Grey sky, absolute zero motivation to get up, and the only thing making this Monday different to every other week one in winter was the sheer number of messages from men awaiting my reply.
I hadn’t got a new hair cut or returned to the gym with the same vigor as 2017 (also known as the year my body peaked) but Boris had just announced another tier 3 lockdown.
Which – in gay world – translates to, “get a ‘bubble-boyfriend’ for consistent lockdown bangs while hoeing is suspended”.
(Well at least that part of the gay world who fears being cancelled on twitter after pictures from their sex soiree go viral and they’re all socially hung, drawn and quartered).
Thankfully, it’s still semi-socially-acceptable to be dicking one guy in private. Just not 12. Then again, it could just be the carnal cravings for a crumb of cock before they’re ultimately forced into a month-long fast.
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Hence why the DMS were popping:
“Think we could squeeze in a drink before we lockdown?”
“You free to hang before Thursday?”
But I wasn’t mocking them; far from it.
A second lockdown was part of the reason I’d thrown myself into dating recently. (Unsuccessfully, obviously). I wasn’t even fussed about meeting “the One”… just, “the One I can tolerate for a few months” until COVID-19 goes back to party city where she belongs.
Singletons have been through this mandatory dry-spell once before, so we knew the drill. And as much as couples moaned about how they “did each other’s heads in”, they also had the same annoying partner to f**k their frustrations out on.
For us, there were few options: accept the sentence and hope the limited sex we’d had this year would tide us over the next month. Or frantically scour the city for a train of men to sit on, or a sub-par partner we can use to hawk a flimsy “love during lockdown” fantasy on social media. It seems they’ve spoken.
Ultimately, it forces us to admit that (spoiler) none of us want to be alone in the end. And, for a nanosecond, promiscuity paused to respect the tradition of monogamy.
If you saw the state of the dating apps and hook-up aids post-lockdown the first time around, you’ll have a rich memory of how a lack of sex and intimacy impacts people. And just as eager as they were to extinguish the flames of thirst post-lockdown, they are before a second imprisonment.
Well, we’ve all been in a club when the lights come on and nobody wants to be the last loner left like a disheartened kid in a round of musical chairs.
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Who can blame them?
Just as the old biddies rush down to Sainsbury’s to make sure they’ve got enough bog roll to wipe their a**e for the next month, the gays with stock pile (cock pile?) their sexual experiences. In fact, while friends head out for their “last supper”, I’m certain there are a handful of “last orgies” going down tonight.
On the one hand, it’s great: sex is even easier to get, and gay men are actually considering the concept of dating. On the other: it’s temporary.
I can’t say whether it would be better or worse if our little gay world were like this all the time but that’s not an option. But in a month’s time, when our fear of loneliness and sexual appetite retreat back into their comfort zones, we’ll miss a moment when connections – sexual or otherwise – were as desired as luxuries.
