Gayprideuk.com

It's a horrible feeling: you haven't been in a relationship for years - maybe decades - and despite all your efforts, nothing promising is on the horizon.

You've tried meeting that special guy online and used social media apps like Grindr - all to no avail. Also, those bars, clubs and saunas, that used to give you such pleasure, have over the years become one huge turnoff.

You're bored of repeating the same tired old lines with new contacts in the hope that one might convert into 'the one'. But not as bored of your own company, as the night draws to a close and you head off home to yet another night in an empty bed, followed a few hours later by breakfast for one.

You look around and see couples who've been together for years and the whole thing just feels like you've been dumped in a club, but no-one has given you the secret password.

You look in the mirror and see what your friends confirm: you're quite hot, with a brain, and you don't need a sugar daddy to sort out the details of living like an adult.

So what's going on and what to do? And perhaps more importantly, what to do differently?

When I'm advising friends in this situation, I always ask them if they have a checklist for what they are looking for.

Often, I hear that in fact they've lowered their standards enormously in a bid to find 'the one', 'anyone will do' and they just want love in their lives (unsurprisingly, those who tend to say this are often the pickiest of people.)

The way I help someone like this is to make them draw up a checklist of ten things they want in a partner. I think this is a very important exercise because clearly 'anyone' will not do and this needs to be taken onboard.

The next thing I do is to get them to arrange the characteristics under two headings - essential and desirable. I think this can be a very useful exercise because you might think that financial security and a great career make for ideal husband material. On reflection however, you realise that relationships in fact are much more about similar values and maybe to be happy, you need to aiming higher than someone's bank balance or CV.

Also, when you have a clearer idea of what you want and don't want, you're much more likely to not to waste time barking up the wrong tree.

The next thing to do is to accept that meeting someone is a numbers game. There's no other way.

In my case, I used gay saunas and bathhouses. I liked these a lot because I could get very intimate very quickly with someone I fancied and there was the chance of some nice conversation after great sex. And sure enough, this is where I not only met my Mr Right in 2005, but also a Mr Almost Right as well as a particularly charming Dr Almost Right before him.

I did have one very important rule: if a great shag didn’t tick all of my essentials boxes - and I mean all of them - I would move on. I knew from past experience that however gorgeous and charming someone was, at the end of the day I wasn’t looking to make a fab time last longer, but rather for a fab husband with whom I could build a lasting relationship with.

I did need to kiss several bus-loads of frogs before I met my prince, but I got there in the end.

So to anyone out there who's looking for love and feeling a bit hopeless about things, don't fret and go all negative. Get strategic.

It's the only way.

Marcel Wiel, 18, with his brother Charlie, 17, in 1982

A really weird coincidence happened a couple of weeks ago in the UK: on the same day that Conservative party chairman Francis Maude came out as pro-gay marriage, on account of his gay brother, who died of Aids in 1993 and had lived through some horrible, closeted times, John Fashanu, brother of out gay soccer star Justin who committed suicide in 1998, in an another interview, said that his sibling had never been gay and his coming out had just been a publicity stunt.

In the Telegraph, Maude was saying that the law in the UK in the 1980s "did not make it any easier for gay men like my brother to enter into a relationship and to be open about it. I deeply regret that. It's one reason I support gay marriage … It's part of the glue of people making a deep commitment to each other."

Meanwhile on TalkSPORT, Fashanu was saying: "I don’t believe he (Justin) was gay" and that he was "making up stories to get attention". In quite a confusing set of arguments, he also seemed to be objecting to his brother's publicly coming out: "… don't go and sell your stories or make up stories for money for goodness sake. I'm heterosexual, will I make it on to the front page of the newspapers?" he also said.

Two men, both with gay brothers whose lives were tragically cut short, holding radically different responses to grief. What both have in common though is that their brothers' lives and deaths are clearly for each still very live issues.

It's easy to feel harsh towards Fashanu's barely concealed homophobia. But, upon reflection, this gets us nowhere. The fact is, when a gay man comes out, it's also a challenging time for family members, who themselves often have to go through a coming out of their own. My ex's mum was telling me how shortly after her boy came out, she challenged a work colleague who was saying homophobic things. "I just couldn't keep quiet, I love my son too much," she said to me afterwards.

Suddenly, all is clear: in the fourteen years since his brother's suicide, Fashanu still can not accept his brother's homosexuality which is why he hasn't moved on. It's like this denial has become a prison around him, keeping him stuck in grief, guilt and double-think. And it just makes me hate the closet more … it's hard to imagine anything more toxic that so messes up the lives of gay men and the people who love them.

For my part, I came out in 1982 just after I turned 18. Charlie, my 17 year old football-mad brother, responded to this in his standard deadpan way:

"I always knew you were gay," he said. "How?" I asked. "By the way you run in gym," he said (I do indeed have an undeniably camp gait when I run). I still love his sense of humour and this anecdote reminds me I need to call him up to arrange a catch-up over a beer.

I was very moved by the documentary about homophobia in football called Britain's Gay Footballers. The programme was by Amal Fashanu, niece of Justin, England's first black £1m player, whose life fell apart after he came out and who, on the day he committed suicide, was publicly rejected in a tabloid article by his brother, John. The rejection was all the more poignant as during the programme we learned that the brothers were adopted and so must've had an extraordinarily strong bond.

