Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies

by Manuel Betancourt

Witty and winkingly playful, Manuel Betancourt’s Hello Stranger explores modern queer romance and the expansive possibilities of ephemeral intimacies

“Hello stranger.” As an opening line, you really can’t ask for better.

Hello Stranger is a book about chance encounters—at a bar, through social media, in a bathhouse—and what a stranger can reveal about who we are and who we could still yet be. A stranger, after all, is a site of endless possibilities.

As Manuel Betancourt looks back on his past relationships, he turns to characters and narratives that helped him question notions of what monogamy and coupledom (and relationships and marriage) can and should look like. From films like Before Sunrise and Cruising to the poetry of Frank O'Hara and the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, Betancourt uses pop culture to make sense of the alluring prospect of forging intimacies with strangers—even, or especially, the strangers within ourselves.

At once a personal excavation and a broad cultural critique, Betancourt grapples with everything from online sexting and real-life cruising to divorces and throuples. Hello Stranger examines the intimacies we crave, value, and oftentimes destroy with rote familiarity.

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Memoir, Essays, Gay, Pop Culture

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 14, 2025

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love so much about this book dealing with "the transient intimacies we can build with strangers" is that it showcases how we can make sense of ourselves and the world around us through art: Betancourt relates his life experiences, mainly his recent divorce, to art processing similar events and feelings and adds some theoretical concepts, thus forging connections and reflecting himself. The result is also an illustration of how queer theory and cultural criticism builds an arsenal of alternative thought against heteropatriarchy, as it imagines new ways of constructing families, friendships, and sexual relationships.

Let's have a look at the chapters and the art they tackle:

"Hello" investigates the notion of the stranger as a new beginning by pondering the movies Closer as well as Sex, Lies, and Videotape and connecting them to other artistic narratives.
"Meet-Cute" centers on Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt and Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and grapples with concepts like contingency and the worth that is ascribed to the endurance of romantic relationships.
"On Sexting" talks about intimacy "as an emotional architecture whose design helps delineate the public and the private" , the examples in art revolving around the movie Perfect Strangers. The chapter contains a quote by Adrienne Rich which I absolutely love: "an honorable human relationship - that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word 'love' - is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truth they can tell each other."
"On Cruising" talks about being in the moment and awareness to find (sexual) connection, dissecting John Rechy's The Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary and City of Night as well as Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimming-Pool Library (plus there are mentions of Garth Greenwell and Marcus McCann!).
"Naked Friends" extrapolates from the author standing as a nude model to Jack painting Rose in Titanic and the nude images of Frank O'Hara (O'Hara Nude with Boots by Larry Rivers - wow!), David Wojnarowicz (David Wojnarowicz Reclining (II) by Peter Hujar - just as wow!) and Bruce de Sainte Croix (Bruce de Saint Croix (Seated), also by Peter Hujar - this is your trigger warning if you're somehow disturbed by erections).
"Close Friends" challenges the notion that friendships and sexual relationships should be kept strictly separate and discusses A Little Life, frequently quoting Garth Greenwell's interpretation here.
"Two's Company" talks about marriage, invoking Revolutionary Road and the musical Company.
"Three's A Crowd" is a chapter about fidelity "not so much as proof of our love but as proof of our commitment to such love" and monogamy as labor, citing Dan Savage, Laura Kipnis, Madame Bovary, and the movie Little Children.
"Three's Company" ponders threelationships, inferring Detransition, Baby, The Pilgrim Hawk, the works of Christopher Isherwood, the movie Passages and the paintings of Paul Cadmus.
"Stranger" goes back to Closer and relates it to Shortbus, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions and the paintings of Salman Toor.

So yes, the book also inspires readers to curate a list of queer art to be enjoyed.

I've already read Betancourt's The Male Gazed, but this collection is a huge step up. Great cultural criticism, written by an academic with a huge arsenal of knowledge about queer artistic production.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betancourt is so widely read and watched (? is there a better way to say someone has seen a lot of movies?), which means it's fascinating to watch him draw so many connections and weave such intricate webs to connect pieces together and extrapolate reflections of our culture.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful, provocative, and pleasantly personal, Betancourt’s latest in-depth musings reach across pop culture, philosophy, and scholarship to unravel the possibility-based narratives that emerge from chance or chosen encounters with the unfamiliar other.

[That One Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Betancourt provides so many queer references here I had to keep a going list on my phone. In the pages he offers up films, books, art, and more that all tie back to the ideas of romance, love and sex, through a more modern and open lense.

