2.) Just after you’ve introduced yourself

3.) As you ejaculate

4.) When you get caught cheating

5.) When you’re over an hour late

6.) As a clarifier to saying ‘you look a bit fat in that’

7.) After you’ve hit on someone else in front of them

8.) As a legitiamte response in a row

9.) In your second online message

10.) As a response to a question you don’t know the answer to

For these moments there are two even more perfect words: SHUT UP.

I love my cat alright!

Kicking off at number 3 is a date I thought had promise; after all this guy chased me across 3 different websites. He was slightly younger than me, slightly fairer than me (oh yes) and had GREAT tits. Not too worked out, not too flabby. He was super keen and seemed interesting so we arranged this date in a pub in the West End.

In my prep for this date I got a fandangled new haircut, you know the big side fringe shaved parting? It looked amazing. This guy rocked up and the first thing he did was comment on my hair. Good start I thought, it got his attention. But then as we progressed, noting things we had in common, he’d look at my hair and fight back, insisting actually he was quite different from me. He asked how my acting was going. I told him I wasn’t an actor. He said he just assumed from my hair.

He’d then ask me leading questions, like where do you go out? Only to reply he really doesn’t go out at all. This went on for a while and it was interesting to watch him row with my answers to his questions. Then came up his cat. So he had one. He loved it. It had a name, I don’t remember. I looked at the photos. I said it looked nice (it wasn’t, it was fucking ugly). By this point, I’m hoping just to give one of his boobies a squeeze.

Nope. He became a bit hysterical about his cat, how he was a Dad to his furry friend, a home body and – with the fear growing in his eyes that darted from my hairline to my face - he then needed to leave right there and then and run back to little kitty in suburbia.

In my head, the date went as follows: He walks towards me all smiles, he shakes my hand, he recognises me as a slaughtering psychopath and his face drops; he pulls his hand away saying ‘no, No, NO!’ and turns on his heels, running screaming in the opposite direction.

I mean what. The .fuck. You’d have thought he’d gone on a date with the Devil’s Haircut. He couldn’t get past it, fought against it and then ran from it. He went back to his cat. I went home and had a wank.

Erm, No.

Ah, coming in at number two is one of the shortest dates of my fucking life. I got chatting to a guy online, and we arranged a date. I was picking him up at his house (seriously) and then we were heading out. I got ready, texted to say I was on my way, all good, got there, all good, he answered the door, stood there, looked at me and said:

Erm, No.

And he shut the door.

This just isn’t working for me

And at number one is the creme de la resistance of all worst dates. Ominously, it was also my very first date of 2011. You could say I was starting at the bottom and working my way up:

So: same old same old; guy online, chatted for ages, I REALLY REALLY liked this one. We got on well, had good banter and he was super sexy, completely my type. We were going to meet at a bar but he suggested just coming round to mine for drinks. Ding ding ding! Oh why not I say, you are speaking my language. He comes over, he looks great, I look great, I’ve got Gin, the flat is spotless and he seems to like everything so far. We hit it off, had a really good laugh and things progressed exactly the way you would want them to.

Cut to me straddling him on the sofa (gross but keep going) and we are making out. Hands wandering making out. T-shirts starting to come off making out. And then, mid snog, full passion flowing, he stops me, pulls back and says:

So, erm, I don’t know about you, but this just isn’t working for me.

Then he sniggers a bit, then looks at me like ‘why are you sitting on me?’ It takes a moment for my head to take control (the cock had taken the helm by this point)  and realize two things. A.) he is not joking. B.) He wants me to get off of him.

I dismount. I pull my t-shirt down. I take a very long, very slow mouthful of my drink. He says:

I hope I can stay, I’d really like to keep chatting to you.

I manage to utter the reply:

I think you should drink up, I think I’m quite tired.

I have no idea how we were able to look each other in the face for the remaining minutes he was there. I also don’t think it dawned on him quite how horrific the situation was. But I do take comfort in the fact that no date I’ve ever had to date as ever topped this one as being so mortifyingly bad.

Everyone has a bad date story. But should they make you quit the game altogether? Definitely not. Because when you get the buzz from that one good one; the spark, the excitement, the chemical reaction; nothing beats it.

So 2012, get your game face on, splash on your best aftershave, get amongst it and make it dirty!

