After receiving a call from a representative of the BBC – I (ridiculously) agree to go on a dating show: Year of Making Love. A show which promised it’s contestants that after taking a “scientifically” proven compatibility test to match them with their ‘perfect match’. The ‘scientific’ compatibility test asked questions such as;
Your ideal partner
a) Likes Art or b) Enjoys exercise
Hmm… So did I want someone overweight and over-entusiastic about watercolour waterfalls or a Muscle Mary that was too busy mixing protein shakes when he should’ve been mixing me a martini?

OK, so even if I don’t find my ‘perfect’ match and do get put with a wrinkly raison that works at the Tate Gallery, at least it would give me an interesting blog post (and perhaps a chance to do some shameless plugging).
I’ll drag along my best friend for support and humiliation!
Naturally I went through all the pre-TV appearance prep; facial, brows, lashes, teeth and abuse of slimming pills (BIG mistake).
After waking up at 6am for the first time in years, I was officially brain dead, ie. putting shaving foam on my arm pits instead of deoderant, note to self: don’t get ready in the dark.

Entering the hall of potential dates, was like high school all over again;
“Where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial ’cause you got everybody there.” – Janis Ian, Mean Girls.

You got; muscley straights, unfriendly northern gays, gays that look like cripples, straight boys that look gay, straight boys with lesbian fashion, boys that didn’t speak english, gays that ate their feelings and gays that didn’t eat anything – us. For some reason the gays had congregated at the back, probably in some hope of turning the dark corners into a dark room. We looked around and sussed out the eye-candy from the eyesores , and proved that my gaydar is in actual fact non-existent.

Evidentally I’d struck gold being sat near the one that looked like little head from Beetlejuice, Truffle Shuffle from the Goonies and Adam Sandler. Hmmm…Leave now, or after I’ve embarassed myself on national TV?
After.
Sitting in the hall of potential dates for sixteen thousand hours with no food was as enjoyable as getting a finger massage from Michael J Fox. Don’t get me wrong, there was food on offer, I just couldn’t eat it. For numerous reasons, including;
a) WAY too nervous (and proud) to shovel food down my throat infront of nine hundred and ninety nine other people.
b) Was NOT going to have moudly breath and itchy teeth before a date and
c) Abuse of slimming pills would probably cause anything going down to come straight out.
“It’s oozy and it’s green” – Chinese lady, The Sweetest Thing.
“Eww” – Karen, Mean Girls
Cut to me sitting there for six hours with my legs crossed for fraid of shitting myself.

The main hall, where filming took place, looked BOSS! It looked like a total gameshow. Contestants had to meet their ‘match’ on stage, then walk hand-in-hand with them down a fifty foot runway. Now I really was shitting myself; shaking, palms sweating – the works. We’d watch couples meet on stage, BOO-ing if they were ugly, hissing if they were really ugly and clapping for the hot ones, (Or obviously shouting “miss-match” if an Essex girl got a Cambridge guy). After a wee doubie and a few glasses of champagne (who knew the plants of the poor and the water of the wealthy mixed so well, right?!) I’d finally found the courage to get up in front of all these people, meet my troll and mince down the aisle with him.

The whole event was SO poorly organised (shame on you FeverMedia) and after another twenty two hours of waiting for my number to be called I gave up. Out of seven hundred people I’d seen three ugly, awkward, possibly ‘special’ and most likely unhappy gay couples matched (and one totally cute lesbo pair) and decided their scientific process was a complete DRIP and waste of our day. They took fourteen hours of my life and they couldn’t find me ONE match, girl, twelve hours in Soho I could’ve found six by then. Twats.