy, also known as the “Looks Like Tarzan, Sounds Like Jane” Guy
Fatal Flaws: wild flailing of hands and limbs, Mario-Cantone like vocal tone, catlike sauntering
Cute (but not hot) Example: Kyan Douglas from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
Hot Exceptions: Kyan Douglas (when not talking or moving), Nate Berkus (at all times), Luke Macfarlane from Brothers & Sisters (I only recently learned this guy is gay and now I fear he may ruin my entire theory.)

6) The Man-Bear-Pig
Fatal Flaws: overly hairy, balding, and/or too flabby to describe body type as “football player’s build”
Cute (but not hot) Example: The guy who plays Matt Parkman on Heroes? (Sorry, I couldn’t think of a gay example here. If you have a Christopher Lowell fetish or can think of an example most of us can agree on, feel free to make suggestions.)
Hot Exceptions: None that I could think of.

An old friend of mine came to town for a visit recently, and I wound up spending my Saturday night at six different bars. We drank, we danced, we pointed out cute guys from across the room, and I didn’t make it home until 4:00 a.m. I had a good time, but painting the town with one of my single friends always leaves me with a mixed bag of emotions.

Initially, it’s all great fun—getting dressed up, getting out of the house, and patting myself on the back for still being younger than the majority of the guys around me. Eventually though, the joy of people watching and being seen wears off. I discretely begin checking my watch, and I wonder how much longer I have to wait before I can suggest going home without the usual chorus of sighs and accusations of party pooping. But before I can leave, one of my single friends has to make out with a hot stranger, leaving me to fend for myself while a shirtless man old enough to be my father attempts to seduce me by gyrating and pointing in my direction. The shirtless man usually resembles George Lopez, but with dead eyes and a chest covered in stubble that burns as it grazes my upper arm.

None of this is really a problem. The problem comes the next day when I reflect on my wild night out. I begin to feel sorry for my single friends, then I immediately feel guilty for being so judgmental. Part of me knows they don’t need my pity, and it’s certainly not unusual for gay guys in their late 20s and early 30s to stay out late every weekend. Yet, I have to wonder, when does all of this go from being funny and entertaining to being pathetic and disturbing? When are we officially too old to be taking guys back our places and then dropping them off at their dorms the next morning? When is it no longer cute to giggle and call yourself a lush as you sign off on a bar tab that represents 5% of your net weekly income? And most importantly, when do we go from being hot, slightly older men to creepy grandpas on the prowl?

Maybe I’m just a holier-than-though prude—the one who settled down early because he was too concerned about straight standards of propriety and age-appropriate behavior that don’t apply in the gay world. Maybe I’m jealous or compensating or projecting or (insert appropriate self-help book term here). Maybe this is what the gay rights movement is all about—the freedom to adopt a Chinese baby girl and move to the suburbs or to keep the condo in the gayborhood, wear your Prada shoes, and show off your trophy teenage boyfriend and moderate alcoholism with pride. I support my friends’ rights to have their Manhunt and their cosmos and their anonymous bathhouse threesomes. But I also support my right to be completely grossed out by it as soon as they start losing their hair or getting Uncle-Fester-sized bags under their eyes.

We might moisturize every day, but we can’t all be Demi Moore. And even if I we could, I think we’d still have to accept what Demi already knows to be true: at a certain point, an age-appropriate Saturday night includes a DVD from Netflix, a bucket of popcorn, and a bag of delicious Viactiv calcium-enriched chocolate chews for strong, healthy bones.

My boyfriend and I have been together for four years as of today. A friend of mine recently pointed out that this is the longest I’ve ever remained committed to anything. It was a fascinating revelation, although not entirely true. I did keep my first car for about five years, and I still have the same toaster I bought while I was in college. (In fairness to my boyfriend, I should mention that my toaster and I hardly have what I would call a close and meaningful relationship.)

Despite the inaccuracy of my best friend’s observation, it left me wondering how I’ve survived four years of monogamy. I’ve always relied on change—a new house, a new job, a new city, a new haircut—anything to fight the feeling that adulthood hasn’t turned out to be quite the rollercoaster of adventures and accomplishments that I had anticipated. So why not a new boyfriend every six to nine months to make life more interesting?

Like many people, I don’t like to be alone. I also spent enough time playing the field to realize it was overgrown with weeds and infested with vermin. When I consider what it took to find a decent guy, the thought of ditching him and starting the search all over again doesn’t seem like a particularly fun way to add interest to my autobiography. Of course, laziness and a fear of loneliness only do so much to quell my restlessness. Sometimes I need a reminder—a divine sign to remind me why I’ve stayed with the same guy for so long.

