# Q for gay male dopers: Best way to apologize **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 24, 2013, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205 "2013-01-24T09:11:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/21 "2013-01-24T18:55:39Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > Just because a guy buys you some drinks it doesn’t mean you are required to have sex with him. Sheesh. If anything, he should be apologizing to you for taking his clothes off and getting into your bed. If it was a woman writing this, people would be telling you that you should have called the police. …and yelling “YOU GO, GIRL!” if your response to his getting naked and into your bed was to haul his bare ass out the door and kindheartedly throw a sock after him to spare his blushes. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/22 "2013-01-24T19:15:41Z")
Another unwanted straight male chiming in. I think he owes you an apology. You told him that gay sex wasn’t your thing and he got in your bed naked. That seems pretty rude to me. Or, what **shiftless** said. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/23 "2013-01-24T19:22:25Z")
I think to truly make it up to him, you have to break your celibacy and have some pity sex with him. Since you admitted you experimented already in the past, it won’t be a big deal ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/24 "2013-01-24T19:25:52Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > Just because a guy buys you some drinks it doesn’t mean you are required to have sex with him. Sheesh. I don’t think he thought he was going to get head because he bought Rik some drinks. I think he thought he was going to get some because Rik invited him back to his place. ---
**Author:** ![computergeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e56c9b/32.png) [@computergeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/computergeek)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/25 "2013-01-24T19:41:32Z")
A woman here. What I got out of this is that perhaps you shouldn’t be drinking. And you gave him mixed signals and he perhaps took advantage of the situation. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/26 "2013-01-24T19:47:31Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I don’t think he thought he was going to get head because he bought Rik some drinks. I think he thought he was going to get some because Rik invited him back to his place. I agree that at that point Rik should have at least offered a handjob, if not more. It’s the just polite thing to do for a male guest. In fact, I’m going to mention that to my buddy who invited me over for some beers tonight. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Made_French_Toast_For_You)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/27 "2013-01-24T20:06:56Z")
Ohhh alcohol. Life would be so boring without you. As a sober gay man in that situation, I would have been 50% sure we were going back to your apartment to have sex, and I would have been a bit disappointed and confused when it didn’t happen (and I certainly wouldn’t have crawled naked into your bed). As a drunk gay man, that number would be closer to 100%, and god knows what embarrassing things I would have done. I believe you’re being sincere in your motives, and if you want to hang out with him again (in a social setting, please!), I think an apology is in order. He’ll probably apologize too. Then you can drink again. Such is the Great Circle of Alcohol. I’m a bit amazed, though, that he didn’t show any signs of affection before getting to your apartment – long eye contact, touching, sitting/standing closer to you, etc. Did it really just jump from platonic conversation to naked in your bed? ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/28 "2013-01-24T20:10:41Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > I agree that at that point Rik should have at least offered a handjob, if not more. It’s the just polite thing to do for a male guest. In fact, I’m going to mention that to my buddy who invited me over for some beers tonight. Are you being for real? As if there’s no difference between hanging out with your friends and going home with some dude from the bar? ‘Cause I’ve been to male friends’ houses before and didn’t give them a handy, but I don’t go home with the guy I don’t know from the bar who is buying me drinks and wants my junk. He can have my junk, but he has to buy me dinner first, 'cause I’m a lady. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/29 "2013-01-24T20:12:45Z")
I’m not gay, but I don’t see mixed signals here at all, rather you were sending straight up the opposite signals of your actual intentions. Given that the guy bought you drinks which you accepted, you invited him back to your place, and admitted to experimenting when you were younger, I think the most reasonable conclusion isn’t that you were just trying to continue the conversation, but that maybe you were thinking about experimenting again and ultimately you either changed your mind, got cold feet, or he was drunk enough and forgot exactly what happened. Yeah, he shouldn’t have just stripped naked and hopped in your bed, but, that’s not really here nor there. If you wouldn’t have invited a woman home in the same situation not wanting to lead her on, why would you do it with a guy that you strongly suspected was gay and have confidence in your gaydar? Or to think about it from his perspective, I imagine if a woman accepted drinks from me, invited me to her place, told me some sort of sexual story from her past, then I woke up the next morning like he did, I’d be confused or embarassed too, depending on what I remembered about how I fell asleep. That all said, you weren’t deliberately leading him on, so I don’t think a direct apology is necessarily called for. If you run into him again and want to chat with him again, you will want to very clearly close the door. If you don’t really want to talk to him again or feel comfortable, you don’t really need to say or do anything. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/30 "2013-01-24T20:27:59Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I’m not gay, but I don’t see mixed signals here at all, rather you were sending straight up the opposite signals of your actual intentions. Yeah, I’m sorry, Rik, but I thought you were satirizing someone here; I kept waiting for your link to somebody’s story with a slightly more subtle case of being a tease, and the reveal that you were making fun of them. People who are using this story to whine about how unfair life is for straight men: get a grip on yourselves. Three things are obviously true here: 1. If a man buys a woman drinks, and she accepts, and she invites him to her house, and talks about her sexual experiences on the way home, and the man gets in her bed, and she wasn’t planning on sex, that man is not at fault. 2. The woman really needs to rethink the signals she’s sending out. 3. If the man pushes the issue once she clarifies the signals, then the man is at fault. This is not some radical departure from feminism. This is just plain common sense. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/31 "2013-01-24T20:51:39Z")
