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 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.
