Metro.co.uk (print)

I was a luxury proposal planner. I felt more like the secret service than cupid

‘You don’t think a scavenger hunt is romantic?’ asked my client Michael*. He’d just suggested sending his girlfriend on a wild goose chase across Manhattan, retrieving clues from his exes in the order he’d dated them – I was horrified.

But as a proposal planner, my role was to focus on logistics rather than acting as a gatekeeper of perceived ‘romance’.

Luckily, most men (and a few women) who came to my company for help weren’t married to their own ideas and I was usually able to provide them

HuffPost

Why I Struggled To Say Goodbye To Gay Bars

Gay bars used to be the safest places I knew. They were also the most fun. I learned to proudly embrace my sexuality and humanity in these liberated, rainbow-marked establishments that stood for so much more than just drinking. Every time I stepped into a gay bar, it was one more step away from all my heteronormative insecurities.

Gay bars used to be the safest places I knew. They were also the most fun....

The Revealer

The Churches of Artificial Intelligence

Although artificial intelligence may seem on its way to omnipotence today, it was in 2015 that former Google executive Anthony Levandowski became the first to promote AI as God and file the paperwork to register the church. He founded Way of the Future as a nonprofit religious corporation in California, with the mission to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence, and through understanding and worship of the Godhead, contribute to the betterment of socie...

Vice

Grieving Without God: How Atheists Deal with Death

As part of an unabashedly Catholic family, I was shaped and moulded for a life of guilt from a young age. My Colombian grandmother, who was taught by nuns, lived by reminding us to give thanks to Jesus and avoid all sin. Just to play it safe, she often Our Fathered herself to sleep. It seemed everything ordinary deserved gratitude, and whatever I desired required penance.

Observer

The Everlasting Appeal of The Real Housewives

I used to be cynical about watching The Real Housewives until I unexpectedly found myself inside New York’s Sonja Morgan’s hotel room for her Halloween party at the Kimpton in 2018. Her hairstylist invited me, as Morgan embraced a more-the-merrier mentality for gays.

I was shirtless, and Morgan quipped about my nipples, managing to partake in several conversations simultaneously. Production made every extraneous person sign a release waiver before a crew member yelled, “Action!” Countess Luan d

Vice (translated into 5 languages)

What It’s Like To Be a Quadruplet

Our lives began in the Colombian capital of Bogotá simultaneously, my heart beating to the same rhythm as three others. The media celebrated the birth of my brothers and me in 1994 as if it were a miracle. It's weird to receive praise for just being born, but newspapers and magazines printed the news as such: ​"The first quadruplets safely delivered in 30 years."

WIRED

In Praise of AI-Generated Pickup Lines

We're at the height of a global technological revolution, and yet this is the modern state of dating: You swipe left, swipe left again, and again, and again—in fact, you mind-numbingly swipe left so many times that when the app finally lands on a person you deem worthy of swiping right, you accidentally swipe left on them, too. You continue swiping.

My thumbs are bloody with disappointment that dating apps, once the face of innovation, have become relics of the status quo. But I've seen the lig

Xtra Magazine

Love at first lust: A young writer explores a lasting love denied… or is that deferred?

Jared’s profile read 34 years old, six foot one, and muscular. As he opened the door, I saw an honest person. I didn’t fall in love with him immediately, but every visual detail indicated that I could. He looked beautiful in the most masculine ways: broad shoulders, full hair, a confident presence, immaculate posture and a seductive half-smile. At 19, I didn’t understand love—I usually hid from it—but I could still pick it out of a lineup. “He’s the one,” I thought immediately.

Elite Daily (Pride month cover story)

Once I Came Out, Dating Suddenly Became So Hot... And Complicated

Now, it appeared to me that gay men would rather entertain sex without chemistry than the grueling burden of getting to know each other. This was new for me. Being closeted had made my pursuits of vaginal intercourse gradual, to say the least. Usually, a girl would have to throw herself on top of me. I never felt like I had the option to say no then, and to a certain extent, I didn't now.

I wasn’t opposed to casual sex, but I wanted romance, too. I craved everything: the white picket fence with a sex swing inside the house.

Business Insider

My ex-lover turned to me for dating advice with his new boyfriend.

Most gay men would agree that the bedroom is not just where the magic happens; it's where lifelong friendships are made. While it may not be as common for straight people, it's normal for gay men to become friends after sleeping together; two bodies rubbing against each other is often a prelude to future interactions — whether that's dating, keeping it platonic, or something in between.

HuffPost UK

Nearing 30 And Single, I Decided To Date 4 Men From My Past. Here's How It Went.

I’ve lived in New York for nearly 10 years, meaning many random men have my phone number. But I prided myself on having met a lot of eligible bachelors; I started to wonder if I had met them at the wrong time, after four years of being off-market.