Yesterday, I spent nearly an hour begging my own poop to disappear. I had clogged the only toilet in my condo, and the situation was far more desperate than any I had ever encountered. (Not that I’ve encountered many, of course. I assure you it’s perfectly safe to let me use your toilet should you ever invite me over.) I plunged, I flushed, I plunged while flushing, then I flushed some more. Eventually, the evidence of my crime had managed to move out of sight, but the water still drained from the bowl at a painfully slow rate. There was no denying it. I had broken the toilet with my monster dookie and there seemed no way to resolve the problem without making someone else aware of it.

I tried one final, desperate flush and said a prayer to the plumbing gods. I kept picturing the man in the mural at Plumber’s Union Hall wagging his finger at me, scolding me for forgetting the vital role plumbers play in our society. Alas, my prayers went unanswered. I finally gave up, went into the living room and confessed that I had broken the toilet. My boyfriend just shook his head and laughed. “Is that why you were in there for so long?” he asked.

He came into the bathroom and inspected the toilet. I assured him that the situation was hopeless, performed a demonstration flush, and hung my head as the water level rose and fell in its own sweet time. I braced for the barrage of insults and rhetorical questions that I’d have to endure before I could call a plumber. Instead, he picked up the plunger and went to work, attacking the congested drain as if his life depended on it. Within 60 seconds, the full flush had returned in all its swirling glory. “You just didn’t have the right technique. It comes with the territory when you grow up in a house with three brothers who all take monster craps,” he said.

Needless to say, my adult life isn’t shaping up to be the glamorous thrill ride I had envisioned as a kid. Barbara Walters has yet to interview me, and even if she does, I doubt my tale of toilet tragedy and triumph will make it on her list of hot topics to address. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without my boyfriend, and I can’t help but imagine it as a life filled with spontaneity—a stint in the peace corps building rural schoolhouses in Ecuador, a year in Tokyo teaching English in a Japanese middle school, and a trail of exotic lovers in my wake, all of them eager to tame my wanderlust and make me a permanent resident of their homelands. With that said, I also know that I’d be hard pressed to find a foreigner who understands me and makes me laugh the way my boyfriend does. More importantly, I’d have a very hard time finding one who is willing and/or able to unclog an American toilet.

I just love these safe-sex promoting posters from France. However, the first one seems a little irresponsible since it implies that you could get AIDS just from having someone lick your lady parts. Also, I don’t think scorpions’ tails can bend backward, but I’ll let that one slide.

I’ve survived a lot of socially awkward situations. When I studied abroad, I was regularly dragged to parties where I couldn’t talk to anyone because I literally didn’t speak their language. (On the plus side, I’m much better at charades now). I also moved a lot as a kid, and I had to find ways to make friends at schools where I was “the kid who doesn’t believe in God” or “the Yankee with the funny accent.” As a result, I’ve learned a few tricks for making new friends. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Ask for a favor.

Even if you don’t really need help, asking someone for a small favor gives you an excuse to start a conversation and it makes the other person more comfortable asking you for help down the road. This is especially valuable if you want to get to know your neighbors. Asking for a cup of sugar is an oldie but a goodie. Borrowing a pot or asking someone to walk your dog can also work. Just don’t ask for anything too personal—like a bottle of Adderall to help you complete a big project at work or a dog crate big enough for several gallons of water and a somewhat husky 17-year-old Thai girl.

2. Wear something that gives people an excuse to talk to you.

Clothes that display the name of a particular college will attract attention from anyone who attended the school and, in some cases, anyone who likes to read words aloud. Shirts with the name of a favorite band or a reference to a favorite TV show or movie can work as well. A unique watch or piece of jewelry can be very handy—especially one that people feel compelled to touch and examine closely. As a general rule, wearing something unique and memorable is a plus. It’s always easy to break the ice with a compliment, and wearing something bold makes it easy for your fashion soul mates to identify you as someone they’d like to know better. A unique hat or colorful pair of shoes or funky designer glasses can be all the excuse someone needs to strike up a conversation.

3. Eat with anyone and everyone.

You have to eat anyway, so make an effort to invite someone to join you for brunch or lunch or dinner as much as possible. It’s a casual, low-pressure way to follow up with someone you’ve recently met.