I thought perhaps this was going to be more memoir then it ended up being, and while Betancourt does provide personal anecdotes, the book is less about his history and more about his desire to understand his and many others sexual and romantic desires.

I’ve read a few books on the ideas of non-monogamy and open relationships, ethical sluttiness, etc, but I feel like Betancourt is able to draw upon so many various resources around him to help himself and more importantly the reader see these things with a fresh perspective.

At times this book felt more like countless movie reviews, which often to me, got a little tedious. I think I would have preferred more of the author and less of the movie deep dives. Still, I appreciated how much research was put into this, and left it wanting to explore many of the works used as examples in the book.

A fun, insightful read if someone is interested in non-traditional ways of loving and fucking. If you already live these ideals, I think it likely will feel a bit unnecessary or even watered down. Still, an enjoyable read for me.

[Kyle Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly follow-up for Betancourt. Greatly enjoyed this one, where Betancourt is able to seamlessly weave together musings on Sondheim, modern queer art, and intimacy. He definitely deepened my “to read/watch/view” list all while sharing incisive ponderings.

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

The young hot body gazing at you from the cover is not something to get excited about--he is merely in sleeping position, as this book will do to readers. It's a series of snooze-inducing ruminations on pop culture and intimacy with incredibly long and poorly written paragraphs from an outsider using films and other media to make inane points about gays cruising, meeting, hooking up, dating, marrying, etc. There's nothing profound to it beyond a guy who loves to see his own words on a page.

Some of the paragraphs are one-page-and-a-half long. Many go a full page. That's ridiculous, especially when he jams different thoughts or subjects into those long paragraphs.

The content of them range from movies you've never heard of to his attempts to impress by mentioning old literature or theater. This is a book of rambling essays with only a few minor private tidbits thrown in, such as his admitting to being shy and uncomfortable going to bathhouses or marrying at age 31 to get a green card and avoid being kicked out of America. I could not figure out why anyone would want to hear from this writer, who simply seems to be cranking out padded papers to meet the minimal requirements for a gender studies college course.

Then this immoral intimacy writer, who appears to have few ethical standards nor any understand of objective truth, confesses cheating to his husband and blame-shifts. Betancourt's therapist talks him into believing "there's a way to tell this story so that the marriage was over before my utterance, before I even stepped out and outright became an adulterer." The author tries to pin it on his spouse "because there wasn't enough understanding on the part of my partner." Classy.

The writer even starts questioning, "'Had I cheated?' for instance or 'Was I a Cheater'?" He uses semantics to try to wiggle out of admitting serious wrong, doing that modern thing saying just because you cheated doesn't make you a cheater. As most guys that sleep around say, "That's not who I am." Right. Most young adult men (especially in this community) do sleep around whether married, committed, partnered or just dating.

He concludes his tale of splitting up with this brilliant thought: when monogamy takes work it's more of a fairy tale coupling than the workings of a happy relationship. That leads to him, post-divorce, to dating two guys and becoming a "throuple" with few boundaries.

I understand his thinking this might be of interest to readers, but there just wasn't much special about any of it. In the end the author fails to share himself beyond the surface, to the point where the book feels like his defense of marital cheating in order to come to a place of peace with non-monogamy. "Openness does not come easily to me," he writes. "Even in a book that requires certain disclosures, I can feel my reticence toward revealing too much of myself and allowing others in."

Potential readers, that's a red flag! It is a big problem when a gay man supposedly writing about "modern intimacies" uses his pages to remain a stranger.

[Bethany Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hello Stranger is a book about chance encounters—at a bar, through social media, in a bathhouse—and what a stranger can reveal about who we are and who we could still yet be. A stranger, after all, is a site of endless possibilities.

^from the publisher!

First - A moment for this gorgeous cover design please? I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when I preordered this book - but I knew I wanted to read it and I just knew I would learn something about myself.

As someone who has started to explore their queerness in their thirties, this was so interesting and thought provoking to me. I decided I wanted to annotate and I’m so glad that I did because there were so many parts I felt drawn to.

Manuel Betancourt makes you feel as though he’s having a conversation directly with you. It’s like seeing inside his brain, understanding what he’s experienced and how it’s changed his way of thinking. I love the honesty and vulnerability displayed in his words. Each chapter brings something new, some knowledge, wit, and true to form - musings.

