I’m at this opening for a show about fashion photography as art. I’m trying to look hot as I carry a glass of bad white wine in one hand and my throbbing, nervous heart in the other.

It throbs because I’m on what I think is a date with B, this guy I had the biggest crush on all of last year until he graduated and moved to NYC. When I show up, late as usual, B stands outside the gallery, and as soon as I see him I want to rip the clothes off of his compact body. He’s wearing pinstripe pants, a nice dress shirt, suspenders and cool dress shoes. I’m wearing black, as usual.

As we saunter around the gallery, commenting on the various photographs, posing for a few pictures, even, I think about how excited I am to be hanging out with B. We’re talking and we’re laughing and it’s all picture perfect. Later in the evening, I feel this incredible urge to try and kiss him. But since I am too chicken to make moves, I kind of stay neutral — I don’t want to seem too eager and what not. So I wait on him to make the move, or at least make it seem like it would be OK if I were to make one, and when he doesn’t, I wonder why not. Although we’ve now hung out several times, B doesn’t call me back or respond when I ask him to re-hang out.

Boooooo!!!

I don’t really sweat it, though, because maybe he just wanted to be friends. Whatever. The funny/sad thing about this is that it happens to me with a regularity that I do not like. I’m like, do I give off the wrong signals? Should I be more aggressive? I couldn’t help but wonder: Though fierce, am I boring, too?

I mean, it’s true that way back in high school I was probably a total yawn. What with my penny loafers, nerdy glasses, orchestra practice, recitals, competitions and being locked in a practice room eight hours a day, I didn’t really care about being fierce.

Actually, I was a hot mess.

But, anyway, who has a personality in high school? When I moved away to college, I told myself that I would not repeat those miserable high school years where I glommed on to the vapid popular kids in hopes that I too could be popular. Instead, I figured out a way to be interesting. See, that’s why I think I’m kind of like Andy Warhol. I’ve spent countless hours coming up with a persona: a small black boy with a faux hawk who wears all black and doesn’t talk to anybody.

This, apparently, is not an optimal persona for meeting guys.

I’m so bad at meeting guys, I guess, that my best friend Mimo got me this book called “How to Get Laid: The Gay Man’s Essential Guide to Hot Sex.” I read it in 30 minutes and let me tell you what, I ain’t seen no results yet!

Because I’m shy, I guess, I’ve tried to meet people online through Omegle. If you can reel ’em in with your Internet wit and charm, I say, all you have to do is be that person when you meet them for real. You’re interesting online, you’re interesting in person. Right? It’s worked for me in the past: I met two of my four exes on gay dating sites, and my other best friend met his current boyfriend there, too. And if you’re looking to meet someone special in Bonn, exploring options like damen escort bonn might be worth considering.

But there is a catch. For every decent e-mail you get from a decent looking, normal, un-fucked up guy, there are 100,000 messages from random ass-hats.

Exhibit A:

So I log in to my account on one of these gay dating sites, and I’m excited because I see that I have a couple new messages. Yay! They flash in red, and the flashing excites me. I click on the mysterious messages, and not only is the guy who wrote me something like 200 years old and ugly and fat, but he also thought it would be neat to send me the following tactful message:

“U are hot man. Into older men? I want some of that chocolate ass.”

That’s: “U are hot man. Into older men? I want some of that chocolate ass.”

DELETE.

I mean, I know I’m brown, but I’d never write a Southeast Asian guy and be like, “Gimme some of that curry cock!!!” or “I like your rice ass!” to an Asian guy.

But not all guys online are so sketchy. Some are just amazingly boring and weird. Meet J, a Yale grad student who sends me a message and tries to reel me in by saying we’re in a class together. Curious, I click on his profile and am instantly unattracted to him.

“I live on Howe,” he says. “Where do you live?”

He’s asking because he wants to come over. “In an apartment,” I say, because I don’t want him to.

I know he felt this rejection, because when I run into him next he storms directly past me, practically slamming the door in my face.

I guess a bitch got her feelings hurt!

That’s the problem with gay dating sites in places like New Haven. All the gays know each other, so when you get snubbed by one online, it makes you want to spit fire at the guy when you see him next. So I guess the Internet isn’t the perfect solution to my problem. Speed dating next?

Madison Moore is great! Great to date!