I will begin by acknowledging that I am in no way perfect, nor an expert on dating, and that there are two sides to every tale; I also state that I am as close to perfection as possible, and, if you want a rounded picture of the date, find his blog and read about it there.  This is all about me, and whilst I’ve not been properly dating for a while I’m not exactly new to the concept either – just a little out of practice, perhaps.  Plus ça change and all that – it turns out that gays are still meeting each other in the same old ways they were four years ago when I was last in the market.  Gaydar, gay bars and everywhere in between: it’s the same old story.  The one notable addition to the stable of gay connexions is Grindr for the iPhone, which not only allows you to chat with local gays, but tells you in feet and inches how far away they are from you at any given moment.  (Using it in clubs is all the rage lately, prompting the fabulous tweet: “he’s three miles away, no he’s three feet away; no, he’s three inches inside me”.)  This date was a Grindr find.

Agreeing to a date based on the calibre of online conversation is like buying a house without having a survey done: the foundations may be shot and you’ll never know it. Chatting online gives you the advantage of time. You can think about what you are going to say and how you are going to say it.  In real life things move much faster and I often find words racing out of my mouth while the concept they relate to putters along in my brain like a Morris Minor in third gear.  Still, people buy houses with subsidence and I go on dates with men who appear charming online. The world turns.

There were a number of indicators from the start that this was not going to enter history as a grand success.  They are personal reasons, upon which I will not dwell too long for I shall simply appear mean.  I will say that I was surprised when he arrived on a bicycle.  Also, the black-and-gold checked pirate shirt with dangling buttons wasn’t a look I would have chosen, especially with the brightly striped, square-cut tie (which was thrown over the shoulder during dinner).  And finally, it’s personal taste, but I’m quite fussy about facial hair and a moustache is just going to put me off.  I’m sorry: it’s just the way I roll.

First impressions cemented (I was looking fabulous, of course), and we went for pre-dinner drinks where the conversation went well enough for two people who, it turns out, have very little in common but two hours to kill. The weather, books we have read and how we are both enjoying living in Sydney were all covered quickly enough, but after a while I could feel the dry rot creeping up the walls. Idle chatter became harder and harder work. In my stride I am a conversational Rumpelstiltskin but there’s only so much a boy can do. I was working overtime thinking up new topics while he sat there looking expectant, waiting for the next, increasingly inane, subject to reveal itself. Is it any wonder some people turn to drink?

Dinner itself was pleasant enough.  The wine-tasting bordered on pretentious (it was only a pizza restaurant, after all) but his apparently genuine knowledge kept it on the right side of twattism. (This might be my deep-seated jealousy of people who know about wine talking here. Try as I might, I cannot remember a damn thing about any of it.) The meal went well although as we went on my decision to go home alone (already formed at the start of the night) became more and more solid.  After finishing I went to the bathroom and while I was gone the waiter took the dishes.  I returned to find everything cleared except the remains of our salad, which my date was eating straight off the serving plate with the only fork left on the table. Right there and then any hope this guy had with me went out to the car park and shot itself in the head. Don’t get me wrong: you should eat till you are full in a restaurant; I certainly don’t advocate abstinence of any kind on a date.  But I do expect, when the time comes, that you make a decision: either you are finished or you aren’t.  If you are still hungry, tell the waiter you are still eating and he’ll come back when you are finished. If you are already finished, allow the waiter to take everything off the table in one go.  DO NOT let him take everything except the last few leaves of insalata rucola, then sit there finishing them off while your date waits with nothing to do but watch you eat. You will go home alone.

At the door to the restaurant I called it a night.  He insisted on walking me the 250 yards to my front door. Since it was also on his way home I walked while he pushed along his bicycle between the two of us. It might have been Timothy Conigrave romantic if it weren’t so Adrian Mole. As we approached my house, wouldn’t you know it, two guys were standing in the street making out. Good for them: not so good for me. I had done everything I could not to give him any ideas and there was a giant advert for the thing he wouldn’t be getting right on my doorstep. Despite my firmly folded arms and shuttered-up body language, he still went in for the hug-cum-pounce and the night ended with me almost giving myself whiplash converting his amorous assault into a peck on the cheek.

What does one say at the end of a night like that? “I’ll call you”, of course, but I didn’t get the chance. He rang me.

We won’t be doing it again.

