Just Ask
Sometimes the only thing standing between you and what you want is the courage to ask.
This week I’m at a gay men’s kink event. I attend this event every year and have for many years. It attracts hundreds of men from around the world for a relaxed and casual unstructured weekend. I love it.
I attend many such kink events. Being well known within those circles, I never have a problem socializing, meeting people, networking, and otherwise communing with people comfortably. Except for cruising.
For my readers not intimately familiar with gay culture, cruising is what we call flirting with strangers in the hope a sexual connection can be made. Its origins emanate from the 1960s although obviously gay men have been seeking out other gay men in unique ways long before that.
While it’s widely believed that cruising culture has existed for hundreds of years, the official term emerged in the 1960s as gay slang referring to a discreet method of men seeking out anonymous same-sex encounters…
Even though cruising has a connotation of seeking anonymous sex, gay men often use the word to describe trying to connect with other men, online and in person, for sex, but it often happens the people we end up interacting with at an event like I’m at this weekend are guys you know already. So, in many circles cruising has become a big bucket term that describes the active part of gay hookup culture.
Anyway, I’m not great at cruising. I can mix and socialize really well with just about anyone. I can place myself in all-gay men environments and situations that make cruising easier. But still, I find myself hesitating to take a first step on connections.
All that said, this weekend I decided to push myself outside of my comfort zone and “just ask” the “would you be interested in getting together” question.
It’s been remarkably successful.
People who know me probably think I hook up constantly and easily. That’s so not true. But this week’s experiment of consciously pushing through my hesitation to just go ahead and ask has proven to be quite fruitful. Did everyone say yes? No. But some did, and that proved to me that I can change my cruising mindset and enjoy it more. If you find cruising challenging, maybe you can too.
Check out this TED Talk about the power of just asking and how simply asking for what you want can open up possibilities where you expect to find dead ends or rejection.
Happy cruising!
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