Lovetastic: dating for gay men who believe in love

I'm doubtful of the merits of meeting people online, but we who live in a digital age must adapt, and this site seems different from most (fill in the blanks). So let's see how it works.

Although I've lived in New Jersey half my life now, I Manhattan-born and raised, so bridge-and-tunnel snobbery from recent transplants has no power over me. If I've learned anything, it is not to be governed by others' expectations. I strive to be open-hearted and kind to everyone I meet, but if others have a problem with me, I am not going to take it on as my own.

I'm looking for someone open-minded, open-hearted, honest and kind. Intelligent and creative wouldn't hurt. Good-looking certainly wouldn't hurt either, though that is a subjective judgment.

St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida)

It's a never-ending melodrama verging on farce.

I'm always reading something, and always wishing I has more time for it.

Any kind of history, from antiquity to the 20th century, fascinates me.

The last major novel I read all the way through was Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America." I've also enjoyed gay classics like White's "A Boy's Own Story," Holleran's "Dancer from the Dance," Cunningham's "A Home at the End of the World" and Hollinghurst's "The Swimming-Pool Library."

My guilty pleasures from childhood include Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and other fantasy and science fiction.

I also love the poetry of Whitman, Blake and Yeats, among others.

I'm all over the map here.

Bach, Handel, Brahms, Moussorgsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams, William Walton.

Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams, Arvo Part, Gavin Bryars (thanks, WNYC!)

Medieval masses and motets, Hungarian (Muzsikas) and Finnish (Varttina) folk music, klezmer.

Universally admired early 60s Kinks, Who, Beatles and Pink Floyd.
Deeply unfashionable early 70s Yes, Jethro Tull, Genesis and Moody Blues (hey, I was in high school then).
Critically acclaimed mid to late 70s Steely Dan, Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello.
Campily tolerated 80s Duran Duran, ABC, Human League, New Order and Pet Shop Boys. Don't know much after Nirvana, but willing to learn.

And Rufus Wainwright makes me cry.

Far too many to list:
Wings of Desire, Aguirre the Wrath of God, If... (the school I wish I'd gone to, with boy-on-boy action!), The Third Man, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Chinatown, Magnolia, Gosford Park, any Almodovar

Not much of an art expert, but I'll go for Islamic calligraphy, Byzantine and Russian icons, early Renaissance (saw Van Eyck in Ghent!), Dutch Renaissance, the pre-Raphaelites, Van Gogh. Most of the Impressionists bore me. Don't know or care about much after Picasso.

The wisdom of our Founders, who saw the necessity of checks and balances to restrain tyranny, aggression and greed, has never been more self-evident. May the Republic be restored.