Below are the 2010 contenders to star in the show. Vote for your favorites!

ONLINE VOTING ENDS THURSDAY FEBRUARY 11th AT 12NOON.

James and I met at a local gay bar on $1 drinks night. He claims to have seen me from a distance because I was wearing a golden flannel and a fedora hat. The bar was mildly crowded, so he saw me from about 20 feet away. My back was towards him and I was talking to a group of about 5 people.

Let’s start from the beginning.

James was out with one of his friends that he had recently been set up with on a blind date. However, when they met, they knew right away that they weren’t into one another, so they became friends. A week later, this friend invited James to come out for Dollar Monday. They were outside when James asked him to describe the kind of guy he liked. His friend stated that he couldn’t really describe it, but when he saw them, he’d know. James suggested they look around the club to see if they can find someone that would be his friend’s type.

As this was going on, I was in the bar with a group of friends. I had had a bad day at work that day, so my friend suggested going out for drinks. I didn’t know that there was a dollar drink night, so when he told me about it, I said that I was definitely going. I had just moved to San Francisco the week before, so I wasn’t too familiar with the Castro scene.

James and his friend walked into the bar and started looking scanning the room for possibilities. James saw me and stopped his friend in his tracks and said, “Golden flannel is mine!” His friend agreed and thought I was cute, so he came a little closer to me.

Since I had arrived at the bar around 9:30, the place was pretty dead. By now, it was 10:15, so I decided to look around to see how crowded the bar had gotten. That’s when I noticed James standing about 15 feet away from me. He was wearing a tank top in early November. I chuckled to myself and smiled at him and he smiled back.

I leaned over to my friend and told him that I thought the guy in the tank top was cute, and he agreed. When I looked again, he was still smiling at me. I turned to my friend and told him that the tank top guy was staring, so he suggested I go over and talk to him. I looked over again and he was still smiling at me, and he nodded me over.

I walked over, and we introduced ourselves. We instantly connected and, I felt bad for it afterwards, but we both left our friends for the night. He suggested taking me to the best pizza place in town, so we walked over to Nezario’s and had a slice, and actually met up with my friend from whom I was with at the bar. He got to know him and then we left.

James took me to the cement slides in Twin Peaks/Diamond Heights area. They were a lot of fun. He then drove me home and asked if he could kiss me goodnight. I gave him permission. I then found out that he only lived like 3 blocks away from me.

We’ve been together ever since.

My cousin had tried on multiple occasions to set Lydia and I up. However, we had both dismissed the idea as ridiculous because Lydia lived in Madison, Wisconsin and I in California.

It took a few years for us to meet in person. I was visiting my cousin in Madison, WI who had brain surgery in May 2007. Lydia lived in Madison at the time and her family was and remains very good friends with my cousin and his family. While visiting, I got sick and ended up in the hospital….Disrupting my plans of visiting my sister in Minnesota. Thus, I stayed in Wisconsin an extra couple of days. Lydia’s family had a barbeque that weekend.

My cousin took me along to the barbeque as the uninvited guest. At the barbeque I had little chance to talk to Lydia except for brief moments when I asked her to get me coffee TWICE. She willingly got the coffee the first time but protested the second time by saying “I am not your maid !”So I thought hmmmm…she is extremely beautiful, has a little spunk , is not afraid to speak her mind what an excellent combination!!

After we left the barbeque, I asked my cousin if I can get Lydia’s number. when my cousin approched Lydia to ask her if it is ok to give her number to me, she responded with questions such as : who is he? why does he want my number ? why do I need to talk to him, etc. Through the persistence of my cousin, I got her number and I called Lydia only to be greeted with more sherlock holmes type questions..After calmly answering her questions and assuring her that I mean well, we talked for 1 and 1/2 hrs and the rest is history.

