Agony Auntie

Dear Ms Quisp,
I am a great admirer. In fact, I don’t know how I survived before you appeared. My life remains dull and boring, but I feel much better in the knowledge that someone wonderful as you has nothing better to do either, and your bloguette provides a constant source of mindless entertainment to pass the time.

But I write in serious need of your advice. Last weekend, a gay gentleman that I have often seen in my local gay venue arranged to meet me for a date. I waited for him at the agreed location, however he didn’t show up. Following your own example, I refuse to use hand-held devices, therefore he had no means of contacting me and I have no means of contacting him. It is possible that we’ll bump into each other this coming weekend. What should I do? Yours truly,
Bored

Dearest Bored,

Many gracious thanks for the kind words contained in your letter.

However, one must point out that one does have much better things to do with ones time; one does not spend all one’s idle moments entertaining or corresponding with a particular member of the general public; nevertheless, one feels a certain immoral and social responsibility to help those more desperate than oneself.

First of all, congratulations on having a date: in the gay world, that in itself is something of an achievement. No doubt there are perfectly good reasons, not referred to in your letter, why this gay gentleman did not propose going directly back to his place, which appears to be the accepted approach. Secondly, well done on your decision not to rely upon a hand-held device to make arrangements for your date: as you know, I have never approved of this ‘let him call whenever he feels like it’ approach to dating, preferring to call the shots. My own gentlemen admirers, understanding they have only one chance of getting to know me and are fortunate to have my particular attention even for an instant, never question my own refusal to engage in telephone nonsense.

As you might imagine, one has experience of ‘standing out’ and one ‘stands a good chance’ of getting picked up whenever one wants; one ‘stands by’ friends and one has occasionally flown ‘on stand-by’; one even ‘stands a round’ whenever in Ireland, however one has never been ‘stood up’ as you have. One presumes that you did not loiter in waiting any longer than ten minutes?

What to do in the circumstances? Obviously your priority is your own emotional well-being, so one suggests pampering yourself immediately. If your self-esteem has been damaged in any way by this slight, one suggests you immediately seek attention from the nearest available gay gentleman (making no mention of the ignominy you have recently endured- one wants attention: one does not want sympathy… besides, it makes one sound like a loser)

Moving on from this, with your composure restored, you must decide what to do upon next meeting with the offending gay gentlemen. On that occasion, if he should travel in a wheelchair and appear to have been in a serious accident, simply enquire why he did not insist upon being conveyed from his hospital bed to the meeting place at the designated time, or have an emissary attend on his behalf. In these circumstances, if he is genuinely apologetic, I would let him off with a large bunch of flowers, an expensive present, and a lavish make-up dinner.

On the other hand, if he has not been in a life-threatening situation, or treats this affair in an offhand manner, then he is clearly no gentleman and obviously not the kind of person who is going to knock himself out for you… and so you should do it for him.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Insincerely,

Ms C Quisp