Wake Up: A Strategic Intel Report on Men

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Q: First of all, tell us about yourself. What do you currently do for fun and what do you do professionally? A: I grew up in Alpharetta, Georgia right outside of Atlanta and then I came out to the west coast to go to USC, and got a degree in Film and Communication. Since graduating I’ve been writing, producing shorts, and doing odd films here and there. And then of course writing for the site. Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the site for those who don’t know? A: I was having such a hard time dating in LA. And I wanted to get to the bottom of why. [There are] all these challenges and obstacles when you’re trying to be this great, amazing, best version of yourself, and sometimes that just goes horribly wrong and you’re not that person. It’s also about when, after you come out, there’s kind of this huge learning curve. There are so many terms. We don’t have a ton of rom coms and we don’t have our parents to look to, to show us what a homosexual relationship looks like or what homosexual dating looks like. There’s more coming out but it’s coming out of the woodwork, you know? [The site] seeks to be a guide for guys who have just come out, who are new to gay culture and don’t really know anything about it. Because I don’t know anything about it, so it’s a little bit of the lost leading the lost, but hopefully we can all tell stories to kind of help each other. Q: From when you started this site to now, has anything changed? Are you in a relationship? What have you learned from your dating experiences? A: I am in a relationship now; we’ve been dating for 7 going on 8 months.

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It’s a crazy story. With the site it's just kind of taken turns that I haven’t really expected in terms of readership, you know, having straight girls reach out to me, having straight guys reaching out to me. I was writing with one audience in mind but then it expanded to other people and different people who are, to my surprise, relating to what I was talking about and being interested in a subculture that they weren’t really a part of, but still learning from it. Q: How would you describe dating in the gay community as a whole? I know it’s a big question but if you were to sum it up how would you talk about it? A: The gay community…it’s so different from city to city and it depends on so many things like the weather and if it’s the type of culture where you go out all the time or if it’s a rainy city so you do more inside things. Those are all things that kind of affect the dating culture. But technology has been a big part of gay dating. With Grindr it was actually one of the first dating apps, before Tinder and OKCupid. Grindr was the pioneer of mobile and online dating. It was one of the first apps that showed you who was gay in your area. Because one of the difficult parts of being gay is you might go out to a bar and unless it’s a gay bar, you’re not gonna know who’s gay and who’s not, and you might hit on a straight person but you also don’t want to not hit on that person because you don’t want to miss out on an opportunity. So, I think that’s one of the big challenges. Q: How would you say that it’s different from dating as a straight person? A: In talking to some of my straight guy friends, there is so much pressure as a straight guy to be a provider and to be


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