This evening, I watched Julie & Julia and took it all back.  Not only am I famished and inspired to cook, but also to get back in control of things, starting here.  I live in Australia!  I am too lucky!  Not everyone gets this kind of chance to see this amazing place – and all the other amazing places nearby – and I should try to share it with you as best I can.  It’s easy to take it for granted – it’s far more difficult to remember how amazing things are when you see them every day.  Case in point: Sydney Tower. Gareth and were keen to go – it’s the highest observation deck in Australia – and I trotted along with them in skeptical Sydneysider fashion, wondering if the cost would be worth experience.

The view from the top of the tower is amazing.  From the ground you forget how massive the harbour is and how it winds its way out to the ocean through the heart of the city.  You imagine the beach is miles away and the sights are too far to travel to when there are other things to be doing.  From the air you can see how wrong you are.  Seeing things from a different angle brought back the magic and made me appreciate how amazing they are, and how unlikely it is that I would ever be living here to enjoy it all.  Sure, the Tower isn’t the cheapest sight around, but it’s more fun than you think and worth a trip on a sunny day.

This week’s weather is atrocious – more like the UK in October than Australia in the spring – but next week will be gorgeous.  I plan to make the most of it and tell you all about it.  Don’t worry – all the ups and downs of a single boy in Sydney will be in here too but, man alive, life’s too short to be glum. Let’s turn that frown upside down and get on with it, shall we?

James’s flat finally completed this week and on Friday he moved the last of his stuff out of my home and now we are now officially living alone.  Of course I was straight round on Friday night to help him unpack and get everything set up.  I’m quite jealous as his flat is twice the size of mine and has two toilets, but I only need one bathroom so it’s not much of a complaint, is it?  After a quick dinner at the local Thai restaurant the time came to go home, back to my flat for my first ever night of living alone.  It was a very strange feeling saying goodbye to someone I’ve seen every day for the past nearly four years, but I’m sure it will become more natural with time. Back at home I decided the best way to really enjoy the first night of solitude was to stay up all night watching The Matrix and drinking gin-and-tonics and Frangelico.  I woke up at 2:30am on the sofa and dragged myself into bed.  An inauspicious beginning if ever there were one.

The following day I could hardly think for things going on.  James and our friend Kristie arrived at my flat just as I was putting on my Bioré nose strip and took me out to buy a new kettle and a shedload of booze, and my second attempt at wrenching out those blackheads was thwarted by my afternoon date arriving literally the very second I applied it to my face.  Clearly Fate had other plans for my nasal sebum that day, and I was forced to bring it on the date with me for an afternoon of bowls in the sun. It’s a very popular sport amongst the youth in Australia, mainly because you stand around in the beautiful weather and drink all afternoon, I should imagine. Certainly that’s the appeal for me.  Amazingly I managed to come away with only a very slight toasting, given I was standing in direct sunlight for most of the afternoon and have the DNA of a ginger person. By rights I should be lobster-coloured.  Perhaps the nasal sebum has hidden properties…

After my topping up my Vitamin D and alcohol levels at the bowling green I was back at James’s flat within an hour to help him break in the carpet by spilling wine all over it.  This is where the shedloads of booze comes in. We sat on the floor, ate crisps and drank cheap sparkling wine till the place was littered with empty bottles and I almost had to crawl to the taxi to get home.  I rolled in at about 3am and, after some ill-advised twittering (I always say the most ludicrous things when I am drunk) I passed out with my head in my laptop some time around four.  Thank the gods for the thunderstorm today – I had promised to hit the Danks Street Festival but the rain put an end to that plan and let me mooch about the house in my trackies all day.  A well-deserved rest, I feel.

Next week, in amongst the dinners, birthday parties, dates and movies, I also have to hold down a full-time job and get 8 hours a night.  Good job I can multi-task!

This weekend Gareth and Clancy have been staying with me, along with James, so I have been racing off to do touristy stuff with the much-beloved English pair; I have not had time to write new blogs and capitalise on the increased traffic from Bossy’s very welcome mention of my cushion faux pas at the cottage back in England. Such is life.

Having Gareth and Clancy here has been an utter joy and I look forward to our final few days together when they return from their fortnight driving up and down the Queensland coast in a Holden Commodore with a mattress in the back. Those crazy gays! Of course, like all Britons, they were bound to know someone else in Sydney – it is, after all, our favourite foreign city – and I was all for getting this fellow expat to join us on Friday night for drinks and dancing; it’s always nice to make a new friend.

Making new friends is hard work. The last expat I met turned out to be a dud. I thought he seemed like a nice guy while we chatting about his desperation to get a permanent visa. He was extremely jealous of my residency, and lamented that he would have to leave at the end of the year. He would do anything to stay: Australia was everything to him. After a few drinks we said goodbye and I thought he was nice enough. I was all for some social high jinks, but it was not to be. When I saw him in the street the following week there was some awkward eye contact as he approached me, and the friendly hello I launched crashed and burned on his total indifference. In short: he blanked me.

