Kissing is vital in any relationship. While a gentle squeeze on the arm or the arse can remind your partner you care, a kiss on the lips – even if it's a quick peck in the supermarket – is the internationally understood shorthand for intimacy. And you have to really mean it, or your lacklustre kiss gives you away. You may think that relationships live and die on sex, but for me, the real test comes much sooner. If a guy is a bad kisser, it doesn’t matter how he...

It is National Coming Out Day*, the day when the collective force of a zillion closet doors being thrust open is enough to knock you off your feet. If someone stares intently at you and clears their throat, or puts their latte to one side with the biggest case of 'serious-face' you've ever seen, there's a good chance they're about to tell you they're gay – or they have a peanut stuck in their throat and are unable to speak, silently willing you to decode their desperate stare. Before you...

You can’t get more upfront and visual than Grindr. It’s the frank, confrontational reality TV show contestant of the social media app world, assuring you if it has anything to say it will “say it your face” or telling you “what you see is what you get”. Of course the truth is something quite different. Grindr is merely a cloudy mirror, vaguely reflecting society but usually doing its own hair or photoshopping out its eye-bags. What it has done with its instant gratification storefront, however, is slowly strangle some of...

We've all been there, 'enjoying' ourselves as best we can on a date, when suddenly, out of NOWHERE comes the game-changer. It's the one thing we haven't been waiting for, the comment which makes a date go from an 8 to a 4. That cup of cold sick nobody wants to drink: the clanger. I put together a Storify of some of the amazing tweets I got in response to my first ones, which were: Worst things I've heard on a date: "I'm like an olive." — The Guyliner (@theguyliner)...

I get asked a lot of questions, both on Twitter and over email. Usually it’s things like “Is that your real eye?” or “Who’s that famous person you mention in this blog?” and other times it’s women in America trying to get me to link to their blogs about nannies, or contraception, or gay marriage. And then, very occasionally, it’s even more random than that. Sometimes, it’s just a question, like: “Is it OK to wear shorts on a date?” Well, it’s a valid question. Thank you to the shy...

No can be a tough word to say at the best of times. Another cake? Don’t mind if I do. One for the road? Make it two. No always seems to want to play hide and seek when you need it the most. When you’re online dating, a lot of dates happen when they really shouldn’t. Like a misunderstanding over a spilled pint which quickly turns into a bar brawl, these things should be nipped in the bud when you have the chance. Because you are so adorable, desirable and...

Sometimes it’s wonderful to wake up gay and some days, well, not so much. My perfectly Instagrammed breakfast of eggs benedict was seriously spoiled on reading the Guardian and the Independent’s latest overwrought articles about ‘gay sex parties’ being linked to a rise in HIV diagnoses. This story is trotted out in some form or another every few months or so, usually illustrated with a microscopic selfie of HIV itself or a blurry picture of a heaving Vauxhall club. For the uninitiated, here’s how these pieces usually roll: a ‘study’...