2.) They do answer the question – Who is the fairest of them all? (yea, fuck off Snow White)

3.) If you hold them up to the sun you can see their organs working

4.) Their skin indicates how hard they’re working in the bedroom: If he ain’t red, then he’s dead

5.) They’re now so rare you can trade them in the Middle East for gold

6.) They’re more exotic than blonds

7.) You can pretend you’re dating a vampire when visiting hot countries

8.) They all have big pink balls – even the girls

9.) Their semen comes out at 40 degrees celsius (I shit you not)

10.) If you build up a harem you can re-enact Children of the Corn on weekends.

Go on. Love thy Ginger.

An epidemic has swept the gay community and threatens to un-hinge us all. It’s frightening. It’s real. It’s called Gay Alzheimers.

Or, coined by local groups, ‘Galzheimers’

Studies show the affliction is wide spread and few gays are immune. Insiders claim many will have seen the signs but probably weren’t aware they were dealing with the symptoms of this debilatating epidemic…

Gays you got chatting to on the weekend won’t have a clue who you are the next time you see them. Gays you see in the gym every single day if seen in a bar/ pub/ club will have absolutely no idea who you are. But officials reveal the most acute cases affect those who’ve been chatting online for ages and then sleep together. You can spend a whole evening, night and morning with someone, sharing stories, kisses and probably semen, and then find yourself standing next to him in the queue in Sainsbury’s without a blink of recognition. And worse yet, its been announced that they’ll probably never recognise you again.

Terry, from Wandsworth recounts:

I’d been chatting to this South African dude for over a year and considered him a mate, and then we finally met up and the sex was so good he tore me a new arsehole. Now though, It’s like I don’t exist! He chewed my balls for Fucks Sake. What a cunt.

Devastating

Warnings have been put out to those with musclular physiques and/or good looks as they are most susceptible. I’ve seen this with my own eyeballs. There’s a muscle guy who lives right by me. Whilst he’s not my type, I’ve seen him around my area for yonks, online, and in local bars, usually with the A-Gays. I’ve introduced myself, made polite conversation and even enjoyed a pint at a neighbour’s party. Yet when we found ourselves walking passed each other in the gym, (me to the loo, him to the muscle boys) he looked right through me and completely ignored my acknowledgment. And thus every encounter, especially at the gym, is now like this. If you think you recognise these symptoms, doctors advise in the following report:

Do not to engage with those displaying symptoms. They will not be able to look at you directly in the eye and may become aggressive if challenged, leading to further ostracisation.

I wish I’d got that warning before. I had a night out with a friend and some of his friends, spending a long time chatting a guy and his boyfriend in that group. Yet two weeks later when I approached said guy who was with friends to say hi, he announced indifferently that he had no idea who I was. His friends found this hysterical and sniggered at me as I floundered to search for some recognition. But it’s not funny is it? Because it makes you think, is it Galzheimers, or is it just being plain fucking rude?

The Impact

After all, there’s nothing worse you can do to a person than forget them. It makes them feel small, sidelined, unimportant. And us gays are quite territorial, over places and social groups, so new people could pose a threat to our position.

If single, interactions like these become more important, especially as we grow older.

Precious moments could be wasted, chatting to a nobody when Mr Right could walk past any minute. But then, how the fuck are you to form any sense of a local social life for Mr Right to appear, if you blank the gays around you?

You find that you’ve wound up in a bar where you’re ignoring more people than those you could talk to.

Maybe its a sense of shame; a fear of over commiting in your interactions and then having to levie expectation with those now ‘wanting a piece of you’.

But the real sufferers from galzheimers are the new potential friendships; the opportunity of a widened social circle, the offering and receiving a sense of belonging. I’m now in my thirties, live on my own and my friends don’t live nearby, so it’s become important to me to enjoy where I live – and it not be just where I come back to sleep. I look around me and there are guys I chatted to online and in person, shared a drink, danced with and even had a cheeky snog, yet we walk past like strangers. Don’t get me wrong, there are some days I count my blessings I can slip in and out with no detection like a covert Viet Cong. But it can become a lonely existence if you find yourself being blanked by the gay community on your doorstep.

Rev. Dom Shetland of Weston Super Mare comments:

I’ve never understood gays and I don’t think God does either.

What can we Do?

If we could commit to a simple head nod, it would give each party the subtle validation Galzheimers could only dream of. We don’t have to fuck, buy a dog, or get a pre-nup. We just need to say hello now and again.

Let’s break the shackles of Galzheimers. You won’t lose part of yourself I promise. You might even make a friend.

