This blog is ruining my life

You out there! Yes you, reader! I have a bone to pick with you. There you sit, slumped in front of your computer with your voyeuristic desires and your wilted pot-plants, casually dipping into my life to satisfy your pathetic need for Thrill. Do you ever stop to thing about me? Huh?! Poor old me, who has to carry the weight of your expectations on his rather shapely and finely formed shoulders? Do you ever think about the effect of your addiction on the Little People?

No, I should think you don’t. Well, here’s a sobering tale to make you think next time before you click.

My life started unravelling last Friday night when, after a gruelling week of mincing around the office designing pretty things I decided to reward myself by watching the DVD box-set of Queer As Folk. I’d been meaning to do this for a while, as being a gay man who has not seen Queer As Folk is a bit like being the only member of the 12 disciples still sporting a foreskin.

I settled myself into the sofa with a bottle of red and a cuddly toy, and delved headfirst into the lives of those three loveable lads from Manchester. I laughed when they laughed, held their hands when they were sad, and cheered when the Evil Homophobe Texan Robot King had his biblical energy core ripped out with the pulsing pink power of gay love. Heady stuff.

Unfortunately, I didn’t read the product safety guidelines that advised against watching this material alone, and so it was that my flatmate came home to find me sobbing into my claret, rocking Booboo the stuffed penguin in my arms, and blubbering about wanting to find a boyfriend.

Now, I have many charming personality traits, ranging from a need to pass judgment on other people’s morals through to an ability to drool my own body mass while sleeping on public transport. However, the most useful off all is the cold metal core of Practicality that our mother has given to all three of her children. Not for us the pathetic self-indulgent pity of the lower classes. No, if you’ve got a problem you make a list of potential solutions in your neatest handwriting, with a numerically weighted list of pros and cons beside each, and you eliminate the weakest options until you are left with a gilded, glittering path forwards.

Here was my list:

1. Stay at home and cry some more. PROS: inexpensive. CONS: no available homosexuals in house.

2. Lure homosexuals into house using a trail of sequins and pink candy. PROS: inexpensive. CONS: likely to attract camp man wearing grandma’s clothing and/or red hood.

3. Answer Guardian classifieds ad for 'Men Seeking Men. PROS: high-likelihood of meeting intelligent, witty tofu-muncher. CONS: see ‘pros’.

4. Go out to gay bars with friends. PROS: guaranteed great night as can poke fun at freakshow gays. CONS: wing-woman lives in Bath; technique tried on many previous occasions without success; high risk of going home with freakshow.

5. Go out to gay bars alone. PROS: social awkwardness guaranteed to force HW to talk to freakshows; no matter how bad it is will be able to write a blog about it.

And there it is. Point 5 sub-clause 2 pushed me over the edge. It’d been a slow week and I was feeling the pinch, so if I didn’t go out you’d all be hearing about the lint shaped like the face of Mother Teresa I'd found while clipping my toenails.

Saturday November 3rd. 8pm. I arrive at stop number one on my Night Of Gay Horrors. I order myself a vodka tonic, saunter casually around the bar to establish by sexually-charged presence, and come to rest nonchanlantly in a well-lit corner where there is plenty of space for a queue to form.

It takes me about 32 seconds to realise that maintaining a sense of cool approachability while drinking by yourself is about as easy as doing the Timewarp in a wheelchair. My desperation builds as I realise my drink is nearly done and I am looking less like a desirable catch and more like a lonely alcoholic. There’s only one thing for it; I receive an imaginary text.

Ha ha ha ha! I chortle. Oh! How amusing all my friends are who are not currently present! I smile knowingly. Oh look! One of said friends is ringing me. Yes, yes, I’m waiting for you all to join me. No! Not at all! Take your time! I’m having a ball here by myself. I LOVE being out alone! Really?! He did what!? Oh, what silliness, what crazy times we have! You guys! I hang up and put my phone away. But OH! No sooner have I done so than someone else is texting me. Gosh, so popular tonight despite the external appearances of a pathetic loser.

Time to move on.

Stop number two. En route I call the Aussie Hairdresser – who goes out by himself a lot – for tips. “Stand near the bar,” he advises. “If you’re in a corner men will think you unapproachable. And try to look like you’re having a good time.” Can do.

I prop myself up on the bar and cast my wicked eye about. It sees that the man in the thong and boots dancing on the bar top has a cold, so has to alternate rubbing his lathered groin up a pole with blowing into a Kleenex. It also sees that the dress code appears to be “your sister’s wardrobe” while I have in error gone for collar and skinny tie, and that the only people by themselves look like they are a few nucleotides short of a double-helix.

Time to move on.

Stop number three. Described by the Aussie Hairdresser as being ‘non-scene’. I wander up to the bar, and as I’m waiting for my v+t to arrive I feel the gentle pressure of a pair of hands on my shoulders and waist as someone squeezes past. Hooray! I think, turning slowly. The inappropriate touching of a gay introduction…

...only to find he is 55 years old. Wearing a hopeful leer. I retch on his hideousness and stumble away.

However, this encounter has galvanised me into action. Clearly the key is to approach, not be approached. In this way you ensure quality control. I identify my target as a gentleman wearing quirky spectacles at the bar, as 1) gay men are usually so vain as to not wear glasses, and 2) he looks like he’s having fun. Oh look! He’s checking his text messages.

He turns out to be an Yankee Banker over from D.C. for a holiday, sporting a refined sense of fashion and an interest in design and architecture. We chat, head outside for some air, and get accosted by a Hen Party for a photo of the bride hoisted between two burly gentlemen. The Old Compton Street usual.

Disturbingly, we have such a good time that we spend all day Sunday together as well, going to an exhibition at the Barbican and walking the city in autumnal sunshine. It’s disgusting; I feel like we’re living an ABBA song. We have dinner, enjoy some censored activities and a few drinks into the wee hours. Two days later he flies out to Barcelona. Cue ABBA track two.

So you, Reader, have completely fucked up my life. It’s been a long time since I’ve met anyone interesting, funny, intelligent, and with a stomach to crack nuts on (yes, very funny). Thanks to you I now have, but he lives 3661 miles away. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

We are officially not talking.