I’m a firm believer in the power of writing to help you work through your feelings. I often find myself halfway through a post, suddenly realising that the emotions I have about this or that story have evolved or become clearer as I’m writing: we are our stories, and trying to capture the narratives that run through our lives is such a powerful (and valuable) thing to do. Today’s guest blogger is writing to capture a bundle of complex emotions about FOMO, relationships, and life in his 40s that are tricky to label and digest. Especially because, when you’re polyamorous, many of the scripts we have around different life stages don’t quite seem to fit. Thank you so much Northern Boy, and I hope your thoughts can help other people who might be struggling with similar things…

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As a general rule I don’t like people quoting me in guest blogs on my own site. It feels too recursive and narcissistic, even for me. BUT. Today’s guest – Oscar, big big thanks to him – has a really important point to make, and straight people (STRAIGHT MEN) need to hear it. It’s about a topic extremely close to my heart, and vitally important in my (and so many other people’s) dating lives. Actually fuck it, not just their dating lives, their lives in general. Today we’re gonna talk about jokes. Specifically, why it appears that straight men can’t joke with women who they might also be interested in boning…

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London has a population of almost nine million. It is one of the most vibrant, exciting, busy cities in the world. At the same time, most of the people who live here (myself included) have an instinctive distrust of strangers, and a powerful desire to not be bothered by one. So how do you meet people in this context? In the past I’ve relied heavily on dating apps. But as most people on The Apps agree, dating apps fucking suck these days. Let’s examine some potential ways to get laid without dating apps, with the aim that by the end of the year I will have DEFINITELY TRIED ALL OF THEM and if I haven’t you can tell me off for wussing out.

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Here’s a kiss I’d really love to have: the oh-fuck-we’re-about-to-miss-our-tube kiss when we get kicked out of the pub at closing time, having overstayed our welcome because we got stuck into a fun discussion. We know that we both want to fuck but early morning meetings make that impossible tonight, so we give each other the kind of snog that’ll leave the other person hungry for next week’s follow-up liaison. That’s one of the kisses I’m hoping for when you message me on a dating site.

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I know a lot of the time I tell you what an incompetent shithead I am but recently I realised something. In terms of online dating, my ‘hit rate’ (i.e. my ratio of dates attended to men I have actually liked) since I broke up with my ex is pretty high. By which I mean I have been on a few physical dates after contact on The Apps, and broadly I’ve liked all the men (except one – he didn’t ask me any questions, and that was very annoying). I might find The Apps themselves tedious, and moan about having to go back on them when I find I have a slot on my dance card, but when you examine the raw numbers there’s no getting round it: I am fucking exceptional at dating. Today I am going to share what I think is a key aspect of my dating strategy with you, and pretend I am much cleverer than I actually am by explaining how to write the best online dating profile. Get ready to be wowed.

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