The Gay Dating Saga

For those who haven’t been following my dating-series essays, here’s the story so far.

I explored my sexuality with both genders until I was twenty-two. This was back in the 90s, when really only two genders were talked about. I definitely picked my lane, or maybe my lane chose me. Whatever. I’m not arguing about it in this essay.

Or ever.

I’d become a bit of a romantic gypsy: not actively searching for a partner, but always stumbling into a romance after another. If they were easy on the eye, demanding on the plumbing, and full of laughter, fun nights and weekends away, I was happy to go along for the ride.

They also came with expiry dates.

Some lasted as long as tinned goods; others stuck around about as long as an opened yoghurt at the back of the fridge. I didn’t have any expectations, even if maybe they did. If anyone asked the question, I gave them an honest answer.

Mostly, they didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. And off we went on our merry way.

Then came Married Mike.

Our year-long arrangement, regular mid week afternoon hi-jinks once, sometimes twice a week, kick-started something in me. I wasn’t entirely sure what, but suddenly I found myself thinking about the possible partnered future and what that may entail.

I began noticing couples around me. I didn’t mind the thought of being an ‘us’ or a ‘we’.

At the time, an old school pal lived in the semi attached to mine. She had married her high-school sweetheart and popped out a couple of kids. One of them seemed determined to play the Grease soundtrack on an endless loop while using her bed as a trampoline.

All very wholesome, until you’re approaching the “wella, wella, oof” stage while entertaining a gentleman in your own bed, directly against the adjoining wall.

Married Mike, however, was not to be that long term partner.

I enjoy a little drama as much as the next person, but not when it arrives uninvited at the front door carrying several pieces of luggage.

And with that, we’re up to speed.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much spare time. My corporate wage-slave job consumed most of it, largely by sending me up and down the M6 to Birmingham, where I was helping to staff a new technical call centre.

I said it wouldn’t last.

When asked why, I replied simple, “The accent.” The people sound simple. Apologies if I’ve upset some readers in stating the bloody obvious.

Some people struggle with a strong West Midlands accent. To the untrained southern ear, Brummie can sound a little like Forrest Gump’s slower, more contemplative cousin.

I was accused of being stuck-up and inferring the team we were building were thick. Mainly by the Birmingham senior management, who unsurprisingly had a Brummie twang to their management jargon talk.

This was unfair. Admittedly, I have the sort of accent people assume is posh, but I’m far from it. Although I do possess an alarming appreciation for Agas and expensive cookware, so perhaps the evidence is mixed.

In the end, I was proved right, but not for the reasons the accusation suggested. The workforce was intelligent, engaging and perfectly capable of doing the job. They gave customers the correct information, clearly and professionally. Unfortunately, they did so with strong Brummie accents.

The result was the highest callback rate in the business. Customers would hang up, ring again and ask somebody else exactly the same question, apparently hoping the answer might sound more trustworthy in a different regional dialect.

The call centre limped on for four years before being relocated.

Still, my involvement in recruitment taught me something useful: the efficiency of the group interview.

Why, I wondered, couldn’t I apply the same principle to dating?

Instead of investing weeks in one man during the traditional, painfully inefficient “getting to know you” period, I could meet several candidates simultaneously. Not all in the same room, obviously, I was looking for a boyfriend, not forming a boy band.

The rules were simple. I could continue seeing multiple men until things became physical. If I slept with someone once and, crucially, wanted to do it again, I would press pause on the others.

A streamlined, ethical and highly efficient romantic recruitment process.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

So, how did my group-interview system work?

I streamlined the entire process and created my own version of speed dating. This didn’t involve sitting in a function room while a potential partner was plonked in front of me for three minutes and expected to demonstrate his key competencies before a bell rang.

No, my system was far more sophisticated.

I created two dating profiles, beginning with Gaydar.com. This was before Grindr and the arrival of geolocation apps, when complete strangers couldn’t yet calculate your precise distance from their bedroom. Gaydar did, however, allow you to regionalise the pool of potential men.

At the time, I lived in the picturesque village of Lymm in North Cheshire. It was charming, affluent and overwhelmingly straight. I had also already plundered the local supply of married ‘gay interested’ men and the available, and desirable, gay or gay-adjacent population.

It was time to widen the search area.

Fortunately, Lymm is ideally positioned for the motorway network. I could reach Chester, Liverpool or Manchester within half an hour, and Birmingham or Lancaster in just over an hour. It was less a dating radius and more a regional distribution strategy.

I immediately ruled out Liverpool and Birmingham. Both accents did unnecessary things to my nervous system, imagine fingernails being dragged down a blackboard. Can we still say blackboard? Is it chalkboard now?

Either way, due to personal preferences. I ruled them out.

The second website I joined was OutintheUK.

I’ve mentioned it in a previous essay. It was designed to unite gay men and lesbians across the country, principally for friendship. It wasn’t officially a dating site, and plenty of people were genuinely only looking for friends.

But if you were single, I was ready to mingle.

I’ve always had a way with words, so I knew how to present myself as engaging, entertaining and just a little spicy, but in a reassuringly suburban way. In fact, I used the line: “A suburban boy at heart.”

Which was, and remains, entirely accurate.

I also had five or six decent photos. This was back when pictures had to be scanned from developed film or taken with an expensive digital camera. Luckily, I owned the latter and had discovered the selfie before the selfie was officially invented.

The camera came as part of a package deal from PC World. In those days, buying a computer meant leaving the shop with a trolley piled high with enormous boxes. My particular deal included a tower, a slim monitor, a printer, a scanner, a camera, a keyboard, a mouse and several mysterious accessories I had no idea how to use and never took out of their packaging.

My hot hatch was packed so tightly that I couldn’t see through the rear window. Apparently, basic road safety was a small price to pay for entering the digital age.

Armed with my camera, I put together the required dating portfolio.

There was one of me laughing as though some one just out of shot had said something hilarious. One gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance from a park bench with the picturesque Lymm Dam in the background (showed I lived in a nice area). One at the gym on a treadmill, showing both physical fitness and access to leisure facilities. Another was taken in my kitchen because I was extremely proud of its white gloss units, which were very modern and stylish at the time.

Finally, there was a photo of me in my car, proving that I could drive and had excellent taste in small, unnecessarily fast vehicles.

My profile was complete. I was ready to unleash myself on the world.

After reviewing the competition, and remembering this was before cock-and-arse shots became the official currency of online courtship, I decided that honesty was the best policy.

“Relationship-orientated and looking for an LTR.”

A long-term relationship.

I’d never actually had one, but I was willing to give it a try.

Tune in for the next instalment of Jonathan’s dating disasters, and other duvet related stories.

Share

Leave a comment