Background info:
Julia was born in southern California but is a norcal girl through and through, raised in the bay area from the tender age of 10 months. The San Jose Sharks and San Francisco Giants are her obsessions, and will curse any southern California team no matter the sport. Julia earned her B.S. from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. After giving Colorado a go for a year she returned to California and set down roots in the east S.F. bay area where she began work as an environmental chemist. She was happy, but something was missing. Then she met a boy named Damien…

Damien is a Florida boy and often gets razzed for his Florida pronunciations. Pen is apparently pronounced “pin” and Tent is “tint”…etc, etc. Damien earned his B.S. from Cal Berkeley, and for that he is proudly accepted by the heavily Cal oriented family of a certain girl. Go Bears! and just to be fair…Go Seminoles! (Damien’s fam is a FSU family) Damien began work for Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District where he worked his way up to Vector Ecologist. He was happy but something was missing. Then one day…he met a girl named Julia…

Now on to the story of how they met:

Once upon a time there was a dude named Rob. Rob had a friend named Damien, whom he met at Cal, Berkeley. Rob also had a co-worker named Julia. Damien and Rob would go backpacking, snowboarding, and hang out in the way friends do, and subsequently Julia would hear stories of Rob’s adventures with this Damien character. At first she thought Rob had an unhealthy obsession with this Damien because she heard an awful lot about him. This sparked curiosity. Who is this Damien? She wondered. At the time, Julia and Rob’s place of work had a beer Friday policy where they were allowed to hang out and drink beer on the bench out front. One fateful Friday, a slightly intoxicated Julia called Rob to come drink out on the beer Friday bench with her and a few other coworkers. Rob was with Damien! ‘You should both come!’ She exclaimed. It was the perfect opportunity to meet the infamous Damien. Mr. Infamous and Rob showed up and looked a little scared of the slightly intoxicated girls on the bench. Tapping the seat next to her, Julia motioned Damien over with what was to be the beginning of something very special. ‘Have a seat’ she said…

We are getting married May 2010!

The picture you see is of us in our Halloween costumes: We’re a s’more!

Jeremy and I were high school sweethearts. We met in geometry class. Jeremy came on to me in class, but he had a reputation for being a “bad boy,” so I handled the situation by constantly trying to get him in trouble with the teacher (most often successfully. He found this love/hate form of attention charming, and continued to pursue. We eventually started dating and became quite fond of each other. However, it didn’t work out then because we both continued to play a lot of silly adolescent games, and neither one of us could admit to the other their true feelings…

We ran into each other about 10 years later on MySpace. We met for a game of pool and drinks, and have been inseparable ever since. We are now engaged to be married and expecting a baby!

Keir took a job as a Resident Assistant through the Housing Agency at a local university to save money by living and working on campus. The transition to a major city was a challenging new experience for him. The workload of balancing his new job and the responsibilities associated with it were demanding. middle management was employed to help new Resident Assistants ready their floors for Opening Day. One of Keir’s bosses, Glenda, assigned herself to supporting Keir with decorating his floor of the residence hall.

Both felt the connection right away! After a night of pasting silly paper decorations on the walls of the residence hall, Keir offered a homemade dinner to Glenda for her help- Glenda accepted the offer. After a lovely evening of connection and stimulating conversation, Keir felt that he had to drop the bomb that he was in a relationship with someone from his hometown. This was off-putting to Glenda to say the least.

Months go by and Keir’s relationship had come to an end. Glenda had moved on to another area of Housing’s facilities and had let go of hope around the possibility of anything with Keir. On a rare occasion, Keir was invited to attend a meeting involving Glenda’s staff. When the two saw one another, the connection had not gone anywhere. A secret date was proposed (both Keir and Glenda’s jobs were on the line if anyone from administration knew of their interest in one another).

After a few dates, a steamy top-secret love affair commenced! Both kept their relationship concealed from all of their friends and fellow staff members. The couple would wait until midnight at times for one to sneak over to the other’s apartment to be with one another. In the morning, the alarm would be set very early to ensure each could return to their roles before the day began.

in 1981, david had gone sailing with his chief resident for the day and was having dinner with him and his wife. i lived in the apt across the hall and unexpectedly knocked on the door to visit with the wife. this couple started to have a huge fight with amazing cursing(not unusual for them), and went into another room, leaving us with a screaming baby in a height chair. they eventually came out, and i left. my now husband, called me a few weeks later to ask me out. we got married in 1983 and have been together ever since. the other couple is now divorced.

