People Profile: Andrew Karageorge.

Just recently I stumbled upon Andrew Karageorge's tumblr. blog Tragicomic Misadventures in Dating: the occasionally funny, mostly desperate ramblings of a moderately attractive, neurotic homosexual seeking validation / connection in all the wrong apps.

I had never related to a gay man more in my life. For me the blog summed up human interaction in the modern world, love, lust and loss found through Tinder and the selfish way we take advantage of each other and the desperate way we let others take advantage of us in some pursuit for love, happiness or whatever we were put on this earth to find.  

I am hooked and constantly anticipating every post because Andrew knows how to leave you on a cliff hanger ... he has mastered the act of making you want more. So I managed to get a little more in the form of an interview, and I'm so glad I did. 

-Alessandra 

Describe yourself in three words.

Open, positive, easy. 

On your blog you share some pretty intimate situations publicly and you are incredibly honest about certain relationships and feelings etc. Do you ever get nervous sharing anything? Or feel scared about who will read it?

I do get nervous sometimes about what I share, but more in regards to privacy than anything else. Even when it comes to guys that I feel did me wrong or acted poorly, I don’t want to infringe on their privacy by publishing personal details that could give away anything about them (with some slight exceptions for true scumbags). There are certain people I don’t want to read my blog – mainly my mum and guys I’ve written about. When I share my blog on Facebook I do so with a selective audience. I did have a guy once find my blog after I did a write-up about him and confront me, which was incredibly awkward. We’re friends now, thankfully. 

What is the one piece of advice you will never forget being given?

It was earlier this year, probably around May or June. I was talking to my brother – well, to be more accurate, I was sobbing to my brother – about something awful that happened to me that I hadn’t spoken to anyone about. I had forgiven somebody for hurting me in an unimaginable way, and Nik, my brother, gave me some really simple advice. He told me to respect and value myself more than I had been – not in an accusing way, but in a concerned way. The truth is that if you don’t value yourself, when people hurt your or take advantage of you, you’ll forgive it immediately without thinking. I didn’t even respect myself enough to see if I was ok when this event happened – I just told myself to get over it and move on. That’s what my brother meant: I hadn’t been respecting and looking after myself, and I needed to do so urgently. The irony is that “love yourself” has been one of my catchphrases for the past couple of years, but it took someone else giving me the advice for it to sink in. 

Qualities you hope for in your dream man?

Someone who makes me laugh. Someone who will laugh at my weird jokes. Someone who will call me out on my shit, and help me grow as a person. Someone who is ok with a degree of clinginess (because I’ve tried and to be honest I really don’t think that part of me is going away). Similar interests in terms of creativity. Confidence. Someone open to love and who is honest and direct with their feelings. Facial hair is nice, too. 

What do you wish you had been told ages ago?

He’s not worth it. 

What is one thing you were glad you did?

I’m really glad that, about a month ago, when I was in a really dark place, I didn’t give up on my design work. I was literally a week away from finishing my course when I had the rug pulled out from underneath me by someone, and I came so close to just throwing it all in and not finishing my final assignment. But when I came out of that cave, I felt so rewarded, and so vindicated – this is my future, this is my life. Doing something for yourself is always a good idea, and you’ll always thank yourself for it at some point. I learned a lot about myself in the process of pulling myself out of that mess – and I’m so thankful to myself at that point that I stuck to my guns and didn’t give up. 

Thoughts on the world of Tinder?

Tinder is perfect for today’s world, I think. It’s distant, superficial, fun and instant. I think of Uber, and Menulog and Tinder as a kind of holy trinity of modern technology – things that used to require so much more hassle and human interaction are now squared away into a glossy little app on your screen. To be blunt, I think Tinder is an illusion. It gives us the idea that there are a million and one potential dates out there for us, so we spend less time and effort on each individual and we end up nowhere. It’s like you’re on a spinning teacups ride and you’re trying to flirt with someone in another teacup. You should probably get off the ride for a minute or two and actually talk to them. 

In a parallel universe what would you be doing/ who would you be?

Minor YouTube celebrity known for music video re-enactments in public places. Maybe involved in a slight scandal when I have a public breakup with my slightly-more-famous YouTube boyfriend and it comes out that I was behind 40% of his content. His name is ruined and I take the crown.

Sex or chocolate?

Sex with a break for chocolate. 

What is your favourite thing about Melbourne?

There’s always somewhere new to eat, and plenty of good date spots. Melbourne is a great date city in general - plenty of romantic parks to walk around, and if a boy ruins one cool part of town for you, there's a million other laneways. I also really like Parliament station – I think I’ve started about half of my blog posts waiting for a Craigieburn train from there.

You can find Tragicomic Misadventures in Dating through tumblr. or by clicking the link here.