Back to the story: Clancy and I toured the bars of Sydney whilst Gareth and James watched Liza Minnelli at the Opera House. (Don’t ask.) We all met up afterwards and shared our tales before heading to a club to throw some shapes to awful pop tracks. I’m talking ABBA, Britney Spears and there may even have been some Olivia Newton-John in there, too; you get the idea. In due course, Clancy’s friend arrives and who should it be? None other than the supercilious, too-good-to-be-my-friend expat Brit from a few weeks ago. It was priceless.

“Have you two met?” asked Clancy. There are only two ways to behave in this situation: well, or badly. The opportunity was simply too delicious to pass up. “Of course we have! How are you?” An ostentatious greeting, closed body language and a wry smile. His face was a picture, like a man laughing at Fate on his way to the gallows. It turned out he was well, if somewhat uncomfortable at finding himself on the wrong side of a friend of someone he clearly fancied. Efforts at seduction were scotched when Gareth arrived on the scene and claimed Clancy as his own. The poor fellow could probably not have been more crestfallen, but even that wasn’t good enough for me. Revenge is only worth it when you can twist the knife, and one final jab was enough to satisfy my bloodlust. Confident of my right to reside in this sunbaked nation, drink in hand, and with the syrupy tone of one about to relish in your misery, I stuck in the final knife.

“So,” I drooled. “How’s your visa?”

This weekend, thanks to the marvel of Twitter, I made a new friend. Matt and I have been tweet friends for a while and when he emailed to say he would be in Sydney “to see Cate in A Streetcar Named Desire”(Cate Blanchett, of course – she’s on first name terms with the nation, it seems) it was the perfect opportunity to get together, so that’s what we did.

Matt and I met at the Museum of Contemporary Art and tried to look around at the exhibits, but we ended up talking far too much to take it in so  we called it a day on the culture front and got coffees instead. A few hours later and we were discussing what makes a classic film classic (Mary Poppins is a classic, Casablanca is not) and making fun of people’s jogging outfits like we’d known each other for years.

I love meeting people you just click with. There’s something great about making a joke where the other person laughs like a friend who has spent a decade getting to appreciate your caustic brand of humour. After spending a year being “always on” when meeting new people, it’s such a gift to have an effortless conversation with someone new. Sadly he lives in Melbourne, but on the plus side, I’ve got a friend down south and an excuse to visit. Hurrah!

In other news, I saw Moon this weekend and enjoyed it. I think I read too much about it first so it wasn’t as thrilling as it could have been, but I appreciated the quality and would certainly watch it again. I also saw Valkyrie on DVD and liked that too, for opposite reasons: I had heard bad things about it and was pleased to see it wasn’t as awful as all that. Finally, I went to Sydney’s Deaf Fair and made some new Deaf friends who promised to look after me at the next Deaf social night. Just as well – I discovered that British Sign Language and Auslan are indeed 65% the same: the 35% difference is virtually all the nouns. I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Anyone with a modicum of mental reasoning would simply have thanked their lucky stars to have avoided the awkward conversation and left it at that, but we all know I’m not like that. I’m an ego with legs: people never just don’t call me back. Besides which, I think I’m worth an explanation at the very least, even if it is just to say ‘thanks but no thanks’. Imagine, if you will, me raging about for a fortnight of “why hasn’t he called me”, except that if he did call me I would have arranged to meet him just to dump him. Isn’t that just the craziest thing you ever read?

Rebound is nuts. It turns you into some kind of masochist, where the very worst idea seems like the best plan. Common sense plugs its ears and assumes the brace position as you go merrily on your way like a drunk in charge of a bus. Even when it was obvious what was going on, I still stuck at it until I finally got the message – via Facebook(!) – that it was over. As I read it I wasn’t angry or bitter – I just felt a strange, instant relief and got on with my day.

Did I need those two weeks of ranting and being totally crazy just to get them out of my system? Perhaps I needed to be unceremoniously jilted to validate my newfound singledom. Maybe, having been the one to start the end of my last relationship, I need someone to dump me just to complete the set and help me move on.

I can’t think of a clever way to wrap this post up. Whatever it was, I feel much better now. Life is strange; emotions are weird. It’s all good.

