About the Book
“A bold book that’s part memoir, manifesto, and dating guide all rolled into one. It speaks with honesty and insight, while challenging toxic dating trends and offering a better journey through it.”
-DR. CHRIS DONAHUE, CSW, author of Rebel Love and Host of “LoveLine”
This salacious, heartbreaking, and hilarious book follows Ryan Sheldon, a gay man, brawn model (featured on billboards in Times Square, NYC), and eating disorder advocate (interviewed on the Today Show), as he shares his wild dating stories. In F*ckboys Are Boring, Sheldon offers a new way of rating dates with a compatibility scale, the first of its kind, and invites readers to create their own scale so they can make relationship choices based on their values (not just raw attraction). But it's more than love and romance, FAB is also an exploration into self-destructive behaviors (eating disorder, OCD, addiction to chaos, mental health for LGBTQIA+ people), self-worth (body image as a gay man in a larger body), and self-elevation (listening to your intuition and healing from attachment wounds) in a world that seems determined to dehumanize and diminish us. And it offers an elixir for the weary soul who wants to feel worthy of love. Because we all are.
F*ckboys Are Boring is THE guide to surviving the digital hellscape that is modern dating (for anyone who has ever dated a man...it's brutal out here!).
Who's your favorite f*ckboy? Have you drooled over a spiritual guru boy who wants to do questionable things with crystals? Did you find a fetishizer who had an obsession with your feet or watching you eat? Are you chasing the knight in shining armor so he can save you from yourself (when all he'll really do is string you along and then ghost you)? These are just a few of the f*ckboys listed in this book on the F*ckboy Wall of Shame. Yes, there are enough for an entire wall. And no, you're not alone if you've fallen for one of these gorgeous disasters. Or...maybe you are the f*ckboy. Maybe you’re the problem. It’s you (Girl, it’s all of us).
Motivational speaker, brawn model, and eating disorder advocate, Ryan Sheldon offers a path to healing while looking for love. F*ckboys Are Boring is for anyone who has struggled with self-esteem and feeling unlovable while searching for connection in this disconnected world. Whether you’re gay, straight, bi-sexual, pansexual, or queer, this book offers reprieve from swipe culture and offers a new approach to dating. Instead of concepts like the 5 Love Languages, it's got a F*ckboy Decoder (so you know what they really mean when they say, "I've never met anyone like you before").
Sheldon draws on Pia Mellody's work about love avoidance, limerence, love addiction, and codependence while sharing his own experiences with healing trauma so he can date as a whole, emotionally regulated, confident human being.
But it’s so much more than a book about love and romance. Sheldon gets vulnerable about his struggles with mental illness, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), abandonment wounds, and his addiction to chaos. He shares the truth about his eating disorder recovery and what it was like to walk away from an abusive relationship. He shares openly about what it's like to date in a larger-size body in the LGBTQ community and finding love and acceptance for himself at any size. And he doesn’t hold back when he shares the wild stories from dating as a gay man in New York and West Hollywood, and the lessons he learned from those experiences.
Readers will come away with their own list of dating deal-breakers, a dating scale for rating dates, guides on how to maintain boundaries and self-respect, ways to recognize red flags (like gaslighting and love-bombing), and a toolbox of resources that Sheldon has picked up through decades of therapy. If you’re frustrated with the dehumanizing digital hellscape that is modern dating, F*ckboys Are Boring provides solace and support for the love-weary.
Sheldon is like your gay best friend, dishing on all his outrageous dating stories and spicy sexual encounters, offering guidance and wisdom, and crying with you as one heartbroken survivor to another. F*ckboys Are Boring offers compassionate hope to everyone (including f*ckboys) who is tired of the games and ready to find real love, both for themselves, and with a truly worthy partner.
Have you read it? Leave a review on Goodreads!
KIRKUS REVIEW
Sheldon speaks of “fuckboys” (in their many varieties) as a destructive archetype in the world of dating, and his book teaches readers to watch out for them—and to avoid joining their ranks. He offers candid commentary on his own missteps in dating (including experiences with dating women prior to coming out as gay), his long-term body issues, and the unlikely path he found to a lasting relationship. Throughout the book, Sheldon offers life lessons and shares a “dating scale” to identify the qualities one should be looking for in a partner.
What People Are Saying
“Ryan Sheldon’s Fuckboys Are Boring: A Gay Man’s Guide to Dating for Everyone needs to be read by every gay man, especially those in their early 20s. The gay dating scene can feel lonely, isolated, and, honestly, scary and intimidating, but Ryan’s part-memoir, part-manifesto, and dating guide is truly a breath of fresh air. Many need to read this to be reminded that true love is out there, and to find it, we must start by loving within. On page 4, Ryan shares, “People will only love us to the extent we love ourselves.” This underlying message really shines throughout every section and chapter of this book.
Ryan shares his personal stories about his eating disorder and dating history, but the pieces that resonated with me most were his stories of being a larger guy in the dating scene, something I really related to. Something Ryan shares that really hit home was for plus-size folks: there’s this idea of “one day when I’m skinnier, one day when I’m smaller, one day when I look like this.” But really, if I’m not happy and in love with myself right now, I won’t be happy and in love with myself when I reach those “one day” moments.”
— Goodread Review “Isaiah”
“This has 100% validated every single feeling I’ve had. So I highly, highly recommend this!
- Ty McNary - Instagram Post
“When I saw this book on tiktok, I immediately ravaged the online sites of my local bookstores to see who had it in stock (lord, behold—there was one copy a couple miles outside of town).
This book came to me at a time when I needed it most. Being gay and dating is sadly an isolating experience and for the past year or more I’ve been witnessing all my close friends settle down in to long term, healthy relationships (yay, for them!). But it left me feeling so scared for the future. I’m 26 and gay dating & beauty standards fed and reinforced the narrative I created that I would be alone forever and soon all my friends would be gone, starting families or new chapters.
This book changed my perspective, not on dating per se, but on myself. It really serves as a tool to build your own self-worth, while nurturing and guiding you through the dating hell-scape. Definitely will be religiously re-visiting this guide when I join the dating pool again.— Quote Source”
— Goodread Review “AjNovo”
“The book itself was interesting, insightful, and honestly just made me feel seen as a larger gay man looking for connections in this day. I also have OCD and had no idea that was going to be a part of the book but it helped me evaluate certain things about my dating tendencies. Now if I could only get all the gays to read it, then maybe we could get somewhere.”
— Goodread Revie