How do you know if someone is gay??

LMAO

you forgot to add hotpants.

seriously though - most gay guys (myself included) have a thing called gaydar and you can usually tell who is and who isnt.....im usually right most of the time but just because you feel someone is dont mean you wanna have sex with them...........does it?

I haven't had much need for gaydar ever since I was about 28, and realized that it didn't matter what someone's sexuality was to me as it was none of my business (and frankly I stopped giving a shit).

I found the "You're hot, wanna fuck?" approach to be much more accurate anyways.

An hour? Hell, you might sign up for 5 weeks of 1 hour training sessions at the gym with me, and you'd probably still be confused. Will admit that those of us that are bi- and closeted often go out of our way to send out confusing signals. Call us dishonest if you will, but feel that the best way to avoid missed opportunities is too keep pressing us on the issue....maybe after the 6th or 7th denial, we'll come clean as long as it's our dirty little secret.

To some, you might; to others, you might not. Unless you're really self-conscious about how you come across to people, don't sweat it so much.

Seriously, there's no real way to know ... I just came from the gym, where I was feeling a very intense attraction to this very muscular bloke ... it was obvious he was also paying some attention to me, but we were avoiding eye contact ... there were other guys that showed interest, but the sense was different ... I sensed a different level of interest, qualitatively different, having more to do with the workout program I was pursuing, and the results I was getting, and just the fact they had seen me in their before as a regular ... so the sense I got from the first was intense, and qualitatively different ... but I have no way of knowing at this point whether it's that or just the possibility of a close platonic friendship ... the only way to do that, is to engage him, and learn where the possibilities are ... it may end up as a better as a straight-ace friend, than someone I'll fuck around with. At this point either possibility could obtain, and I should be open to either, or or to some other ...

There is no real way to know if someone is gay -other than to ask them (Assuming they will answer), hang out in a gay bar (Which can be deceiving-I have many friends here, both men and women, who are not gay but have been with me to gay bars) or just not worry about it.

As NIC160 pointed out--sometimes if you are in the right place and observant, someone can seem gay, but even this is just a hunch. I usually know that the guy I am fucking and/or the guy who stares at you in the bookstore and won't break eye contact is gay (its called cruising).

I have a friend who swears he has no gaydar. So,he often wears shirts that are full on innuendo and sayings that are mostly known to other gay men. Then, he looks for the guys who are staring and constantly looking at his shirt.

Sometimes you can tell more about what someone doesn't do than by what they actually do.

you don't. you get down off a goose.

the guy, that said about the secret handshake, you are just to funny, I am still laughing, what do they mean how do you know?

I have an excellent gaydar, and have never been wrong. The things I look for are eye contact, walk, and talk and overall mannerism. I watch how people act in certain situations when no one is watching. I am proud to say that I ahve never been wrong.

ever investigated getting a patent?

My favorite T-shirt from the 80's, "I'm Not Gay, But My Boyfriend Is".

Gaydar. Sometimes you can just tell, and sometimes you are totally off. One learns the hard way not to fully trust it or assume.

You are right.

This is my second post on this thread, and I find that there is a lot of well-intentioned humor and advice presented here. However, we are clueless (or at least I am) to some basic information that effects how the OP, Sportymike, will decide what to do. And it is often our life surroundings that predict (or dictate) how we handle certain situations.

For instance, for those of you that live in large major cities, the options of where to date (and with whom) can be varied and numerous. But for people that live in small rural towns, options and opportunities are quite limited. The nearest Starbucks or ballpark could be a 2-hr drive! Also, people in large cities are afforded a certain degree of anonymity that small towners do not get. Small towners know what you did with whom, when and where. So, without certain basic details about Sportymike's situation, it's difficult to advise him appropriately.

Also, none of us "out & proud" gays should presume that Sportymike's situation is as our own. Rather, we should reflect on the time when our lives hung darkly in our own closets. There was a time when I didn't live in the trendy gayborhood or know the double-meanings of gaydar, cruise, twink or trick. And there was a time that I was deathly afraid to walk into a gay club or bookstore, and to even buy condoms, fleet and KY at the local drug store. I was afraid of who may see me, what they would think and whom they would tell. That same paranoia that we so blithely joke about today was, back then, real fear; the kind of fear that makes your heart race and hands shake uncontrollably.

Yes, many of us out gays have been there and done all of that! So, the way I approach Sportymike's OP is: What advice would have been most helpful for me as I was coming out? It's much like the Rod Stewart song from that car commercial a few years ago: "I wish - that - I knew what I know now -- when I was younger!"

Who can relate? When were we ever that young, scared and naive?

dang! nothing that intense ... in this latest episode, am basically concerned about not knowing what I'm going through ... about possibly doing something stupid and inappropriate ... would like to have the guy in my life as a casual acquaintance, straight friend, or hot sex partner ... whatever is possible, and don't want to muck it up

I don't recall ever going through what you describe!