Branden Lee is a blogger, screenwriter, producer, and actor, currently residing in Boston, MA. Follow Branden on Twitter and Tumblr.
A couple months ago Jezebel posted an article about giving nicknames to guys while dating multiple men. The piece really resonated with me, since I’ve been assigning guys nicknames for years.
I date a lot. It seems like with each new semester I tend to go on even more dates than the last. I’m 22, never had a boyfriend, don’t have a real job, and am a broke college student, a boy’s gotta eat. I only accept dinner dates. I believe that unless a guy is obviously a potential rapist, killer, or repulsive to look at, then you should always accept his invitation. Why not? Most of the time I have nothing else to do with my time, so I might as well be going on as many dates as possible.
I do meet most of my dates online through the various (gay) dating apps I use. Most people are online dating nowadays anyway. I used to be against online dating, until I realized every single gay person I knew in Boston was using it too. And when I hear about someone else going on a date, that makes me want to go on a date. I shouldn’t be disadvantaged, so I gave in to online dating and now 2 years later I currently actively use 5 of them. The past semester I had 9 dates with 7 guys, and that’s a lot of stories to relay back to my friends and blog about.
There’s no point in using a guy’s real name, it’s not descriptive enough when telling my friends or to blog about. A nickname can pretty much sum up a guy in one or more words to set the tone for the story. Over year years I’ve given guys monikers such as Guy-With-Girlfriend, The Accountant, Boy Toy, BC Boy, Guy-With-Girlfriend 2, Fake Boyfriend, Tranny Chaser, Former Fat Boy, Colombian… and the list goes on. There have been so many boys in my past, present, and future to remember. Nicknames are necessary to keep track of them, or at least try to.
Whenever I discuss a new boy with my friends, and when they discuss a new boy with me, it’s necessary they provide a brief biography of their latest paramour. I also demand pictures. Don’t tell me all about a guy, without at least providing a photo. I always send pictures of guys I’m going on a date with or hooked up with to my friends. Even for a one night stand I’ll hunt them down on Facebook or Google to find at least one photo to relay back to my friends. Nothing’s worse than giving a long detailed story about a guy without being able to show your listeners who you’re talking about.
But if a guy does make a repeated appearance, it’s definitely necessary to give him a nickname. Your friends won’t remember who “Tom”, “Mike”, or “Paul” are. Especially if they’ve never met and most likely never will meet them, and they know several other guys with those names. Thus making it absolutely imperative to give your dates/hookups a nickname.
A nickname can consist of anything that is remotely unique to the guy. Don’t label a guy as “black guy” if you hookup with multiple black guys, or as “The Doctor” if you’ve been with multiple doctors. Granted it’s easy to label a guy by his race or profession if he’s the first of his kind you’ve been with, but you never know what the future holds. Hence why I have a Guy-With-Girlfriend and a Guy-With-Girlfriend 2. With my rate at attracting guys in relationships I’m surprised I haven’t gotten up to Guy-With-Girlfriend 10 yet. Try to stick with whatever is the weirdest thing that stuck about him, well unless you don’t want to be reminded of it, then choose something else. Like a sexual fetish that was unique to him or something he wore that was different.
Basically you have the complete freedom to label a guy whatever you want when discussing him with other people. Though do try to make sure he never hears about the nickname, especially if it’s something he wouldn’t like to find out you shared. Unless you’re never planning on seeing him again, then it doesn’t even matter. Label him with whatever moniker you want if he finds out about it or not!
