Online dating needn’t be as bad as you think. I survived, so can you. Just watch out for the don’ts and live by the dos. DO: Have a decent photo And more than one. You really don’t want to see that look on your date’s face when you turn up. Make sure they are well represented pictorially too. Cameras, contrary to popular belief, are compulsive liars. (Also, make sure you are going on a date with the person you think you are.) DON'T: Lie on your dating profile If you...
As I always say, your dating profile is your storefront, your big shiny window display that you use to get the punters in. But in just a few short sentences, you can turn your gleaming emporium of you into a rundown old convenience store, with dirty canopies, smeared windows, and nothing of interest inside. All of the following are based on actual openers from dating profiles I have perused over the years. "I’m kind of like a Charlotte in the daytime and a bit of a Carrie on a night...
I am wary of those who scoff at or reject love. They deadpan throwaway lines that they probably nicked from books or movies written by people more intelligent — and hopeful — than them, ridiculing the concept, or claiming it doesn’t exist and that we’re simply giving lust another name. I also feel a bit sorry for them. When my first love ended, and I cast myself out into a new world of singledom three years ago, I wondered whether the best thing to do was fall in love again...
Before princes, come frogs, and it seems Mr Right stands at the end of a long line of Mr Wrongs. You’ve done well in swerving the first 25 men you should never date, and deserve a gold star for saying a polite “no thank you” to another 25 I brought to your attention, but you’re not out of the woods yet. If you want to take a short cut to that idyllic relationship you truly deserve, here are 25 more suitors you should consider giving the slip. You should never...
You know what they say: “evolve or die”. And in a world where your next French kiss might be no farther than the end of your backyard, gay dating and hook-up sites have had to change faster than most. Way back when Grindr was nothing more than just a vague wet dream in Joel Simkhai’s mind, the king of the road when it came to meeting guys was Gaydar – its array of oiled-up nipples and extreme close-ups as synonymous with the late Nineties and early Noughties as Steps, Harry...
The 2010s are truly the age of the share, whether Instagramming pictures of your breakfast, Facebooking all your friends about your holiday or tweeting a link to your latest blog. Social media has turned us all into broadcasters, producing special-interest programming on every aspect of our lives and thoughts. We are all our own chat show. But while we gently mock those who overshare or bore on about their children or their dull jobs or impart half-baked political opinions, social media has also given us a window into people’s lives...
Stats: 31, 6’, brown/light brown, London Where: Soho, W1 Pre-date rating: 8/10 I lean forward on my hand and do my best ‘interested’ face as tonight’s contestant, dark-eyed, floppy-haired Matthew, regales me with stories about his ex-boyfriends. Well, I say, boyfriends – he’s dispatched them with a fervour and speed usually reserved for delousing a nit-ridden child. “I just can’t seem to tie myself down to one person,” he drawls, his eyes flicking to all corners of the room – no doubt scoping it out for any other, sexier men,...
I have a love-hate relationship with travelling on the Tube, London's dog-breathed series of arteries which carries us all safely around the place, while we moan about how long it takes to get anywhere and how far away everyone lives. Buses can go fuck themselves, frankly; dull as they are with their stench of fast food and myriad teenagers playing generic hip-hop through tinny speakers. Buses are unsociable and unsexy – everyone facing forward like they're at the world's worst cinema. In the sexiness stakes, there's no getting away from...
I have always had something of a knack for talking my way out of answering difficult questions. My first instinct when asked something mildly taxing is to cause a diversion or commit the most egregious of sins and answer the question with another question. But now my luck is running out. Thanks to all these rights coming the gay community’s way, I’m running out of excuses for why I don’t want to get married or have children. You think you bigots are inconvenienced? You don’t even know the half of...
We’ve all been there. You wake up, slightly disoriented, amid bed linen which feels unfamiliar. Strange sounds emanate from a mass not too far from you. As you open each eye slowly, cursing them for the amount of time they’re taking to adjust to the light, you realise you’ve done it again – you’re back at theirs, for the first time. It’s the morning after the night before. You may have no regrets at all at the dawn after a night of passion, and the person lying next to you...