4. Join a group or club with similar interests.

Meetup.com is a great place to find people who share your interests and arrange face-to-face outings and get togethers. I finally decided to take my own advice and I signed up for tennis lessons this spring. Now I can keep playing with my classmates after the lessons are over. One of the women in my class has even been giving me insider info on properties in her neighborhood that are about to go into foreclosure. The whole thing has me feeling like I’m just a sweater vest and a convertible Saab away from complete yuppiehood…and I couldn’t be happier.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t do anything special for my boyfriend on Valentine’s Day. In my defense, I did fulfill one of his fantasies the night before by taking him to his favorite sushi restaurant for an all-you-can-eat Wednesday special. It truly was a match made in heaven, combining his love of raw fish and sticky rice with my love of flat-fee dining. I thought I was off the hook until he gave me a card after we got home from dinner. In the card, he listed a few of the reasons why he still adores me and I felt that special mix of appreciation and dread that can only come from being one-upped in the romantic-gesture department. In the ongoing dance-off that is our relationship, it was clear that I had just been served.

At first, I spent a few minutes looking around the house for suitable raw materials to make him a card. I considered gluing a few magazine subscription cards together and lining them with a lovingly folded Bounty paper towel, but decided I’d be better off buying a real card the next day. Sadly, several days went by and I still hadn’t found the time to pick up a card, let alone fill it with my trademark brand of sentimental hilarity. So, to redeem myself, I thought I’d share with all of you a few things that I’ve learned about love, and how you, too, can know if you’ve found your soul mate.

Say you really love something that’s hard to come by—like a condor-egg quiche or a photo of Matthew McConaughey with his shirt on. Or maybe you really love Green Giant Steam-in-Bag Extra Sweet Corn Niblets and your local Target stops carrying them. Against all odds, love finds a way. Your true soul mate will get you that extra-sweet corn at any cost. True, there might be setbacks. Initially, your soul mate might bring home an inferior corn product that is only of average sweetness. And, in a fit of blind rage, you might strike your soul mate in the face with said inferior corn, causing golden niblets to scatter across the kitchen floor you finished Swiffering only hours ago. Your true soul mate would understand that you beat him with those niblets out of love. Your soul mate would scour every grocery store and Sam’s Club in four counties and return home days later, weary and haggard. Yet, though his back may ache under the weight of his precious, frozen treasure, your soul mate would smile as you ripped open the first bag and tossed handfuls of the sparkling, yellow booty into the air, for your joy is your soul mate’s joy.

Also, I think a true soul mate must:

1. give the dog her antibiotics so you can sleep in.
2. let you buy a really heavy down comforter even though it will make him sweat in his sleep.
3. tell you you’re not nearly as annoying as some really queeny guy on a reality TV show, even though other people like to joke around and say you’re just like him when you’re totally not.

I realized and/or remembered several things over my Christmas/New Year’s vacation:

1. La-Z-Boy recliners are quite possibly the most comfortable and hideous pieces of furniture ever made. As long as there’s breath in my body, I will never have one in my home. However, it’s nice to know that my parents and/or in-laws will always have one I can lounge in when no one is looking.
2. Never discuss U.S. immigration policies with someone who is a member of any type of labor union.
3. Richmond is quite beautiful.
4. Even in Alabama, it’s not safe to assume that Taco Bell will be open when I truly need it.

I have a small group of friends who have known me for more than 10 years, and I had a great time visiting them around the start of the new year. Whenever we get together, I can’t decide if I should have them all killed because they know too much or kiss them for standing by me through so many of my most embarrassing growing pains. In high school, they continued to associate with me even when I went through my shiny-clothes phase. (Nothing says, “I’m finally ok with my gayness” like a pair of black vinyl pants and a silver velour dress shirt from Gadzooks.) In college, they listened to me complain about the latest frat boy who stood me up and they’d reassure me that he didn’t know what he was missing. Today, they humor me when I pitch them my half-baked entrepreneurial ideas and they tell me my hair looks as thick and lustrous as it did when Madonna released Ray of Light. They truly are the best friends a guy could ask for.

The older I get, the more I wonder if it’s possible to make new friends who we feel as deeply connected to as the people who have known us since college (or longer). Are we really incapable of bonding with people as strongly once our formative years have passed? Or do new commitments and interests arise—like parenthood or financial success or giving back to society—that cause us to bond with new people who we might not have had much in common with before? And, if so, does that mean we’re all destined to outgrow any of our friends who don’t change in the same way we do?

I had a blast spending New Year’s Eve with old friends back in the area where I grew up. The more I search for people like them in Chicago, the more I realize they are truly irreplaceable. That’s not to say I haven’t met wonderful people here. It’s just easy to see why so many people never really leave the place where they grew up, and why the people who do often feel like they don’t have much in common with their hometown friends as the years go by. Maybe when we move, we become more like the new people we meet because it keeps us from dwelling on what we’ve left behind. Maybe, for the sake of closure, we have to believe that the amazing friends we now can’t see every day weren’t so great anyway. Maybe, whether we realize it or not, we change so we can feel closer to new acquaintances because it’s more convenient and gratifying than staying the same and relying entirely on old friends who are suddenly so far away.

