5 straight-up gay ways to… meet ‘the one’

Mark Bittlestone is a stand-up comedian. He is also very gay man. Just a very gay man, doing a lot of straight-up gay stuff.

He’s on social media too! Follow Mark on Instagram here

5 straight-up gay ways to… meet ‘the one’

This is a gay column about GAY things. Although I’m aware that straight people are also interested (actually, obsessed) with meeting “the one”, I frankly don’t care what they think or do. This is a GAY column for GAY needs, so if you’re GAY (did I emphasise the word gay enough?) and looking for love then you should read on. GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY. Here are my 5 top tips! 

1) Expand your gay circle.

It stands to reason that the more gays you know, the more likely you are to meet “the one”. Most of my friends from school and university are straight, so for a long time I really didn’t know many other gay people. Although this did have certain advantages, it made gayting (gay dating) hard (as opposed to making me hard, which is what I wanted) because not only could I not hook up with my friends, but I also wasn’t being introduced to other gays. So I did the sensible thing and expanded my gay circle (sounds like my pet name for my anus – it’s not). I joined a gay football team, went to drag nights, joined a gay haberdashery club. Nah I’m lazy af and didn’t do any of these things, but I did manage to find some gays through comedy. They DO all sound like good ideas though, so you should go do them! Just whatever you can to seek out the gays – make it happen! 

2) Delete Grindr.

I’m no Grindr hater, I think it’s great for connecting gay guys, primarily those who want to have sex. But I don’t think it’s naturally conducive to finding a long-term relationship. Although it does happen, that Grindr isn’t built for long-term things should go without saying (the only thing long-term thing I’ve ever found on Grindr is disappointment….haha). What I mean is that, I find that when go through a phase of using Grindr regularly it definitely affects how I approach dates. I don’t really look forward to them and I convinced myself that if they don’t end with sex then they’re pointless. So I’ve (temporarily, inevitably) deleted Grindr and am trying to actually “date” atm. 

3) Stop dating people who you know for a fact are not right for you.

I’m the absolute worst for this. I always always end up with cute, shy, intense guys who aren’t exactly the life and soul of the party. Every time I date one of them I say to myself “wake up you piece of shit and start dating guys you’d actually hang out with”. Then fast-forward a year or so and GUESS WHO WE’RE DATING?!?!?! I need to be stronger willed than just saying to myself “well, the heart wants what the heart wants” and instead force myself to sit down in front of guys who actually match the character traits that I’m looking for not just ones that “look a bit like Timothée Chalamet”. (But srsly if anyone knows TS pls tell him to slide in (to my DMs (or anywhere else))). 

4) Look close to home.

One of the great tragedies of being gay is that we’re all doomed to, at least once, fall in love with someone who can never reciprocate that feeling: we’ve all fallen in love with straight guys. Hell, I pretty much exclusively do. And I look at some of them and I think “I love you” and “I love you so much” and “you’re the love of my life” but, those things notwithstanding, I also think, “he’s not my type at all, I would never give him a chance on a date if I saw him on Tinder”. So what I’m saying is, if you complete number 1 and expand your circle of gays, you never know, you might just find yourself falling in love with one of them. On second thoughts, if you’re anything like me, you probably won’t, and you’ll just continue falling in love with straight guys.

5) Abandon the stupid notion of “the one”.

It’s obviously absurd anyway so why fall for such stupid heteronormative bullshit like I do? The idea that there’s “one” person out there for all of us is evidently ridiculous. There’s millions of guys out there for you. Don’t actually have sex with millions of guys though. Or do? Is that theoretically possible? What would a million look like? Ok, scrap finding the “one”, we have our new #challenge.

For more from Mark check him out on Instagram right here!

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