The Mandates by Dave Singleton Page B

piece. Or you are in an open relationship but you want to hold the cards and take out any jokers, princes, jacks, or wild cards (like the guy he meets on a business trip and decides he likes better). Or you are still at that interim stage where you are navigating the rocky waters of your relationship day to day, trying to keep it afloat, be a couple, make plans for the future, and yet not crowd that all-important male requirement—space. On a percentage basis, probably close to 80 percent of all gay male couples are in that “interim” phase mentally, if not historically or chronologically.
    The male species has been fighting for individual space and the delineation of territory since Cain and Abel, so why pretend it won’t happen, even if you are in the mushy phase of your relationship where you both walk on air? My advice in this stage is jump to earth before you get too high. It hurts when you’re thrown to the ground.
    For men subscribing to
The Mandates,
competition can enter into play early on in dating. That’s why it’s best to face it head-on and not be an ostrich, sticking your head in the sand as if it won’t come up sometime soon. Just remember, ostriches have to come up for air eventually!
    Here are some common situations in any gay dating relationship, and ways to deal with them effectively. They are enough to bring out the competitive jungle animal in any man.

PART VII
The Mandates
Role Models and Spiritual Advisers

ROLE MODELS

    Finding good gay role models is hard. After all, it is only in the nineties that gay male characters in movies were allowed to live, let alone date. In the fifties, gay male characters were offered up as sacrifices in film after film. In the sixties, they were allowed to live and be bitchy and wear purple. In the seventies, they were second and third bananas, full of comic relief. And in the eighties, of course, they all died of AIDS.
    Finding role models is tough for heterosexuals, too, these days. But finding good
The Mandates
role models is even tougher.
    When you look at the influential worlds of movie characters, acting, politics, music, books, celebrity, business, sports, fashion, and history, whom do you admire for their solid
The Mandates
sensibilities?
    Here’s a list of some individuals and characters who stand out and make us proud to be followers of
The
Mandates:
    Rupert Everett in
My Best Friend’s Wedding
    Russell Crowe’s incredible gay son in
The
Sum of Us
    Simmering and smoldering fashion leader and icon Tom Ford
    Will from
Will and Grace
    Christian Campbell’s character in
Trick
    Billy Bean, the “out and proud” former pro baseball player
    Alexander the Great
    David on
Six Feet Under
    But then there are those individuals and characters whose behavior makes
The Mandates
required reading:
    The guys on
Queer as Folk
    Nathan Lane’s classic queen in
The Birdcage
    Gay writer Edmund White, whose trail of sad memories surely earns him at least one really great date
    The entire cast of
The Broken Hearts Club
    Jack from
Will and Grace
    All the tortured gay male characters in Merchant Ivory films except Maurice
    British writers Oscar Wilde, Joe Orton, and Quentin Crisp

SPIRITUAL ADVISERS

    Prayer is very much a part of the Mandates. Whom do you pray to for certain qualities? Just as some people pray to St. Christopher for travel safety, gay men need to pray to key individuals (mostly not saints, but there are exceptions). The following is the list of the Mandates’ spiritual advisers and what aspect of life to focus on when praying to them:
    Chad Everett, the doctor from the 1970s television medical drama
Medical Center
for health. When you are not feeling well, who better than an awesomely handsome doctor with piercing blue eyes and a great tan to make it all better? (Youngsters unaware of Mr. Everett’s powers may substitute George Clooney from the television show
ER.)
    Elizabeth Taylor for hope