Of course, that could all be complete bullshit. Maybe we grow apart from old friends because moving helps us learn more about ourselves and become the people we’re meant to be. Or maybe moving has nothing to do with it. Maybe some people change more than others over time because their life experiences (which might not involve relocation) push them in new directions or open their eyes to new ways of seeing the world. Whatever the case may be, I’m thankful for the time I had with my friends from Alabama. I just hope we’re not all bound to some sort of best-friend quota that requires we make a few downgrades before promoting someone new to our personal VIP lists.

My friends over at Boystowners just posted the most amazing link to Hunters and Gatherers—a blog devoted to bringing you the most ridiculous, “oh-no-he-didn’t” user profiles on Manhunt. The site’s contributors even add their own catty, Joan-and-Melissa-Rivers-style commentary. Me likey.

The Irish Ninja Gay-sha Known Simply as BJstorm

If you’re a gold-digging, attractive straight woman, the Web is overflowing with sites to help you find the repugnant, wealthy man of your dreams. Sites like SugarDaddie.com, SeekingMillionaire.com, and MillionaireMate.com promise to help a lady unlock her inner Anna Nicole and settle down with her very own liverspotted, balding, yellow-toothed ATM. But what’s a gay man to do when his dreams are haunted by visions of a joint checking account with Beverly Leslie?

Until recently, queers looking for a free ride have had to find a mate the old-fashioned way—hanging out at art gallery openings and applying for jobs as congressional pages. (Zing!) Then, along came the Gay Millionaire’s Club. I think the GMC was more focused on connecting rich gays with other rich gays, but I’m sure some of their clients were happily paired with broke boys who were eager to escape the high-pressure life of an Abercrombie cashier. For better or worse, the GMC is now run by a company called VXO Partners. But not to worry. While VXO’s name might sound less superficial than its predecessor’s, the company’s website makes it quite clear that gay men with a paltry 900 grand in the bank need not apply.

If you’re not quite ready for the big leagues, but you’re looking for a gay dating service that will keep you from suffering through another blind date with a 35-year old who’s still waiting tables at Bennigan’s, you might want to check out Executive Gay Dating. For the bargain price of $997 for a six-month membership, you can be connected with rich gays who probably look an awful lot like the mediocre men featured in the stock photos on their website. (The two 80s businessmen enjoying an espresso are particularly alluring if you have a few minutes to wait for their photo to appear in the rotation.) Of course, that kind of money can also buy lots of drinks for hot strangers and a 5-gallon drum of roofies. That’s more of a short-term investment, I suppose. However, if you’ve given up on a love that transcends socio-economic class, you need to keep your options open.

This article is cross-posted at boystowners.com.

Dating a guy with expensive tastes is a lot like buying a white cashmere sweater. It’s great the first couple of times. You tell yourself you deserve it and you feel glamorous by association. But eventually, you get sick of taking the damn sweater to the dry cleaners. You just want to throw it in the washing machine, put on some ratty sweatpants and go to bed.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with dating a guy who likes to treat himself to nice things from time to time. However, there’s a big difference in dating a guy who buys a $60 bottle of cologne every couple months and dating a guy whose medicine cabinet could restock a Sephora. So, how do you know if you’re dating a dry-clean-only boyfriend? Here are a few clues:

• he leases a new car because the driver’s seat in his old one took too long to warm up
• he refuses to eat anything behind a sneeze guard
• he refers to Absolut as “the vodka of choice for hoboes and prostitutes”
• he wears a monocle

If you find yourself struggling to keep up with your boyfriend’s high-maintenance lifestyle, there are several routes of escape. Take him to Olive Garden—in a Kia. Buy him something at Old Navy. Tell him you want to spend Friday night watching a Roseanne marathon and sharing a bag full of Gorditas. If he’s still around, there might be hope for your burgeoning relationship after all.

One of the first guys I ever fooled around with was the textbook definition of white trash. He would have made an excellent Eliza Doolittle in a gay remake of My Fair Lady—if Eliza lived in a trailer, smoked a lot of pot, wore a gold-chain necklace, and had to borrow her sister’s car to get to the unemployment office. I won’t bore you with the details of the rollercoaster ride that was our six-day love affair. Let’s just say it ended with me stirring my sheets around in an iron cauldron with a giant wooden paddle. The whole experience led me to spend a lot of time praying that God would send me a man with a job. Sadly, the employed guys I met in the months that followed made me realize my prayers should have been more specific.

We all have certain dating dealbreakers. They’re designed to save us time and frustration, and they’re usually the result of years of careful observation. Judging potential partners based on occupation is nothing new, but some job titles are a bigger turn off then others, which leads me to the following question:

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