It was a normal Sunday night at the skating rink and I was busy getting my “skate on”. I have been going to this rink since 1985 and have made a lot of good friends over the years. I did, however, have a strict policy of not dating anyone from the rink. (Seeing a former girlfriend at the place where I come to relax is not something that I want to experience).

One night, one of my female frineds approaches me and asks me to skate with one of her girlfriends. She introduced me to a rather ordinary, cute woman who was new to the rink. We skated. We went our seperate ways. A couple of weeks later my female friend asked about her girlfriend and weather I had skated with her after the first night. I replied, NO and decided to go and ask this girl to skate again. We started skating off and on for the next few weeks and after about a month, LaTara, was her name, approached me and gave me her business card with her number on it. She tolds me that I had asked for her number before but didn’t have a ink pin. (Since I have a strict policy of not dating where I skate), I really doubted that I had asked her but I took the card anyway. There was a small posibility that I might have asked during idle conversation.

Now, because I would not date a fellow skater I had not REALLY checked LaTara out up to this time. For the rest of that night I decided to find out a little bit more about this woman who was obviously interested in me. As for her looks, I found her to be attractive, even in her “plain” rollerskating outfit and hairdo.

I called a couple of days later and she invited me over for dinner at her “condo”. We were going to go to the movies afterwards. When I arrived at her place, great aromas were coming from inside of the condo. LaTara told me, as I walked inside, that she had prepared me a very nice, home cooked meal with fried catfish, mac & cheese and greens. I was in heaven. Once inside of her place, I noticed several pictures of her hanging on her walls and my jaw just dropped down to the floor. At the rink, LaTara basically tied her hair back into a ponytail and she wore “comfortable” clothing which really didn’t show off her great figure. The photos on the wall were professionally done and she basically looked like she was the twin of Tyra Banks. Wow….I thought. This woman really cleans up nicely…and she can cook too. Dinner was great and afterwards we went to see The Italian Job, (A guy movie).

I WAS PRETTY MUCH HOOKED AFTER THAT! We dated for a few months and then we got engaged. One year after we were engaged, we were married and have been happily married for almost 5 years now. She IS my world…….

I had been divorced for about 3 years when I met Pari Livermore. Pari is a wonderful woman who runs the Red & White ball, an annual singles party that she organizes for us generally older singles. She asks those who seek her services to donate money or time to one of a dozen or so charities. I was introduced to Pari by a mutual friend who knew I was looking for a quality woman. Pari doesn’t advertise and you only get accepted by her after a lengthy interview. She sizes you up for what you can afford and extracts it from you. After that you become a “patron” and get invited to about ½ dozen parties a year where about 50 or so singles show up. And once a year she throws the Red and White Ball where 500+ singles show up on formal attire.

I had been to about 3-4 patron parties and met some nice women, but no bell ringers. Also, Pari had fixed me up with about a dozen women who were nice, pretty and smart, but most were a bit too “socialite” for me. I wanted a down to earth woman who was comfortable in her own skin and wasn’t looking to impress anyone.

The 2007 Ball was on a Tuesday night. I had played golf that day and come home tired. I was in no mood to go to the Fairmont in my monkey suit and meet what I was sure were more of the same. I got into some comfortable clothes, turned on the boob tube and settled in for my usual round of news, more news and KQED. One hour of news later and looking forward to more of the same, I got my lazy butt off the couch, jumped in the shower and headed for my destiny.

My wife met Pari in the beauty salon that she works at. Pari was getting her nails done and overheard Laurel saying: ‘Oh I just broke up with my boyfriend. I’m single again, how do I meet somebody?’ Pari said, ‘Excuse me, I’m having a party in three days.’” Then she asked Laurel to be a volunteer and escort the men into the main ballroom. Laurel was more than ready. She wanted a man in her life and the sound of meeting 300 single men in one place was too good to pass up.