Friday turned out to be a very different day to the one I had planned.  I went to work imagining I would be hard at it until the end of the day, thanks to a deadline on Tuesday and the Labor Day long weekend in between.  It turned out I was finished by midday, so I skipped along to the Faculty of Science PhD poster presentation with the media team, looking for news-friendly research projects.  Yes. it sounds like it could be dull except that (a) I find that kind of thing quite interesting and (b) there was free booze.  Lots of free booze.  After doing the rounds and making our notes, like true media professionals we hit the bar and schmoozed the crowd with drinks in hand.  When we rolled back into the office at 4:45pm it was time to go home, and just as well since there was no way I could have done any work.  Sadly I had a quiet Friday night planned, so I ended up sitting at home slowly getting more and more sober and wallowing in my own loneliness.  What a waste of free champagne.

When I awoke on Saturday morning, mercifully sans hangover, I received a text with an unexpected invitation to the Sleaze Ball at a heavily discounted price.  I still had the crazy (and unjustifiable) loneliness from Friday resting on me so, despite promising myself I would stay home and save money, I leapt at the chance to get out of the house.  With a new objective in my day, I wasted Saturday laying about in my pyjamas (I had planned to clean the flat, buy groceries; you know, do things) until , properly fed and well-oiled with Sauvignon Blanc, it was time to hit the ball.  I donned my costume – my rugby kit – and headed into the night.

Sleaze Ball, for the uninitiated, is just one big dance party.  Normally I’m not a huge fan of dance music – less still people off their minds on pills throwing themselves about to it – but I was assured by my friends that this was not that kind of party.  It was, but I loved it any way.  The music was not as hardcore as I had feared, and there’s something exciting about being in a room with 15,000 others who are just there for a good time.  There were no lairy crazies, no drunken aggression and nobody pinched my ass in the toilet (unlike the previous Wednesday night, when I nearly dived into the urinal in surprise).  I rolled home at about 6am after a reasonable amount of drink, but not enough to cause any kind of hangover.  Go me!  Oh, and did I mention the fact that practically everyone was wearing as little as possible? Check out the photos on Same Same if you don’t believe me.

I spent the rest of the weekend on the sofa watching The Inbetweeners (you should totally watch it) and staying out of the rain.  No great life lessons learned – well, none that I’m going to share on this occasion – just a good few days of fun and fancy dress.  Summer’s on its way and there’ll be more where they came from – you mark my words.

…erm, maybe not.  I might just have to scrap the lot and start again.  If you read me maybe you could leave a brief summary of your past couple of months in the comments, or pick one or two posts that could bring me up to speed? Thanks so much.

So, my sojourn in the UK is over and there isn’t time to write up everything that happened – it was non-stop from the moment I arrived to the time I left.  Much fun was had and the photos are up on flickr (several of me looking trashed and disheveled, you’ll be delighted to know), but more than that, I learned a few lessons about myself which I think I needed my friends to remind me I already knew.

1. I must write. The number of friends who gave me a serve for not having moved my novel on at all can’t be counted on my fingers.  Having a job where I get to write is good, but it’s not enough for my friends who, for some crazy reason, have faith in me and get disappointed when I’m not fulfilling my potential.  I know, unreasonable, right?  However, it’s not all bad news – this month I am researching my MA options properly, so hopefully I can start study in February.  I need someone to beat me into completion, so I figure an MA is a good way to do that whilst also networking for a future career.  I’ll keep you posted.

2. Being single is nothing to fear. I haven’t really been alone before in my life. Obviously I’ve been on my own, but I’ve never been properly on my own – I’ve always had my family, flatmates or a partner to keep me company. When I visited Liccy and Robin in London and they headed off to work on Monday morning, I think it was the first time I have ever been truly left to my own devices. Nothing depended on my achieving anything that day: I had only myself to please and the whole world to do it in. I went around St Paul’s Cathedral, and walked to Hyde Park Corner, Buckingham Palace and St James’s Park before heading back to meet my hosts for dinner. Some of that was new, some was well-trod, but all of it was my choice – no stopping to eat when someone else was hungry, no going somewhere or missing somewhere else as a compromise.  At the start of the day I was almost paralysed with the prospect; by the end I was pleased with what I had done.  Being alone is no big deal, and certainly nothing to fear.

3. I am a catch. When I discussed with my good friend CaroMel how I was a bit intimidated by dating someone who was older and more successful than I was, she practically jumped down my throat.  “You are brilliant and anyone would be lucky to have you,” she roared vehemently, “don’t let anyone make you feel like you aren’t.”  This is exactly what I say to others in my position but sometimes you need to hear it from someone else to remember that it also applies to you.  (I remember telling my self-deprecating friend Al: “Oh, I’m not having any of that” when he tried to suggest his now wife might be out of his league.  “You’re fantastic. Now get over there and talk to her.”  I’m nothing if not direct.)  No one should intimidate you: we’re all just muddling along as best we can, hoping people see that we dressed for the party and don’t notice our fly is open.  Confidence is sexy: if you’re intimidated by your date, he’s not going to be your date for very long.

