I went on a date with a man
You didn’t misread the title and no, I don’t mean a man date. I chose to spend a considerable amount of time preparing and going on a series of romantic dates with men. If you don’t know me, then the heading shouldn’t be that surprising because people go on dates with men all the time. The potential shock value so to speak, comes from me being known as a heterosexual male for 34 years.
As the potential shock value subsides from those who think this is a big coming out announcement, I’m afraid to disappoint. This is simply a man trying his best to push all the edges of his ego and perceived identity to explore what’s underneath. Over the last few months I’ve been asking questions about my sexual orientation. How did I get here? Did I choose it powerfully? What does it feel like to be with people of the same gender? What does my ego has to say about it all?
This is definitely the most challenging post I’ve written thus far. Projecting an image of a single, carefree guy chasing the affection of women has been a relentless pursuit basically all of my adult life. My sabbatical has afforded me an opportunity to ask questions about life, love, parenthood, family, commerce and now, sexuality. I’m sharing my experiences today in order to live one of my values, vulnerability.
Do we choose our sexual orientation powerfully or are we subconsciously coerced into picking a lane?
We each have a dizzying amount of choices we get to make each day; some small, some life-changing. But I believe most choices are not made powerfully, most are made from our deeper subconscious. The subconscious that’s shaped during our younger, formative years. How often are we fully aware of self-limiting beliefs, tapped into our authentic truth allowing our divine wisdom to shine through? This is the powerful choice I am referring to above.
The dichotomy between the powerful choice and the subconscious coercion is a subject I’ve been dancing with recently. It takes me back to the early days of highschool, when I was discovering so much about myself. Back then I attended an all-male boarding school where I shared a dorm with 100 kids, all my own age. Without being fully aware of much I remember the word “gay” being used in a derogatory way. It was used to explain all sorts of negative things. Though I didn’t understand what it meant, I did know that I never wanted to be called that, back then. Did the social conditioning start then? Did my subconscious begin to create an aversion to being ‘gay’?
As I recount my experiences I am aware of a deeper cultural narrative within the LGBTQ community that exists around how society labels or stigmatizes their culture. I recognize that I have blind spots that might cause friction, but that’s not my intention. As a student of my experiences and feelings I wanted to write this authentically to me and if it causes harm to others I want to understand why so that I can grow. In short, I’m not here to offend and I’m open to feedback.
Coming into my middle teen years, it was hard to reconcile what I had learned in the boarding house because mum and dad had an amazing group of gay and queer friends that I always enjoyed being around. It was never a dull moment at home on weekends when they would host vibrant cocktail parties with feather boas and explosions of pink everything. Being invited to join the dinner table often led to illuminating conversations. This helped me develop a level of acceptance for all people and a general curiosity in the world of travel, art, entertaining and fabulousness. I am fortunate enough to have created long and deep relationships with a number of mum and dad’s LGBTQ friends who, even as of yesterday, I still engage with regularly.
What I experienced at those cocktail parties led me to be invited to travel the world. What I experienced on those trips with that community was truly remarkable and deeply profound in my development. Not many kids from the traditional boarding house would spend weekends, aged 17, getting dressed up in sparkling onesies to attend gay bars on Oxford Street, Sydney. I have memories of tough conversations and uncomfortable advances, and remember feeling closed off to exploring that side of me. Casting my mind back I want to say, in those moments, I was pretty clear in my orientation, and being open to men didn’t feel right.
During my twenties both in Sydney and Los Angeles I was making a lot of choices from a place of scarcity. I carried a heavy burden inside, a self limiting belief. A belief of not being not good enough. To make up for it I wanted to project an image different to what I felt inside. A party boy, people-pleasing, and female-using persona is what eventuated. I’m not saying this was everything as I certainly had other values I was living, but these actions typically lived at the top. Without knowing it at the time because I hadn’t begun to work on myself, I was going through life on autopilot and being led by the masks I had created.
To be honest, sometimes I wonder what life would be like with my head remaining in the sand. The reason I say this is because on the surface I was having a fantastic time and probably would still be living a version of that lifestyle now, had it not been for my ex-partner enrolling me in a transformational course which started all of this self-exploration 6 years ago.
One of the cornerstones of my insecurities was to win the affection of women and use that as a means to project some level of success to my male peers. During this ten year period, there was really no awareness for what was driving me, and no real opportunity for reflection as to why I was choosing women apart from thinking it made me look good. I wasn’t really powerfully choosing to be with women, I was more doing it from a place of projecting ego and looking cool.
This brings me to present day. Looking back over the experiences mentioned above and many others, I couldn’t really find moments in my life where I had powerfully authentically chosen to be a straight male. It kinda all just happened and I went with it. Some might say that this is nature’s way and I’m wasting my time even thinking about it but I wanted to at least go there and ask some questions. Scratch the surface and see if I can dig in and reveal some deeper truths.
A few months ago I decided to put myself out there and go on a few dates with men. I went back and forth on the best way to do this. My options were dating apps, going to a gay bar or asking my friends to set me up. I opted for the Tinder Male Looking For Male option. I truly didn’t want this to feel like an experiment because that didn’t feel authentic and somewhat goes against why I was doing it. In thinking about this process of self discovery, it was important that anyone I met didn’t feel used or taken advantage of. My best attempts at being truthful and vulnerable allowed anyone involved to opt in. I tried hard to get my heart and head to a place where I could trust that whatever would happen during these experiences, I had to go with it. Convincing my ego to let go of what I’ve held onto the tightest, my sexuality, was going to be the hardest struggle of my life. I was at war with my ego, my society and myself, the other side of which could be a totally new world.