1.) You can go weeks only ever seeing the people in your office. And you don’t even like them

2.) You cry every Friday evening

3.) You cry every Monday morning

4.) By the end of the day you’re so hunched you can rest your chin on your knees.

5.) You go through 20 Marlborough a day and you don’t even smoke

6.) Red wine has become your ‘every night’ friend

7.) Your sole conversation is about your bitch of a boss

8.) You flinch at sunlight/ excercise/ people being happy

9.) You’ve started to play the lottery and feel suicidal when you don’t win

10.) You’re actively trying to get accidentally pregnant. Even if you’re a boy.

On the BBC documentary, The Duke at 90, the Duke of Edinburgh recounted what he told Prince Charles when it came to dealing with the press:

“Don’t talk about yourself; Nobody’s interested in you.”

I love this because it’s  indictative of the times we live in. We blog, we tweet, we live more public lives now than ever before, where all we do is talk about ourselves.  This is no bad thing if people find us interesting. But it also gives rise to the ‘real me’s’. Those who live public lives and then publicly hint at even more of themselves to be had which you don’t know about. It’s the bit they keep back; reserving that special part for an exclusive handful.

I have issues with real me’s.

Only a chosen few get to see the REAL me; If they knew the REAL me then they’d love me; It’s my time now to show the REAL me *audible gasps*

You are not a new designer label about to be launched on the market. You are not a new generation iPhone. People will not be queuing round the block to get a piece of you upon your revelation.

It’s totally bizarre in a society where we are obsessed with being real & genuine, that we on the one hand proclaim absolutely transparency and ‘what you are is what you get’ only to turn around and declare – that wasn’t me at all! That was a shell, a disguise, a mere taster for the exuberant wonder that is actually, drum roll please, the REAL ME!

Pause to let the crowd sparkle in awe, cheer and applaud. I think I just threw up in my own mouth.

Celebrities do it all the time. Their real me interviews come after a little dry spell and before you can say has-been they’ve had at least 4 different real selves revealed in the last month alone.

It’s dangerous territory. Before long you’ll have to tie a rope around your feet so you don’t fall up your own arse.

I once worked with a woman who hated the stress of her job. So much so, she was a miserable, snappy dragon who wasn’t very nice to be around. At the time, she said to me:

“This isn’t me you know; I’m not a miserable bitch. I’m fun loving and a good laugh, that’s the real me.”

And wouldn’t you know it, it was true. Getting past her work persona, she was infact a lovely, genuinely funny and caring person who has grown into a good friend. The people in our office however only ever saw the dragon. So which IS the real her?

If the people from work only ever saw the dragon, then she is the dragon. I however see the caring friend, so she is exactly that.

Because there is no ‘real you’ at all. We are what we put out to the world. If we act like an arsehole, then we are an arsehole. If we are lovely and kind, then we’re that too. It is all us and it is all real. We like to think we are human paradigms- but we overcomplicate it with what we think are so many versions of ourselves that we forget who we’re meant to be, with whom and when.

It’s so limiting. We are, at the base of it, governed by love, hope, desire and fear. How we put those together is up to us. It’s our personalitiy that is our true constant.

We hate pretenders. The disingenuous ones we can smell a mile off with their fake smiles and questionable stories. But in truth they’re just not as good at it as the rest of us. We hate them because they openly mock what we are constantly trying to perfect. Its the cracked facade. It’s embarrassing.

It drives people nuts.

Another big clanger for the real me’s is the need to change and reinvent ourselves. People get bored of the same old same old; they like to see growth and development. We are always wanting to improve ourselves, and therefore our REAL self must change too.

So the real you today may not be the real you tomorrow. Bugger. Makes the huge unveiling a bit redundant now doesn’t it? You just become a right nobber having to make a big announcement every time you learn a new lesson.

It’s the same as ‘holding back’ parts of you. We all naturally hold back certain parts of ourselves; there are certain experiences & embarrassing bits we wouldn’t want to air to all and sundry. That’s not the ‘real you’; that’s  just social streamlining. Too many you’s and people will get suspicious and won’t trust the real you anyway.

If you throw away the ‘real you’ perception you’ll only ever have more fun without being bound to monitoring the many versions of yourself you think you are at that time. It’s a given that we are always changing, and life will undoubtedly change us too. Our personalities make us who we are. They’re contrary and fickle; stubborn and adaptable. Look outside for fuck’s sake. There’s a whole life to live out there.

And don’t talk about yourself; nobody’s interested in you.