I found myself chuckling and nodding my head. I felt myself wanting to DM all of my thoughts to him, because some of this made me feel SO SEEN. If you can’t tell, I loved

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful cultural criticism combined with personal narrative to craft something larger than the sum of its parts. Loved thinking about some movies and other cultural production (musicals, books, etc.) from a new angle. Manuel also combines a lot of theory in an accessible way, siting significant texts and scholars but never making the reader feel at a distance from the lived experience.

As someone who watches tons of TV, movies, plays and reads a bunch of different authors/genres/types of books, this felt very relevant. I also relate my life to the cultural production I consume. While the movie Closer never spoke to me as deeply as it does to Betancourt, it made me reconsider that movie (and I wish to see the original play on which it's based now as well).

I loved his previous book, The Male Gazed, and this is a standout achievement as a follow up. Bravo!

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly well-researched and thought out essays that helped my own ever-evolving experience and understanding of intimacy. I mistakenly thought that this was an examination of queer intimacy; rather, it's an examination of intimacy through a queer lense (which I'd argue is how we should look at everything, but I digress).

Betancourt and I have similar tastes in the media we consume and allow to shape our perceptions of the world—on the one hand, it made for an enjoyable examination of source material with which I was familiar; on the other, some of the observations made were well-worn to me.

Not all of the observations are necessarily modern, either, but the overall notion of expanding how we think about intimacy is ultimately forward-thinking. I remember The Male Gazed feeling more personal and less academic; I might have preferred that same style here but still left with a few new artists and works I'd like to become familiar with.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure how to rate this book, which left me feeling overall ambivalent, so I'm settling for a 3/5. Here's what I did like about the book: Hello Stranger is a combination of memoir and essays, largely about Betancourt's journey to understand his sexual and romantic desires. He references various media/art that has had a profound impact on him, including movies, plays, novels, and more to explore his thoughts and feelings throughout the years. I enjoyed his dissection of his chosen works, both known and unknown to me, further piquing my curiosity on the ones I have yet to see/experience.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book of queer literary essays. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Phil Gubert · Rating 2 out of 5]

A complete scam of a cover and title. Entire sections of recapping a movie with nothing interesting to say about sex. Here’s a list of every movie mentioned: https://boxd.it/G9Yqq

[Neha · Rating 1 out of 5]

What is this book and why is this book? Usually I’m glad that the Goodreads challenges diversify my literary consumption but this felt like a waste of 8 hours of my life (more like 6 since I listened to the audiobook on 1.75x). It’s misclassified as a memoir, the title says it right - it’s just a man’s musings that should never have been put down on paper. And don’t be misled by modern initiatives either. He just dissects different movie leads the whole time.

[JJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book that had so much to say about love, relationships, and the space in between. I felt validated reading this and learning so many others out there are interested in and have experienced different types of relationships. Loved the decision to speak to personal experiences, societal examples, and tying in media where the characters of film and books had been in similar situations. So well done and a great mix of informative and entertainment.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part memoir, part commentary on love and relationships, and part exploration of queer cinema and literature, this book is a series of interconnected essays. The author employs a rich vocabulary and countless references to film and literature to examine our interactions—especially with strangers. I wasn’t familiar with many of these references, which led me to gloss over portions of the discussion. The book is well written, but it felt like a bit of a slog for me. Not my cup of tea.

[Jack McMorrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10. An interesting read about modern connections, but overbearing at times. This guy has watched a lot of films and wants you to know lol.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hello Stranger is a mix of essays that focus on Betancourt figuring out his own desires. I loved how flawlessly the essays flowed together mentioning his personal life, musings, and various related threads of media.

[Ja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hello Stranger is a collection of not so much essays but rather very good musings on the idea of chance encounters. It's fascinating to recognize how a chance encounter between two people could lead to intimacy, long term relationships, and eventually a family. Sometimes, those relationships break apart and they're back to being strangers. But Betancourt's analysis goes beyond the standard meet-cute at a bar. He explores the concept of throuples, cruising, online encounters, and more, with a focus on a queer point of view.

The strongest points of his story were when he used his own experiences as a thesis statement for the chapter. It allows not only him but the reader to get into the mindset of that particular experience, and offers the chance for the reader to reflect on these situations. It's easy to see how these experiences have helped him think about his own outlook on life and how they have been changed. And perhaps this perception has evolved to view intimacy differently than what's standard in our modern view of things.

[Sabrina Blandon]

I thought this was a fun read! I really enjoyed the variety of modern pop culture and art forms used. There were some movies I recognized but the others were all new to me so it made the reading experience more educational. This was more about the author interpreting what other people have said in their commentary on intimacy so I would have liked to see more of the authors own comments about it but was still a good read if you're looking for a recommendation that includes queer modern love pop culture.