I arrived at the Fairmont and went in a side door to the ballroom so I unintentionally bypassed the women greeters. I wasn’t in the room ten minutes when I saw this gorgeous woman in an even more gorgeous dress escort someone in. I approached and complimented her on that dress. She smiled and thanked me. I thought that was the end of that as she looked way too young for me and I really had no interest in dating a much younger woman. I had recently been burned when a woman I had been dating and very interested in learned she was 24 years my junior. Even though she told me she too was very interested and that I was one of a handful of men who could “handle her,” nevertheless said, “I can’t bring a guy home who’s older than my mother.” When I took the dagger out of my heart, I resolved never to go through that again.

So I started to walk away from Laurel when she smiled that engaging smile of hers and my heart sunk. OK, I thought, one drink and then I’m gone. Well, three drinks and a platter of food later, I finally told her to go play with kids her own age (metaphorically, of course). She declined. I literally pleaded with her to go dance with some younger guys, but little did I know, she was ticking off a check list.

The night before the dance, she made a list of about ten characteristics (which she showed me many dates after we met) she wanted in a man. She wasn’t necessarily expecting anyone to meet them all, but wanted some guideline in choosing a mate. According to her, I was hitting on all eight cylinders but there was one final item on her list that she was reluctant to ask about. (I didn’t know I was being interviewed). According to her she was so impressed that it looked like I was the man of her dreams, she blurted out the one trait she was sure I wouldn’t meet. “I don’t suppose you ride horses, do you?”

When I told her I had taken my prior wife and family to 12 dude ranches over the years, she nearly jumped out of her chair. Her face lit up like a Chanukah bush. She was sure she had found her man, but there was one more “test” I had to pass. Dancing. Apparently, her prior husband was not very good and she loved to dance. So, eventually, we ended up on the dance floor and as she tells the story, “It was then I was swept off my feet.” I guess I passed the Fred Astaire test.

As the night wore on, it became increasingly clear, Laurel was my type of woman but I was wary. I didn’t need another blow to my psyche just because of my age. However, it dawned on me that Laurel wasn’t the 35 year old she appeared to be at first sight. Still, I knew there was a significant age gap but decided to postpone telling her (if she hadn’t already figured it out).

She drove me to my car, we kissed goodnight and planned to arrange a future date. She had a ten year old son that she shared custody with her ex. That meant the first time she’d be available was the coming Sunday, five days hence. In the interim, we spoke every night for hours and it became increasingly clear to both of us, that we had chemistry. Sunday came and Laurel walked in my door with toothbrush in hand. “Do you mind if I stay the night?” She hasn’t left since.

And yes, we had a coming to Jesus moment when it became clear I was 20 years her senior. At first, she struggled with it, but finally decided that she had more fun with me than any man in her life previously. As she put it, “I’d rather have ten good years with you than get bored with someone else for thirty.”

We got married last year at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, bought a house in Corte Madera and live together with her son part-time (he spends half the week with his dad). I have never been happier and she claims the same.

I was drunk at a friends party and i thought i’d do the normal thing people do when they get drunk. Hide in bushes and throw a dodgeball at people i didnt know to knock their beer out of their hands. Well, i hit christina dead on, and she laughed and began to chase me. I ran away as fast as i could and continued on with my night. Later i relized i should probably appologize to her for getting her wet and we began having a nice conversation.

Later on in the night, when i realized i couldnt let a girl like this just float away i approached her, on my knees and said “i know your probably a lesbian, or you probably have a boyfriend, but id really like to take you out sometime.” well after i said that i handed her a piece of tape i found with my phone number on it and immediately ran away. for some reason she actually sent me a text the next day and a year and a half later she still pits up with my randomness. What i fell for was her easy going attitude and her ability to be a child at heart.