Introduction

Finding Your Leading Man

Introduction

The Author's Introduction

Excerpts:

"Finding Your Inner Male"

"The Party Boy"

"Male Matchmaking"

"Party Boy and Therapy Junkie"

"Finding Your Inner Male"
from Finding Your Leading Man

By Jon P. Bloch, Ph.D.

Like straight men, gay men have a lot of hang-ups about getting close to people. But like women, gay men often feel they haven’t the right to assert themselves. Put it all together, and you have a gay man with a typical male fear of intimacy that he camouflages behind a disguise. As I just got done explaining this is his Oscar-Winning Typecast Appearance, or OWTA.

Just like the twelve signs of the zodiac, there are twelve basic OWTAs: the Blue Collar Guy, the Creature of Habit, the Discriminating Shopper, the Hyper-Romantic, the Misfit, the Nice Boy, the Pal, the Party Boy, the Perennial Closet Case, the Sexpot, the Shy Snob, and the Therapy Junkie. But unlike in astrology, these twelve personality types are not fixed for life. You can change over time from one type to another. But what is more important is that you can overcome being any of these types at all. Here’s how:

• First, recognize your OWTA type. You need to get out of denial.
• Second, embrace your OWTA for the good things it’s done for you. It’s hard being a gay man in our society, and it’s nice that you found a way of coping. If your OWTA were all bad, you wouldn’t keep doing it. So get a little spiritual and acknowledge the gifts it’s brought you.
• Third, you need to overcome those aspects of your OWTA that are holding you back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the universe is bliss. But you’re not all that happy, are you? So after noting what’s good about your OWTA, start overcoming the bad stuff about it.

A final word before we get going. W hen you’re reading about the OWTAs, you might think, "Wow, this one type really applies to me." But what if you end up thinking you’re two or three different types? Or what if you think, "In my last relationship, I was this type, but now I feel more like this other type"? Does this mean you’re Sybil? Not at all. Some people change quite a lot from one phase of their life to the next — or from one relationship to the next. If you find useful suggestions in more than one OWTA, that’s great. Still, see if you can concentrate on one OWTA at a time. In your gut, in your heart of hearts, when it comes to intimacy now, which one of the twelve OWTAs are you? That’s your OWTA. Which one is the man in your life? That’s his OWTA. First and foremost, follow the information for the OWTA that you are, first and foremost.