[Brady Parkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting discussion on sex, relationships, intimacy, and other related topics. I found this book informative and even educational in that I, personally, have a limited scope that is simply my own lived life. Another’s experience and their thoughts is a window into possibility, or non-possibility given perception. And although the author does seem to have a particular bias in regards to all of the topics it isn’t presented so dogmatically as to discount someone else’s life who may live and behave differently.

A good “food for thought and maybe experimentation” book.

[Elvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, not bad but honestly speaking my initial thoughts after reading this was: “Not as good as the previous book ”the male gazed”. Here’s why:

The first 2 or 3 chapters were HARD for me to follow with all those references about movies, poems and plays… maybe in the author’s head made total sense to connect all those references together, sometimes going back and forth with one topic, but in paper made it a little too confusing.

If you haven’t watched all the movies and plays and read all the poems that he’s talking about, it’s difficult to follow, at least it was for me.

Of course, I know films are a central part of the book, no issue with that, but I just started to enjoy the book in the chapter about cruising. This is how you open a chapter haha loved the story in the airport ;)
Here, I noted a switch on the book, the points made by the author were (most of the time) clearer and the references easier to digest.

Overall, very interesting and current topics: Instagram close friends ;), nude paints, throuples, sex parties, online sex, desire, monogamy, non monogamy, d*cks pics, you name it…

As a fellow Latino I like the chisme so I also enjoyed the autobiographical parts of the book, it must feel so liberating to get naked also on paper.

So, do I recommend the book? Yes, it’s for sure an interesting read for any gay man in 2025.

[Glen Helfand]

Positionality is a generational thing. In theory, and there is theory in this book, I gravitate towards media reads through the lens of desire. Manuel Betancourt uses a sensitive eye on film, literature, art as a means of looking at his own intimacies. From my subjective eye, as someone older than the author, the strategy's emotional avoidance is all too clear. Mind you, Betancourt does admit that he doesn't like to reveal, and it makes sense, but more power to him for opening up about posing nude for a portrait, a failed marriage, and joining a thruple. The first reference is the Natalie Portman starring film, Closer, directed by Mike Nichols. It's one that I've never seen, or even knew much about, and thereby seemed to signal that Betancourt has a different position. He does go on to unpack other works, like John Cameron Mitchell's Burning Man adjacent Shortbus, Peter Hujar's photographs, the Pajama gang, A Little Life, and others. I wanted a different kind of subjectivity-- I admit I'm a fan of the much older (and not queer) David Thomson's book, Sleeping With Strangers as a more eccentric intellectual take on film and same sex desire. This one is just too enamored of academic approaches for my taste.

[Matt Chisling (MattyandtheBooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Cue the music* "Let's talk about s*x, baby. Let's talk about you and me..."

Manuel Betancourt is no, ahem, stranger, to writing about the body, masculinity, and sexuality. His book, THE MALE GAZED, blended personal experience and pop culture references to better understand men, manliness, and masculinity. For its follow up, the even more impressive HELLO STRANGER, Betancourt continues with his signature blend of personal and cultural to examine an even more spicy topic: The relatively new ways that individuals connect in non-traditional modes of sexual connection: We're talking cruising, sexting, non-monogamy, casual hookups... I could go on and on. These modern ways to be intimate, per Betancourt, lead to more than just a quick fix: They are unique modes of leading to deeper connections, stronger friendships, stronger relationships, and more fulfilling lives as folks look to create community in an increasingly fractured world.

Readers of enthralling cultural commentary and social philosophy will find much that titillates in this tight collection of ten essays. Where the work is the most effective is when Betancourt brings his lived experience to the page, qualifying his arguments not just with strong cultural examples (which, admittedly, hinge on how familiar you are with things like Titanic, The Broadway musical Company, and Natalie Portman), but also great lived experiences that validate the feelings on the page. Overall, this is a collection that feels grounded in reality, a manifesto for a new way of thinking about, yes, sex, but also connection. And I think we could all you a little more... connection.

