In 2021, I thought a lot about how online dating has made my world smaller

Published on 1 December 2021

Cultured, 51, Glasgow

I met a man online. He lived in Scotland, but we had a chance meeting in Manchester. My heart melted when I first saw him at the tram stop. He walked up to me and shook my hand. We had the same interests, similar age. He was shorter than me, stocky, dark hair. Beard. Great clothes, understated. Intelligent. Alluring. I worried that I was punching above my weight. 

It was such a contrast from others I’d chatted to recently. We shared a love of Pink, Orange, Red, by Cocteau Twins.

Things escalated quickly. I’d booked myself a holiday cottage with the intention of writing but invited him along for a few days. He accepted. It was brilliant.

We made the decision to be exclusive (I’d already mentally committed, but you have to ask the question these days). He said he was potentially prepared to move in with me although he hated Manchester. There was talk of us moving to Hebden Bridge. Starting again.

I had a plan for the first time in years. Clarity, direction. Optimism.

He came to stay with me for two weeks. I introduced him to some friends and posted a picture of us together on Instagram. 

He didn’t have a job, or money, and I didn’t care. I told all my friends to shut up. I threw everything at it. I cried after I’d dropped him off at the train station but they were happy tears. We spoke on the phone every day. He told me he wanted to spend Christmas with me. I bought a huge jar of pickled onions and two large panettones. 

I decided to come off antidepressants as I didn’t think I’d ever need them again. 

After a brief text exchange, that couldn’t be classed as an argument, I was swiftly ghosted, or left unread. 

Friends formed an intervention at Christmas. I wasn’t functioning due to shock.

***

Sporty, 45, Salford

Tried again in the summer months. Met a man who claimed to love music as much as me. Gym goer, footie lover. Sent a lot of selfies of himself doing both. I tried to ignore the footie thing as I was forced to go to matches as a child with a random neighbour when all I wanted to do was play with my friend Kay and her Pippa dolls.

He was still living with his ex boyfriend and trying to sell their home. He had a wandering eye, and told me the ex wanted him out. A self proclaimed player, who’d “been around on the apps” he was charming, and very handsome. Tattoos. I knew I was potentially dabbling with toxic masculinity and ignored his Superdry t-shirt.

Said he wanted an ‘80 percent’ boyfriend so he could play footie and go to the gym as much as he could, which was practically every day. 

Decided to skip the gym one night and come and say hello. Looking back that translated as he wanted to see how I looked and sounded, to see if I was masculine. 

I allowed a complete stranger into my home.

Next up was a cinema date, Supernova. It ended abruptly as he had to run home to watch the footie. He couldn’t miss the footie. I imagined a future, pitchside, wearing Barbour on the down-low and saying the word ‘mate’ a lot.

Met for drinks at one of my favourite bars a week later, then back to mine to watch a footie match that started at midnight. We held hands on the way home. It felt brave.

He rejected the food I’d carefully made in advance in favour of a Dixy Chicken delivery at 1am. 

His messages were full on, frequent. Said he couldn’t talk on the phone as it would piss the ex off. I didn’t mind, and embraced the attention. Thought I was punching again. He spent a lot of time on our dates trying to source a particular brand of cigarettes for the ex although he had a self-proclaimed hatred of smokers. I put up with it, embracing optimism, and smoked whilst he napped.

Things quickly hit a brick wall, framed in the excuse of his flat purchase, with a disclaimer that he couldn’t see me for a month. I argued proximity, he was both living and moving within a 2 mile radius from me. He said I took up too much time and was encroaching his 80 percent rule.

Would I wait for him? I said yes.

Dumped via Whatsapp two weeks later.

So I chatted to another bloke online. Turned out he’d slept with Sporty, 45, Salford and also had a date with my ex fiance who’d delivered a scathing character assassination of me over a pub lunch. A 40 mile radius shrunk by the internet.

Instagram swiftly became the new platform to converse with other gay men. My next plan was to raise my age expectations, surely men in their sixties knew what they wanted?

***

Retired, 64, Norfolk

Started conversing with a man who was solvent and lived by the sea. Lots of video calls, he seemed keen whilst waxing lyrical about his thousands of male followers. 

We decided to meet in London. Had a drink in a pub. After a couple of pints he said: “Single gay men in their forties and fifties obviously have something wrong with them.” 

He mentioned he was chatting to a very attractive, 'sexy’ man. They planned to meet in Norfolk the following month for lunch, followed by sex in his caravan.

Unprompted, he swiftly showed me his Whatsapp pictures, his penis, his hairy-chested selfie complete with foggy spectacles.

It was Cultured, 51, Glasgow, who ghosted, and left me unread last Christmas.