As pre-work I set up a Hinge profile with a male looking for females account as a test. I had never been on dating apps before so I wanted a baseline. I needed to collect a few weeks of data on heterosexual Nick before transitioning into curious Nick. I documented thoughts, experiences and physical sensations from what I noticed when I would match with women. That process was fun, but the time came when the Tinder male looking for male account needed to be created.
Terror struck. I was theoretically paralyzed. My ego won for days, and I resisted setting up the account. Ten days passed with no action and eventually I forced myself to act. The first step was to set up the account, select images and set the filters. It was fascinating what I noticed when I compared the two accounts.
I noticed that on my “Hinge Hetero” account I was projecting a 360 version of myself. Images of my daughter, other family members, action photos with friends, and me living a well-rounded life. When I compare that to my “Tinder Curious” profile, the difference was interesting. For whatever reason I chose only selfies and images of my face. Reflecting on this, perhaps I chose not to share pics of my family because I had some perceived risk, and didn’t want to bring them in. Another thought was only showing selfies exposed some inflated ego thing of me thinking I’m pretty attractive to men. In any case, it’s interesting to note and I had fun thinking about the why.
Swiping right and being active on the account challenged the deepest parts of me. I had to push myself to begin the journey and open myself up to actively select men that I found attractive. This was the first moment that thoughts had to transfer into action. I re-read my journal before writing this and I was making notes around being more attracted to the ‘straighter’ looking men than those will full makeup and wearing tiny g strings. I’m certain that my notes in my journal are not culturally sensitive and I run the risk of hurting a community but I wanted to share my unfiltered thoughts in that moment to give you a peek into my sensibility. The world isn’t fair and my blind spots open me up but writing this pushed me to research the culture that exists around topics such as sexuality. I ended up basically swiping right on a bunch of guys that looked like me and had similar interests. Perhaps this made me feel safer somehow. Safer in terms of being able to connect on other interests outside of male attraction and safer in my perception of how it looked to others.
After a few hours the first round of matches lit up my phone, at which point I had mixed feelings. Part of me was excited to see who liked me back and part of me wanted to delete the account. I had to trust the curious part over the fear and I pressed on, opening up conversations with a few guys. Most of them wanted to know what my experience was, why was I doing this, what I was open to doing, and so on. Two matches opted out as they were fearful I would hurt them somehow, and I continued talking with a few others. After a few back and forths my first date was planned.
The day of the first date was a normal Sunday, spent with my daughter. I really was taking note of my thoughts and feelings throughout the day. My mind was contemplating what a world would be like for my daughter if this lead down a different path, what would society say, what would my community think. It was intense as my mind was creating a number of different scenarios.
I was taking note of my actions. I was interested to see if my pre date routine would be different. Would I wear the same cologne? Brush my teeth because I was expecting a make out? Nice clothes or normal casual clothes? An hour before I had to get ready I was experiencing nerves as I had no idea what was coming next. Could this be a disaster or am I going to me be making out with a guy in 90 mins? It was truly like no other experience I’ve felt in my life. My entire world and all I had projected for 34 years could change in a matter of hours. This was a huge inflection point. I was willing to go there and had to trust that whatever was going to happen next was my truth. Truth that wasn’t going to define me for the next 34 years but rather an opportunity for self expression and authentic me.
The date itself was free flowing. We had great conversation and I felt safe. I was able to clearly communicate what I was up to, why it was important to me and acknowledged him for being open. Overall my body position was more closed off than usual as perhaps I was protecting myself. Usually I am in an open body position with physical touch on shoulders and things like that but this time I had arms and legs crossed. I had initially wanted to not have wine so I could remain fully present and not dull or enhance the experience with alcohol but he felt more comfortable having wine so I joined. An hour in the conversation turned to why I was attracted to him and vice versa which felt hard to receive what he was saying. I typically have a hard time receiving praise but this was particularly challenging as I felt more shut down. A couple of bites of food, another glass of wine and some minor skin on skin contact with our legs and the date was wrapping. We exchanged numbers and an embrace before saying our goodbyes.
In the days that have followed I’ve been very aware of what I’m feeling inside and how I want to continue exploring my sexuality. I don’t know if I’m any closer to answering my question about if I powerfully chose my orientation or not, but I am committed to continuing to put myself out there. Does it even really matter how I identify because gay, straight or bi is just another label. Labels, like life, don’t last forever. I feel best when I can be present and be love. For now, exploring, having fun and sharing vulnerability are important to me. If I have learned anything throughout this experience it is: love starts with acceptance, and when I accept where I’m at there’s a greater chance of giving and receiving love. But it all starts with me.
As I said in my very first post, I’m committing to writing six blog posts. So consider this the halfway point. The intention is for it to be raw, vulnerable and an account of the experiences I create to break through self-limiting beliefs. In review, I’m scaring the sh*t out of my ego which I love to do. Seeking discomfort is a hell of a drug.
Thank you for reading.
Nicholas G K Ingate
Discomfort rating for questioning my sexuality out loud: 9.8 out of 10
P.S. Thank you JJ, for your ongoing support.
