Feature: My Life Through Dating

The way I see it there are two types of people: “Omg you’re gay?!”; and “I knew it!”. I mean we know there is a third type, but let’s keep this a happy article and not get into that…

I come from Estonia where gays are accepted by just about 33% of the population, so for me, naturally, it’s important to hit the criteria of an “Omg you’re gay??” type. Not because I’m ashamed but it’s what I’m used to.

When I was in primary school I was envied by my peers – predominately male – because I was popular with the girls. I just couldn’t understand what was so hard about talking to a girl, they don’t bite… (Well some might, wink wink). As I grew older I developed this fear not for girls, but for boys. That’s when I took a step back and was like “wait, what?”. I didn’t know how to act, I didn’t know if it was normal, I was confused and mortified. I remember trying to “fix” myself by getting a girlfriend, that in itself is funny let alone the fact she then left me for another boy who also turned out to be gay and she turned out to be a lesbian. Love triangles nowadays.

Anyway, nothing really happened in secondary school or college apart from my realisation of my love for males grew stronger and I finally got the courage to come out to some of my friends. So, the real story starts at university…

In the first few months of university, I was full-on feeling the freedom of being a teenager. Nobody knew just how much I was taking advantage of this freedom, I always tell people a different story because they won’t be able to swallow the truth. But you have to understand that it was a whole new world to me. I could do anything I wanted when I wanted and for how long I wanted. And I did.

That isn’t even the best bit, this was all before my discovery of Grindr. Grindr transformed my life, it taught me lessons, it was like the big brother that I never had. You know, that app finds you, friends, for life – in all shapes and sizes. But it all got repetitive and boring after a while. At the end of my first year, I was no longer interested in the Grindr-type men. I wanted to find someone who could understand me and I didn’t want to use the internet to do that.

Yet because of modern-day socialising, it was like playing hide and seek, but without the find. So, as expected, I was left with no choice but to download Tinder. Tinder is more sophisticated than Grindr, but it was full of the same people. But I’ll tell you something, Tinder had some of the best specimens out there. And it didn’t take many “meets and greets” until I found one lucky guy to be my boyfriend.

I was over the moon at that point, I mean I never thought I’d have a boyfriend. It was an experience, to say the least. He was older, more mature and had his life in order. I was younger, a child at heart and had no idea what I wanted to do with mine. But that gave me hope because as people say “opposites attract”. All we did was pretty much walk. I think we might have walked around the whole of London. And I loved it. How could I not? My Fitbit steps were through the roof and I was winning competitions left, right and centre! However, the relationship ended as quickly as it had begun and I was back to being the Captain of the single ship once again.

I wanted to sail on my own for a bit. I needed time to reflect on my past decisions and how they changed me as a person. I became wiser and more careful. I wasn’t that teenager on a sexual rampage anymore. To put it in corporate language: I wanted to show my ex-employee that he was wrong leaving me for another firm.

I had sailed and sailed and finally ended up in Liverpool. Take my advice – if you are single, Liverpool is the place to be. Their Tinder game was on point. I think I was talking to about 15 guys at the same time! And I’m surprised I managed to keep that going.

However, the hardest thing was telling someone that I wasn’t interested anymore. It’s selfish and arrogant but it needed to be done. I simply didn’t want to waste their time or mine. If someone wasn’t interested in me they would gradually stop replying and that is how I dealt with the situation.

Although there was one lad that I couldn’t stop talking to. When we matched, the first thing he said was “Am I going to get lucky tonight? ;)”, I mean how was I supposed to respond to that? In his defence, it was probably a reference to my bio,  which said “If you get lucky, I might show you my six-pack”. Spoiler alert, I had no six-pack. Don’t trust what you read on the internet, kids.

By the time we met face to face, I think he’d lost interest in my six-pack. For some bizarre reason, he found me fascinating. He used to send me coded letters with cute messages. That was it for me. I knew that he was the one. He was ready to be promoted to a boyfriend. This time around I was older and he was younger, but it was the way he managed to convey himself as a very mature young man that won me over. I used to think I was good at Maths until I met him. His brain is probably robotic because nobody is that good at Maths, the guy can calculate any bloody logarithm in his head.

Nine months on he is still working full time as my boyfriend and I couldn’t be happier. I want to thank the wind from the Atlantic that directed my ship to Liverpool because I always thought London produced the best employees.

By Julian Kisselevits