The idea behind “Man, I don’t remember much” is not to save face for the OP, but to save face for the OP’s buddy. It’s a humiliating thing to have happen, and it feels a lot better if you know the other party remembers it as a drunken blur, rather than having every moment of that embarrassing night seared in his brain. Both parties understand it’s not entirely true, but it’s a kind gesture to create as much plausible deniability as possible. It’s basically the same thing as, say, accidentally sleeping with your ex and saying afterwards “Let’s both pretend that didn’t happen.” I don’t see the fascination with dissecting the signals that the OP was giving or not giving. Who cares? Sometimes there are misunderstandings, sometimes people flirt and get carried away, sometimes people just decide they don’t want to get busy that night for whatever reason. You’re always allowed to change your mind about who you want to have sex with. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/32 "2013-01-24T20:52:14Z")
I’m sorry; I too am not a gay man … but I would have been more convinced if you didn’t tell him that you’d tried the gay earlier in your life. Poor guy. I’m sure he thought it was On. I sort of think you need to be honest with yourself. Apologies if I’m dead wrong, but I kinda don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/33 "2013-01-24T21:11:06Z")
I’m a straight male and if I had done what you did and lead him on that strong that he was in my bed naked before it dawned on me I probably would have given him at least a Handjob if not a blow job as an apology for being so dense. And I’m not really kidding. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/34 "2013-01-24T21:12:09Z")
I am confused and concerned by the title. Do gay men require a specific apology ritual? What’s wrong with standard contriteness? ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/35 "2013-01-24T21:21:43Z")
> [@ReticulatingSplines](#): > > Oh my god, a real-life Tobias Funke! > [@computergeek](#): > > A woman here. What I got out of this is that perhaps you shouldn’t be drinking. In all honestly, I prefer to avoid in-person conversation as much as possible, even when sober, unless it’s conversation with somebody that I’ve known for a long time. I had to look up Tobias Funke, having never heard of him, but this bit pretty well sums it up: _“In season 2, Michael advises him to record what he says for a day, after which Tobias acknowledges that he is a “blowhard”, further showing his propensity to be completely ignorant of the implications of his utterances”._ I’m not a “quick” conversationalist, so unless I came to the conversation prepared in advance for what I’m going to talk about, I almost inevitably end up saying just about _anything_ just to fill space when it’s “my turn” to say something. And all too often I find out later that my “anything” offended somebody, or else I’ll recall it the next day and only then realize how it must have sounded. It’s a major part of why I deliberately avoid jobs that put me in direct contact with customers — saying the wrong thing to a customer could get me fired. This is largely why the Internet has been such a godsend for me. I get to have interesting conversations with interesting people, _and I get to review and edit everything I “say” before I say it_. But yeah, drinking doesn’t help. It just makes me forget why I try to avoid conversations. Unfortunately, it never helps me forget any of the stupid things I may have said/done while I was drunk. > [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Anywho, talking about your place = excuse to go to your place = excuse to put his penis in you. Well, for the record, he did explicitly say at one point that his preferred sexual act was to perform oral. So even had I been 100% willing to let him blow me, it would have been a waste of both our time because my penis was as drunk as I was and wasn’t going to stand at attention. I know from distant-past experience that even a hot, naked woman wasn’t going to get me up in that condition. > [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](#): > > I’m a bit amazed, though, that he didn’t show any signs of affection before getting to your apartment – long eye contact, touching, sitting/standing closer to you, etc. Did it really just jump from platonic conversation to naked in your bed? Looking back on it, it’s entirely possible that he was faking the falling-down-drunk part to give himself an excuse to hold onto my arm, and I simply took his actions at face value. In hindsight, he certainly didn’t seem that drunk when we first left the bar. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/36 "2013-01-24T21:23:22Z")
[QUOTE=Inner Stickler] I am confused and concerned by the title. Do gay men require a specific apology ritual? What’s wrong with standard contriteness? [/QUOTE] See the post immediately above yours for the correct ritual. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/37 "2013-01-24T21:28:38Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Are you being for real? As if there’s no difference between hanging out with your friends and going home with some dude from the bar? ‘Cause I’ve been to male friends’ houses before and didn’t give them a handy, but I don’t go home with the guy I don’t know from the bar who is buying me drinks and wants my junk. He can have my junk, but he has to buy me dinner first, 'cause I’m a lady. No, I was not being for real. Of course the OP shouldn’t have given a bunch of signals that said “I want you” but even if he did, that doesn’t obligate him to put out. I’ve been invited back to her place a few times over the years. Sometimes it resulted in some action, sometimes it resulted in me skulking away unhappy. A couple of them were ladies too! Never did it result in me undressing, getting into her bed and then expecting an apology from her for not putting out. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/38 "2013-01-24T21:36:42Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > I sort of think you need to be honest with yourself. Apologies if I’m dead wrong, but I kinda don’t think so. Yeah, my first thought exactly. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/39 "2013-01-24T21:47:58Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > No, I was not being for real. Okay, thank god. Sometimes it is really hard to tell in this place. > [@](#): > > Of course the OP shouldn’t have given a bunch of signals that said “I want you” but even if he did, that doesn’t obligate him to put out. > I’ve been invited back to her place a few times over the years. Sometimes it resulted in some action, sometimes it resulted in me skulking away unhappy. A couple of them were ladies too! Never did it result in me undressing, getting into her bed and then expecting an apology from her for not putting out. Okay, fair enough. I could see why the guy thought there would be bonage in his future, but yeah, getting butt booty naked in Rik’s bed is, uhm, aggressive. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205/40 "2013-01-25T03:27:51Z")
Is there like, a story or something behind why you’ve been “voluntarily celibate since 1995” or was that a joke? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-for-gay-male-dopers-best-way-to-apologize/648205.md?page=3)