Lee made a good point about "cruising" being intransitive versus transitive in its use. Yes, if you are using the word in a sexual context, you can use it transitively or intransitively. Randy Shilt's famous book about the 1980s AIDS epidemic in San Francisco has a line in it where one guy says to the other in a bar, "Wait. Let me show you how to cruise." That's an intransitive use of the verb. But, you could say, "I cruised him for an hour before I picked him up" and that's a transitive use of the verb. That means I was hitting on him (trying to get him interested in sex) for an hour before he went for it. Of course, "cruise" means all the travel stuff too, but that's not what you asked about. Finally the word is pretty much out of date now in the sexual context. That's due to the internet. Guys meet online now, almost exclusively, not in bars, clubs and bathhouses, and I don't think they "cruise" online because you have to be personally present to do it. I think the word "hook up" would be used instead of cruise in the internet gay sexual context now. Great question.

The word "cruising" gives the idea that a person is constantly on the move and for those who are looking for a sexual partner, they are also constantly moving from person to person. I think this is why you call it cruising. The meaning of the word "cruise" depends entirely on the context of the sentence. In the above sentence you gave: "He spends his time cruising and just hanging out in New York." My mind does not immediately think this is about sex either, because there is no context. It would be easier to tell if this sentence was embedded inside a paragraph. If you say "cruising a person," then that is much clearer, because there is now an "object" to the verb cruise. Given that cruise is usually an intransitive verb, making it transitive (especially when the object is a person) makes the meaning clearer.

Oh, and as far as Oxford dictionary using heterosexual examples of "him cruising her" that's total nonsense. I've never heard the word used like this. It's exclusively gay slang.

Hah! I love the question. It's hilarious. Cruising is GAY slang for looking for a hook-up for quick sex. Sort of standing around eyeballing another guy, trying to look sexy and hot to seduce him. I've franking never heard it used in a hetersexual context, like men "cruising" women. No. The use of the word probably has its origins in the US from at least the late 60s, or early 70s on forward. It's frankly a little out of date now, but was BIG in the 1970s-1980s (I know, I'm 59 and was very young in those days). Men would hang out at gay bars, gay bathhouses, parks, gay porn bookstores and so on and "cruise", meaning they'd be looking for quick, no-commitment sex hook ups with another guy. Nothing else. The best book every written about the gay culture of the 1970s was Larry Kramer's 1978 "Faggots", which I know has been translated at least into one other language, German ("Schwuchteln" it's called in the German translation). There's actually a 1980 movie filmed and set in New York City, staring AL Pacino, called "Cruising" about a police detective investigating the murder of gay men in the City at the time, and going undercover. It's not about heterosexuals. Not in the least.

Oh,it's Eugene. Great! At first it was just a word in the book I am working with. I decided to check the meaning of the verb cruise,nothing else. But know I have the perfect understanding what americans did in the 1980s in West Hollywood! I cannot but thank you for such a full answer!