Single survival

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...

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...

Imagine at what distant depth of ebb you’d have to be to ask a friend to set you up with someone. To be plundering your friends’ friends for potential dates, like Google with a stiffy, you must have truly run out of options. People may scoff at online dating or even picking someone up in a bar, but to cast your incestuous net only as far as the puddle next door shows a lack of pluck and imagination. Agreeing or volunteering to set mates up with each other is the...

The strangest things bring a tear to your eye when you’re single. You can sit through a weepie romcom with barely a flicker, connecting emotionally as you would to watching a lawn getting mowed, and the death of an elderly relative can bring a temporary heavy heart yes, but the real tearjerkers aren’t the huge sad moments or highly emotional events. No, it’s the little things that get you. Like supermarkets. Supermarkets make me sad. Unless you’re unlucky to be partnered up with a congenitally lazy retail-avoider, the weekly shop...

You’re on a date. The guy opposite of you seems attentive, interested, and personable. But there’s something not quite right. Maybe he’s commenting a little too much on the décor of your date venue. Perhaps he’s got a lot to say about the menu or is critiquing the clothes of passers-by. And when he asks you again where you’re from, your age and appears to make a mental note of your eye colour, you need to beware. There’s every chance you could be sitting across from the scourge of the...

What’s that coming toward you in the sweaty haze of the bar? It’s drunk, it’s loud and it looks vaguely familiar. No, it’s not your mother at a wedding, it’s a soap actor on the prowl, looking for love or at least the closest they can get to it without ending up in the papers. But you must resist. No good can ever come from becoming romantically involved with someone who treads the cobbles of Coronation Street or rolls in the hay of Emmerdale. Seriously, back away from the Albert...

It’s an uncontrollable urge, a reflex action. No matter how hard you try, you can’t help yourself. Like a tantalising ‘Do Not Touch’ sign at an exhibition or a ‘Keep Off The Grass’ warning on a beautiful lawn, if you see a link to a picture on Twitter, you’ve just got to click it. What will it be? Another cooked breakfast? Perhaps a cordon bleu luncheon in a fancy restaurant? Maybe a heavily filtered Instagram rendition of a darling chimney pot at a vintage fair? Check the calendar before you...

Social networking always starts off with the best of intentions. The aim to encourage people to share information and stories and feel ‘part of something’ is all well and good, but when you throw a load of gay men into the mix, it isn’t very long before the talk turns from poaching eggs and what’s on TV to exchanging those infamous ‘headless torso shots in the mirror’. While some of us are intent on telling everyone about how nice our morning porridge was, the other half of Twitter has their...

I’ve been on more than a few dates in the two years or so I’ve been single. Some have been disastrous, many have been delightful, but they have all had one common denominator. Each of them, without exception, has involved alcohol. Even the dates with the best of intentions, which start with walks in the park or a visit to a gallery, end in the boozer, with first impressions being made quicker than a pint of beer can go flat. Of course, any situation which makes you nervous can be...

It's that time of the year when everything turns pink. Shop windows are festooned with flowers and love hearts become ubiquitous. Railing against Valentine's Day has become as much of a cliché as queuing up to buy a bunch of half-dead flowers and booking a table in a crowded restaurant, but I'm no ordinary "bah humbug" Valentine refusenik. I don't care about the commercialisation of love, the tackiness of the helium-filled balloons or dog-eared cards that tunelessly play the theme music from Love Story when opened. I don't care that just about...