What came across loud and clear was the world of football has a long way to go when it comes to accepting gay players. Apart from rare jewels of reason like Joey Barton, the chances are no gay Premier League player will come out any time soon. The Football Association talk the talk – it even has a black, female equalities officer who was interviewed in the documentary – but real action is likely only to come in the form of a former player coming out or possibly one who will be retiring.

Given that even this small token gesture from the sidelines hasn't happened yet out the many thousands of professional players that have come and gone since Fashanu, it's easy to imagine the pressure that must be put on gay players well after they played their last match. 'Don't come out, otherwise sponsorship deals will vanish from your retirement income,' business managers no doubt advise.

The bit that really sets me off in all this is the cowardice.

Millions of gay men and women came out in their early adulthood (I was at 18). They didn't have a fat bank balance, a team of big shot lawyers to defend them and a strong support network. Plus, instead of laws proscribing anti-gay discrimination and gay hate speech, in the 1980s in the UK we had Section 28.

These guys have it all and they still can't be open and honest about being gay. Big powerfully built men, they can face down a dozen guys charging towards them with the real threat of physical injury, but they nevertheless can't deal with coming out. And I just know that if I were talking to one of them, he'd say: 'It's my choice to be private about my personal life.'

Maybe it's old fashioned, but when I came out there was this idea that gay men owed something to the efforts of those who came before them thanks to whom gay venues and gay sex are legal. They also owe something to those gay men who are in genuinely very weak situation. Coming out about being gay is like a civic duty.

Don't get me wrong: I am glad gay rugby players are coming out. Better after they've retired than not at all, especially if they also do LGBT activism work.

Nevertheless, when I see a big muscly ex-sports star come out after he's made his millions and has nothing much to lose, it just makes me love skinny, camp, effeminate gay men all the more. They're the real heroes. They're the really brave ones who have been dealing with bullies since kindergarten.

And as for the high profile gay footballers who refuse to be out, I'm not sure what to say except maybe team sports depend on a herd mentality: survival means blending in and not standing out.

But enough already with the sheep … bring on the men.

RIP Justin Fashanu 1961-1998

The first thing to say about anal sex is that not all gay men like doing it; many in fact don’t. So if this is you, you’re not alone - by a very long shot. Also, you’re not alone if you only like doing it with someone special or only like being active or passive.

Despite this, many people often allow themselves to be pressurised into having a type of sex that they don’t really want. In places like gay saunas and other sex clubs, various experiences will be on offer and part of being confident is knowing you can turn them down. This is why it's really important to have clear boundaries about what you like and don't like, so you can enjoy yourself in whatever way feels right for you.

The other thing to say about anal sex is quite often tastes change, and what at first may have seemed off-putting, may some time later be very attractive.

If however you do want passive anal penetration but have little or no experience in this, you need to know how to relax those back passage muscles when getting fucked. If you don’t, even if you really want it, it can end up being quite painful. On the plus side, learning how to relax is really easy, as evidenced by the hundreds of millions of people - gay and straight - who love anal sex.

Here’s the technique I developed for myself when after a few occasions getting fucked was quite painful. The most important thing to remember in the following instructions is to breathe. Holding your breath will only lead to your muscles tensing up, making pain during penetration that much more likely.

1.  Before you start, have it in your head that you want to get fucked. This is to stop your brain sending signals to your arse muscles to clench up. Also, if you like things clean, make sure you don’t need to go to the toilet any time soon.

2.  Tell him you want to take it slow because you don’t have much experience, but also make it really clear that you want to get fucked.

3.  Have him eat you out for a while.

4.  Using plenty of lube, get on top and bring your arse down onto his condomed penis, pushing it gently against your anus.

5.  With each gentle push downwards and a synchronised exhalation of breath, it will go in a little more. (I got the idea of using breath in this way when watching a TV show about women giving birth and seeing the midwife say: ‘Blow, blow!’ as the baby’s head started to push out.)

6.  There’ll come a point when his penis goes in beyond the sphincter muscle. Now, you can slide your arse all the way down, so you end up sitting on his balls.

7. After a minute or two of in-and-out, you’ll become nice and relaxed and any position becomes possible, with enough lube, for quite a long period of time.

Sometimes things don’t go according to plan and you can suddenly clench up, things get painful and as the penis withdraws, it can feel like your internal arse muscles have been pulled out and then have bounced back into shape, like an elastic band that’s been pulled and then released. This can really hurt, but when this has happened to me, the pain has subsided quite quickly allowing me to get back on top almost immediately - finding that second time round, things were much easier.

The good thing with this technique is that you can try it at home with a dildo or a vibrator and prove to yourself that you can take a certain length and girth. There’s nothing like the memory of successfully using a 10-inch dildo on yourself to encourage a feeling of confidence when faced with the prospect of getting shagged by an invariably smaller penis.

A fun part of this seven-step guide can be when you get to play teacher with some cute but inexperienced number who's desperate for someone to show him the way. 'At last, here's an experienced guy!' he'll be thinking to himself. Yes, he has indeed come to the right place and you'll sort him out nicely, thank you.

Sniffing poppers, aka amyl nitrite, can help relax arse muscles when you’re being fucked and enhance sexual pleasure. However, they can also burn the delicate skin on the inside of the nose and some people can get quite bad headaches from them. Also, if you do use them, the advice is not to do so in combination with Viagra, because both act to lower blood pressure, which in combination can be very dangerous. As with any drug, use with caution and awareness.

For more sex tips, read Find Love In A Gay Bathhouse.