Justin Myers / The Guyliner

Dating online is much like going out with someone you met in a kebab shop, or next to a huge speaker in your local neon ’n’ snakebite cattle market, but it comes with its quirks – an inability to admit you’re “a thing” and an irresistible urge to keep dating apps on your phone once you start seeing someone, “just in case”.

Autumn catwalks were awash with models dressed like laundry piles. Why stop at two coats when three (or more) is fashionable – and practical, too?

Sex is one of the most exciting things we can do, whenever we like, that doesn’t cost us any money. Usually. And yet, permanently dissatisfied and demanding as we humans are, we’re always trying to find ways to make it more of a thrill. One of the easiest ways to do this is to have sex somewhere “unusual”.

Despite what loud-mouthed columnists might tell you, true diversity on TV has a way to go. Oh sure, a female, LGBT, or non-white panellist is occasionally wheeled out on a comedy show, or soaps cover a gay “issue” every now and again, but when it comes to gay-led TV, viewers are left wanting.

Are we right to blame advances in tech for all our dating ills? I'm not too sure, you know…

In days of yore, when homophobia was very much still on trend, gay men felt ageless, spared the usual heterosexual milestones: marriage, children or spending our Sundays lathering up our Ford Mondeos on the driveway. Now, thanks to marriage equality, along with increased open-mindedness heading off bigotry as best it can, we are catching up fast and lapping up equality like a free charcoal shot.

Already you may be screaming STOP at your screen, but I’m afraid full disclosure is as full disclosure does. The “mushroom character in Mario Kart”—an enchanted, sentient toadstool called Toad, for any non-gamers out there—is mentioned as a potential doppelgänger.

Alamy
While you could argue that if a relationship is meant to be you shouldn’t have to work too hard at it, keeping one going is no picnic. One in five couples are sexually incompatible – but it doesn’t have to be the end.

The witching season is almost upon us – cosplay Christmas for attention-seekers. It’s remarkable what Halloween can do to even the meekest of men. Hand them a lurid cocktail, a pair of novelty fangs and an acrylic wig, and suddenly they’re the life and soul of the party.

Though he became famous in later years for partying with Cilla Black, or good-naturedly rolling his eyes at witless contestants on lottery quiz In It To Win It, the jewel in Dale’s eclectic CV was Supermarket Sweep, the surprise daytime smash of the nineties that became a cultural phenomenon.

If you’re going to go the distance long-distance, you’ll have to keep things hot in real time.
If you haven’t disrobed in front of your laptop or screamed in frustration at a shaky video buffering while your own natural urges could not, have you even *had* sex?

All men think they’re good kissers. We do. “Never had any complaints,” we trill proudly, as we run our tongues over our teeth for effect. And this is the problem, really – nobody ever complains about the way someone kisses.

The first couple of weeks at university are a whirlwind of boozing, sleeping in and nervous mingling with a bunch of strangers, and it’s important to come out of them with dignity as intact as possible – no mean feat when you’re challenged to down 15 shots of vodka-infused mouthwash or wear all your clothes inside out for a dare.

As summer takes hold, temperatures soar, and holiday romances suddenly seem a totally sensible thing to do rather than a doomed expedition into the world of gonorrhoea, sex on the beach is back on the menu. I mean, it has to be amazing – they named a cocktail after it, right? Sure.

With a loophole on Grindr now being exploited by users looking to see who has blocked them, Justin Myers takes a look at our unhealthy obsession with confronting our online haters and engaging with their irrelevant minds.