Fast Company

The Met Gala celebrated flowers. It forgot about the environment

Considering that tickets cost more than a down payment on a house, it was understandable why people were disgruntled last year when climate protesters temporarily delayed the entrance of several celebrities. And yet, this year’s dress code—The Garden of Time, to accompany the museum’s exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”—seemed like an opportunity for sustainable fashion to permeate the red carpet. There was the usual sprinkle of celebrities who slipped on vintage gowns or vocaliz

Popsugar

Tempted to Call Your Ex This Holiday Season? Read This First

Two things stand out about Lindsay Lohan's new Christmas movie, "Our Little Secret." First, Lohan's hair is flawless, almost compensating for the lack of chemistry with costar Ian Harding. Second, the plot unveils an often-overlooked dating strategy that unfairly gets a bad rap.
The holiday flick follows Avery (Lohan) unexpectedly encountering her ex, Logan (Harding), while celebrating the holidays a decade after their breakup. The kicker? They're at the house of the family of their new partner...

Penguin Random House UK

The importance of raunchy gay literature | Queer novels

As American teenagers, my friends and I hung out at the mall on weekends doing what older teens with driving licenses called 'loser laps' – walking around aimlessly until we’d meandered around most of the shops, then walking around them again. One day, my mom was late to pick me up, so I lingered in a bookshop. I browsed books to pas

Houston Chronicle

Can a U.S. metropolitan city adopt the siesta? Experts, expats and Houstonians weigh in

When I moved to Europe, I learned the Swiss charge for wine by the deciliter, making indulging in American-sized portions financially impractical. Becoming a beer drinker felt like the biggest challenge I’d face — that is, until I arrived in Spain and learned that doing errands in the afternoon is against the law (well, not quite, but it feels that way).

WIRED

The Joy and Liberation of Customizing Your Avatar

TYPICALLY, I HATE choosing—whether it’s what restaurant to eat at or which song to play at a party. Even swiping on potential dates inspires anxiety. I just don't know. My indecisiveness stems from my irrational fear of choosing wrongly, or perhaps it’s FOMO on other options.

The Daily Beast

Is It Time for Bravo to Cast Its First Gay Male ‘Real Housewife’?

What gay man hasn’t seen themself in one of the eccentric, fearlessly bedazzled women that have brought international acclaim (and criticism) to the Bravo franchise? One could argue there has been more visibility of gay culture among the Housewives themselves than in the glimpses of gay men tokenized in sporadic episodes, like the next must-have accessory.

The Revealer

The Evolution of Pope Francis’s Stance on LGBTQ Rights

Pope Francis acknowledges my gay identity more than my own grandmother – a surprising contrast, considering they are both devout Catholics of the same generation. Somehow, a childless monarch of the Vatican City State has been more accepting than a woman who helped raise me.

My grandmother loves me unconditionally but never utters the word “gay.” I’ve always interpreted her silence on the matter as a casualty of faith. Catholicism’s condemnation of homosexuality feels deeply ingrained in histor

Business Insider

I stayed at an Airbnb with a pet pig and realized I liked dogs better

Last summer, after a month of living alone in Medellin, Colombia, I decided I wanted to try to make local friends and booked my second month there with a roommate.
I had been third-wheeling my best friend and her boyfriend, also expats, and I realized I needed pals who weren't madly in love. I was beginning to feel like a golden retriever, always waiting for them to play.

Business Insider

After my friend died in high school, her parents became my 2nd family. Many didn't understand our relationship.

• The death of my best friend permanently bonded me to her family, even when my own didn't understand.
• Her family helped me channel my grief into action.
• Over a decade after her death, I'm still in touch with her family.

I stopped believing in God, became an alcoholic, returned to God, signed up for a gym membership, and even wrote poetry. I've coped with the death of my best friend in all sorts of ways. Yet she remains simultaneously one of my most cherished and anguished memories, and I'

Popsugar

I Thought Coming Out Would Fix My Life — Then Came My Alcoholism

There's a popular gay movie trope about the douchebag who relentlessly drinks himself into oblivion because he can't accept his sexuality. Oh, how badly I wanted that to be the case for me. In 2014, when I was 20 years old, I sat with my arms crossed and back slouched against a plastic chair in a dimly lit room in Perry Street Workshop in New York's Greenwich Village. Rows of people faced a podium where a frail, elderly Asian man with tiny, circular glasses recounted a life of self-destruction t

Business Insider

I met a female sex writer on a trip, and we decided to take a bath together.

The energy exuding from our bodies wasn't sexual but embodied the innocence of children running naked in a field holding hands. I connected with Kayla on a deeper level because we shared such an intimate setting together.

Business Insider

I don't like dogs, and it's messing up my dating life

I used to pretend to like people's dogs. From a young age, I learned it was socially unacceptable not to want to rub their bellies and tell them they're "good boys." Unfortunately, I wasn't talented at feigning interest in humans — nonetheless, four-legged animals. But I didn't expect my ambivalence toward dogs to be a dealbreaker in my adult dating life.I remember dating a guy, who I had noticed on Grindr for a while and manifested into messaging me. I used to suck at hitting on people first. Lon...

The US Sun

I'm Mariah Carey's makeup artist - 5 drugstore makeup finds 'as good as luxury'

MARIAH Carey's makeup artist has revealed his all-time favorite drugstore makeup products that compete with luxury. Kristofer Buckle has shared exclusively with The U.S. Sun five cosmetic products under $20 that he'd recommend to anyone sold at retailers like Walmart, CVS, and Amazon.