4. Friends are food for the soul. No matter what, there is always someone who would be thrilled to hear from you. Good friends give so much, even if you feel like you have so little to give in return.  Even though my holiday wasn’t restful in the traditional sense, being with people with whom you “need be neither brave nor reticent” is a rest in itself.  Starting a new life in another country takes stamina and perseverance, so going home to familiar faces and being able to share the bad stuff as well as the good without seeming to whinge is a relief.  Listening to friends fills up your soul; their stories, their care, their advice all help you to grow.  So long as you have friends, you can do anything.

Leaving England was harder this time, perhaps because it was not the big adventure it was last time, but more likely because I better appreciated what I was leaving behind.  The flight itself was uneventful and I slept most of the way so my jetlag only lasted a couple of days.  Within a week things were back to normal and it was like I had never been away.  My Australian friends were as thrilled to have me back as my English friends had been to see me, and they were keen to fill my diary with all manner of parties and events.  Of course I took them up on the offers, such as tonight’s Sleaze Ball.  I’m still a big bag of insecurity and overconfidence and arrogance and doubt, but I’m damned if that’s going to stop me having a good time.  I am who I am, and life is too short.

In just over a week I squeezed in more fun with friends than I thought possible: trips to Southampton and London, a night at the theatre that turned into a night at the bar, a dinner party, a wedding, two raucous nights out and an afternoon entertaining a two-year old and lounging about on the sofa.  I will go home with a mountain of photos from this period, and every second was a sheer delight, but the absolute highlight must of course be the wedding.  There’s something about a wedding that fills the heart with such glee that you could almost touch it.  They are magical, and this one was the perfect example.

I have known Mike for nearly 15 years.  He and Kerry are quite clearly made for each other and seeing them get married was an utter joy.  I was privileged to be a part of it and give the reading.  (I was doing fine till I looked at them both; as soon as I saw their faces my hands started shaking so hard I could barely read the poem.)  Watching them take their vows was humbling.  I’ve thought a lot about how I could describe what I saw.  All I can say is that I would not have been surprised to see their love literally balloon up like a beach ball and get thrown around the room.  They had such fun that it was practically tangible.  Theirs is a conspiracy against the world full of laughter – Maria, sitting next to me, was crying within seconds and I was not far behind.

After the ceremony we all had a chance to walk around and see the animals (their venue was Bristol Zoo), and catch up with friends I haven’t seen in almost a year.  It was as though I had never left.  We laughed so hard our sides hurt, took stupid photos and told each other our stories.  The wedding breakfast, the dancing, the drunken walk into town and the after-party party at a crazy club in Clifton; each was perfect and more than once I wondered how I could ever have left these people to live in Australia.

Of course, a wedding is not real life: if every day were like this it would become unbearable very quickly.  But a wedding does highlight the best parts of family and friendships.  For me, it was the perfect seal on a week of renewing those friendships and it made me remember how lucky I am to know these people, to listen in and share their lives, and go away knowing that next time I see them there will be new stories to tell and new experiences to share, but that nothing will have changed; it will all be as though we had never been apart.  These are my friends, and I am in love with them all.

In the event, it was eerily natural; Milo and I got on as though we had been drinking together for years.  He took me to a wine bar he frequents with a waiter he fancies.  Sadly the waiter was not there so I couldn’t work the old Sveny magic and hook them up (I’m a regular Yente) but we had a good time any way.  We talked about everything and everyone, had some food and a couple of bottles of wine and laughed a lot.  It was great fun.  It’s sort of weird to know so much about someone before you meet them, but there was no ice-breaking or awkward pauses while you search for conversation and things in common – it’s all right there.  You just have to open your mouth.

Sadly it was all too short as I had to get the coach back to Bath (far cheaper than the train – I’m a prudent traveller) so it got to the stage where I was literally throwing the prosecco down my throat (something I probably wouldn’t do with a new friend: strange I felt quite happy to do it in front of Milo) before hitting the road.  I’ll be back in the UK next year so hopefully I can do it again with a bit more time and class in 2010.  Milo’s side of the story is over on his site, and if you are ever in Sydney, dear reader, make sure you say hello – I’m a tweet-up pro now!