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It’s times like this that make you wish you’d worn your Dolce & Gabbana, rhinestone-studded “Payback’s a bitch and so am I” T-shirt to keep them in check.
    How do you optimize the situation and not lose the new guy?
    Be aware of what’s important here. What’s important here is grabbing a few minutes alone with the prospect. You might love your friends dearly, they might be the first people you call from your honeymoon once you and the prospect hit it off, but right now they fit in like a banjo section in an orchestra.
    Get rid of your friends if the situation warrants it. Write a note on a piece of paper and secretly slip it to the prospect. In the note, tell him that you are with a group of judgmental Mormon work colleagues, and that you are stepping outside to say good-night to them but would like to meet him back at the bar in two minutes.
    Bring out the threat of retaliation. In a quick but clear manner, go around the table from friend to friend as the dinner is ending, reminding each one of an embarrassing event that you will mention, if forced. Paybacks are hell. Make them realize that.

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    THE “HURRY UP BUT HOLD BACK” FACTOR— MEN WANT WHATTHEY WANT WHEN THEY WANT IT, DON’T WE?

    â€œDon’t be the rusher or the rushee” is an important motto for gay guys.
    Men have been conditioned from birth to want what we want when we want it. We are rewarded for asking for what we want, and for pushing to get it as quickly as possible. And in a perhaps curiously American twist, we aren’t allowed to feel that great about a victory unless we have earned it.
    But when a man is pursuing another man, suspicions arise if the pursuit is too fast. Watching another man try to impress you, sweep you off your feet, and go through the paces to win you over is amusing for about a minute, but can quickly deteriorate into pity if he can’t get a grip on his abject enthusiasm. “For God’s sake, let me earn it before you worship me” might spring to your lips. On paper, having excessive compliments paid you might sound flattering, but chances are you’ll either miss your participation in the hunt or feel played as if you were the TV and he were the remote. You might well lose interest completely. But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. See if you can save the situation. See if the man flirting with you can curb his drool long enough for reciprocated attraction. What if he’s a great guy who’s given in to a brief but curable siege of adolescent hormones?
    First, try using some self-deprecating humor. Try to find some shared human experience, so you’ll be on a more even keel. If he can laugh with you laughing at yourself, the flirtation might be salvageable.
    Bill, a thirty-two-year-old pumped-up advertising executive from Boston, gets aggressive “come-ons” from guys all the time, but he hasn’t learned how to respond suitably to them. Even when the guy coming on to him is attractive, Bill gets embarrassed, looks away, freezes up, and acts generally annoyed. Sometimes in response to a come-on that makes him uncomfortable, Bill squeaks out a patronizingly pat “You, too!”—one of the most predictable, flirtation-killing responses of all time. In the future, Bill should relax and respond more playfully to a “too strong come-on” by saying something like “But you really want to know my mind, right?” or “You are a little delusional. I like that in a man.”
    Second, try to change the subject and get the focus of attention off you (just briefly, of course). Pick a topic, start your discourse, and find out if your new fan is interested in more than just your seventeen-inch biceps. Why not cut to the chase and see if his infatuation can survive your cold but concise three-minute paraphrase of today’s CNN headline news?
    This works for twenty-eight-year-old hotel manager John from