Supply Vs Demand

When my smart, spunky, successful friend Sean arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Auckland in the hope of nabbing himself an eligible Malaysian bloke, he was flabbergasted by what he discovered: a bunch of game-playing, Playboy types who come on strongly and then swiftly move on to the next without so much as a kiss in the morning or a goodbye text.

"What's going on?" he asked me, perplexed.

"They're spoilt for choice," I told him. "They don't need to pick one when there are so many gorgeous boys everywhere you look."

When The Sunday Star recently came out declaring that relationships are more about an economic transaction than a chance romantic interlude between two unsuspecting individuals, I was intrigued. Especially when I got to the part where the writer, Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell University, likened the current state of relationships to the financial market: one that is dictated by supply and demand.

"Economics teaches us that when there is excess demand for a good, its price rises," he writes. "According to this model, excess demand for partner should have caused the terms of courtship to shift in favour of men."

Which reminded me exactly of the dating game Down Under. It often seems that there is indeed an "excess demand for boys", and unfortunately the boys are having a field day sexually.

Says my banker friend Lloyd: "When supply exceeds demand, either supply will fall (there'll be fewer white) or the price will fall, and therefore boys will have lower standards or will be willing to accept inferior substitutes."

Like anything, if there is a surplus of hot, eligible, sexy, young men for the small number of eligible gay men, then it's no wonder we're in a no-commitment, game-playing generation.

The solution?

"Do not date any guy in their 30s," two men in their 40s recently warned me. "They have so much choice available to them, there is no way in hell they're going to settle down. You need to either go for a man much older than you, or stay single. Don't even try."

"He told me that he likes getting 80 clicks a day. It's just a big boost to his ego and shows him he's still got it. For that reason he'll probably never settle down, even though he pretends to want to."

And why should he? Simple supply and demand.

After a few weeks in Kuala Lumpur, Sean vehemently concurred with my hypothesis.

The competition is fierce. Hence the boys are becoming more desperate, will cling to anything with a stable job and a credit card, and boy, do the men know it.

When I did a quick poll of the gay men for my blog, I was swiftly given a startling reality check: Gay men expect sex quickly, and the boy feel that if they don't give it up just as fast, they'll lose out on nabbing the last available man in the country.

But when I interviewed one 33-year-old man I'll call Jim, I discovered that there are some men who are equally sour about their situation.

"I meet boys and they immediately want to take me home," he told me. "Suddenly, though, they don't want to do anything. And then I don't hear from him again."

The problem, he reckons, is that there are "too many assholes and not enough nice guys", and therefore these bad eggs are ruining it for the rest of the gay men species.

"Communication doesn't exist. Everything is done via text and everything can be misinterpreted. Gay boys don't text back for hours, or sometimes days. And when I text back regularly or too often, it's like I'm not playing by the rules or something. Everything is a game. How will any real relationship come out of that?"

He has a point. I often get berated by my well-meaning (boys) friends for texting or calling a guy.

"What are you doing? You should never contact them first!" they lament. "They need to be the ones chasing!"

I must be out of the loop, or loopy, or just honest and clear about my intentions. But apparently that's a no-no.

One long-time singleton James told me that when he was recently in London, the men treated him entirely differently. And he liked it.

"Men actually picked up the phone. They texted to say they wanted to see me again; called to say they had fun on the date, took me for picnics and tours of the city and still didn't try to kiss me by the third date. And when I texted or called them, they actually became more keen. It was refreshing."

So does that mean there is a low supply of hot-to-trot British gay men?

"That's right," says my Aussie mate Cameron who is living here. "That's why I flew back to Sydney to recruit one and bring him back with me."

They're now living together in Kuala Lumpur, have been together for over a year and both of them are blissfully happy they no longer have to play texting games ...

From my own experience when I just arrived Auckland in 1999 from Melbourne - the difference there is remarkable. Guys ask me out, want to pay for dates, open car doors... It really is quite amazing. The guy I am seeing at that time didn't even try to kiss me until our third date and this seems quite common... While I love it and it is refreshing it is also very confusing at time for a Melbourne boy like me... (at that time)

Till then