PEARSON: During my vacation

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or those of you who are new to my column, I’ll include a little bit of an introduction: My name is Luke Pearson, and I am here to answer your questions, and provide insight into the world of college relationships, love and sex.  My hope is that one or two of you will read this and learn something.
It’s very simple: write an email to lpsexquestions@gmail.com, or at formspring.me/lpsex and I’ll respond to you as soon as I can.  All letters will get a response, unless you get high and ask if your penis size is normal; in which case I will need to see pictures.  Feedback from last semester says this is a fun experience for everyone involved, with the exception of my grandmother. She already told me that she reads this religiously, and she’s worried that I’ll never find ‘a good girl to settle down with.’
Ah, there.  Now, we’re old friends. For those of you who read my column as often as my grandmother over the course of last semester, I’ll skip the formalities of welcoming you all back to campus; I’m sure you’ve heard them all by now. In fact, lets skip to the juicy stuff, like the story of the foot fetishist I met over winter vacation. Well, dear reader let me tell you: it’s going to be a great semester. I spent my vacation answering a few really incredible questions sent in by students, and I even had to do some personal research to find out a few answers on new topics I hadn’t even heard of!
Hey Luke, I recently moved off-campus and have lost touch with a lot of the outwardly gay guys. I heard of this new program called Grindr that you can use to find local gays, but I’m concerned that it’s mostly for hooking up. Is this safe, and would you recommend using it to find guys to date, not just to meet for a night? Finding About Grindr
Grindr? Never heard of it. Fortunately, a quick Google search brought me enough info to immediately set off a few alarm bells. This looks pretty sketchy, and not even in a good way like Craigslist. Grindr is a mobile application that uses the internal GPS of your phone to find your current location, and shows you the pictures of the closest 100 guys in your area. I downloaded the application, and gave it a spin for four nights.
Immediately after powering up the app for the first time, and adding a cute photo that I hoped would attract all the available creepy old men, I was shocked to see five or six BU gays pop up as online and local. In fact, there was even a guy who I knew was in a committed relationship, but according to his Grindr profile, he was “ready for head.” Classy.
I was home over break when I received your question, so I also had the misfortune of stumbling upon one of my old high school teachers. I can’t make this stuff up; these stories write themselves! Here was my old AP Geography teacher, shirtless and apparently . . . he’s a power bottom.
But, there is some hope for Grindr, after all. On my final day of using the application, (before I deleted all evidence of the program on my phone), I did have the opportunity of meeting Oliver, a guy I had previously chatted with on OkCupid.com. He had not changed since our conversation online last year, and after a short update, we decided to meet in person. Grindr offers the option to send your exact GPS location, (and it doesn’t mess around. Oliver got my address, and even what side of the building I was sitting in when I sent him the info).

This feature, by the way, is incredibly creepy, and especially useful for meeting for a quickie in the bathroom of a movie theatre. (This was an idea suggested to me by yet another old man I found.) After a great conversation about music, we moved to his bedroom for a tour of the apartment before we said ‘good night.’ Loyal readers know that I keep my hands to myself, at least before our first date this weekend.
This Grindr thing was creepy as hell, FINDING, but Oliver may have changed my opinion of the app. However, to answer your original question, FINDING, I would discourage you from using Grindr to look for dating potential. As I’ve mentioned before, I would definitely recommend using other means of meeting BU gays, including SPECTRUM, BU On Broadway or other stereotypically “gay” organizations or classes, but in a pinch, Grindr certainly offers an interesting introduction to the world of homosexuals around you.

Luke Pearson is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at lpsexquestions@gmail.com.