Thanks to Catapult for my gifted early copy! HELLO STRANGER is out now!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I debated about the stars I wanted to give to the book. Betancourt ostensibly writes about academic subjects, but he isn't a stodgy writer. He writes fluidly about a wide range of art in a variety of genres. I knew a lot of his references and a few were new. I enjoyed reading, not always agreeing with, his assertions about such diverse films and plays as "Before Sunrise," "Company," and "A Little Life." Where I am more ambivalent about the book is the memoir information. Although Betancourt doesn't give copious details about his marriage and breakup, he does reveal that its closed (monogamous) status made it increasingly untenable for him to stay in. He then raves effusively about the beauty of polyamory. Some of his points are well-taken, but he never delves into the downsides of those relationships. Certainly, monogamy has its downsides too. Arguing that monogamous couples only follow that structure because it is the accepted paradigm seems simplistic. Still, I would recommend this book because of its erudition and l wit. Betancourt is a great writer with whom to have a conversation.

[Camilo Olaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A stranger can offer us the chance to see ourselves anew. To imagine a different way of moving through the world. Every chance encounter, I’ve come to find, can be a chance to remake yourself."

I found this book to be equal parts interesting in terms of Betancourt's self-excavation, putting his own missteps and failures, and also his incredible grasp of pop culture, through its various iterations of books, plays, and movies. Betancourt is incredibly well-read, and uses this to spin thought-provoking musings on our modern focus on a two-person romance, while as queering it and breaking it down into something new and different. The personal touches involved in the book bring us into Betancourt's life, and I think does a great job of making the theoretical personal, and allows us to view concrete examples of these concepts. Additionally, the prose was incredibly well written, and littered with quotes that I found to be incredibly powerful and encapsulating of the message of the book.

[Micah Encarnacion · Rating 4 out of 5]

• Mejo naguguluhan ako nak
• I've read before and experienced that talking to strangers and telling your secrets is easier. It's the whole concept of chapters 1 and 2.
• Maybe we like talking to strangers as a new experience. We're afraid of letting people in our lives, to be acquainted with them, to know them because we're scared with the unknown - the future, the next steps, the ending. With a stranger, it ends in an hour or a day. You don't have to be scared of what about the next day, the next week, the next year.
• Listed down all the movies mentioned in this book. Enough to last me the whole next weekend.
• Chapter 3 isn't pointed towards actualy strangers but how in any relationship - friends, romantic, etc., there is a degree of unknown we keep from others - either due to privacy or secrecy. And how the level of privacy/secrecy makes or breaks the relationship. To find a balance on being known and unknown by our loved ones is to be the perfect strangers.
• TBH, the latter chapters I just skimmed

[Koko Stubitsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Friends who love each other, lovers who don't make love

not as entertaining a read as his last book (The Male Gazed) but i thoroughly enjoy manuel's fun and flirty but equally intelligent and poignant writing nonetheless. a little too academic for me this one but i was happy to read about the media tie-ins such as the movie Closer & A Little Life. be my friend mr manuel, i feel like we'd get along great u columbian canadian american gay man u

[Hugh Minor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure exactly how to review this book. I appreciate the effort in having this discussion but Betancourt definitely needed more direction. I wish he focused on the societal issues of human connection - whether temporary or permanent - rather than his own personal relationships. Maybe he should have included conversations with other real people instead of his own experiences to make the examples feel more universal. The minute he started writing about his own relationships past and present I felt like I was no longer engaged or, honestly, interested. He could have kept the focus on the arts and media as well as significant figures in the LGBTQ+ community. I would have preferred less of the personal confessionals that don't always sync with the points he's trying to make.

[Szymon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leading my life the way I did, it was strangers who by their very strangeness quickened my pilse and made me feel I was alive"

For whatever reason, I forgot to review this and just noticed when clearing out my tolino lol. ANYWAY, i've read betancourt's other novel, which was an examination of the male gaze in popular culture. this one, fresh after his divorce, examines connections in the queer world. a gay man will find relevant and relatable passages, be it on the wishy-washy lines of queer friendships, on nudity, on flirting and grindr. it's nothing NEW but it has betancourt's nice wit about it.

[Elvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot more academic than I expected it to be at first, which made it a bit more dense to get through than what I was initially looking for. With that said, the overall premise is really well executed and the writing is engaging and well referenced. It’s definitely a book that I think is made better the more well-read/watched you are as he isn’t an author that’s afraid to reference other works. However, as someone who hadn’t seen any of the films referenced and had only read probably around 30-50% of the books, it was still quite easy to follow the connections he was making and alluding to.

The work itself toys with vulnerability behind almost a veil, giving the appearance of intimacy without actually revealing much about the author himself. It makes for a better read in my opinion that feels more relatable to an audience that isn’t necessarily invested in the author himself.