Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. It seems we have reached the end of an era. According to today's Sunday Times' Style magazine barometer of what's hot and what's o-v-a-h, the GBF (Gay Best Friend) is done, replaced by the BMF – Best Man Friend. I'll assume they mean that the BMF is a straight man. Straight men are "men" and gay men are "gay". I think that's how it works. Anyway, ignoring that every so slightly acidic twist of the heteronormative knife, here's why I'm glad my services as a...
You don’t get many men falling over themselves to tell you about their childhood when you first start dating. People who had idyllic ones don’t usually feel the need to wheel them out to make conversation. Unless we had a very bad one, or grew up with celebrities or politicians for parents or something, there’s very little to say about one’s childhood beyond the usual bewilderment at how all the chocolate bars were bigger and everyone got smacked on the legs in the supermarket. The teenage rebel however, idolises his childhood self....
“It’s exhausting to be right all the time,” the Know-it-all will tell you as he swirls his drink around his glass. “But I just can’t help myself. If I see an error, I have to correct it.” You may find this charming at first. Knowledge can be quite sexy, after all. "He's so clever," you'll gush to your slack-jawed friends. You revel in your new role as Marilyn Monroe to his Olivier, drinking in his fun facts, grammatical corrections and recommendations like lattes. But the trouble with a know-it-all is that...
So you’ve been on a couple of dates and it’s going well, but is he boyfriend material? Stop right there and climb no further on the commitment ladder until you’ve got him through the following ten challenges: 1. Make him chew gum Mouth open? Drooling? Really inexplicably loud? Bubbles?! Ditch him. 2. Watch him go through a self-checkout machine More than three unexpected items in the bagging area and he has to go. 3. Take a train or Tube with him You will see how he reacts to standing etiquette/giving...
1. If I arrive first it will make me look responsible and also like I care and that I'm… not flighty. It will not make me seem overly keen and boring, with nothing else to do tonight, or indeed ever. 2. Arriving late will make me seem mysterious and sexy, and he’ll be panting at my arrival, staring eagerly at the door. He'll be so pleased I haven’t stood him up that he’ll be overjoyed to see me and we will fall immediately in love. 3. Oh well, it’s better than...
What is it about those magic bells as December turns into January that make us desperate to lock lips with someone? Despite having a perfectly acceptable time all night flying solo, the impending “clanging chimes of doom” (thanks Band Aid) of New Year suddenly make us feel more alone than ever. And most years, if your significant other isn’t already a) a thing that exists and b) somewhere nearby trying to pee into a beer can to save having to go to the loo, you end up reaching out to...
Getting a first date is fairly easy. Or so they tell me. But getting a first date and going on a first date are nowhere near as big a deal as the ultimate prize, the holy grail of dating, the BIG ONE: securing date number 2. So many of us miss out on the follow-up date. They say sequels can never live up to their predecessor (mine certainly don't), but lots of debuts fail to get a second chance to try. Is there something you can do to smooth the...
My recent post on dumping someone by text proved to be pretty divisive. It seems that many people prefer a face-to-face break-up or, at the very least, a phone call. It’s a common fallacy that bad news like this is better in person, or coming from a disembodied voice at the end of a telephone. Perhaps it seems more personal, or means more, because it’s perceived that tapping in a few digits, then delivering a knockout blow over the phone and waiting distractedly for the stunned reply, in some way...