Most of us at some point in our lives feel terribly lonely. We don’t like to admit it, but we feel that the party is happening somewhere else, and that we aren’t invited. I’ve been there, and sometimes, when I let things get out of sync I pay that place a visit.

Here are what I consider to be the three most important steps to a meaningful social life, and finding that special someone. If you’re skeptical (and I know I would have been a few years ago) – try it for just a month: I promise you the results will, if you put the work in, change the way you think about your relationships.

1. Ditch Instant.

We live in a world of instant. Food at the drive-through, TV on demand, and catch-ups at the end of a call. With the advent of the internet in particular, our needs are increasingly only a few clicks away. But with this comes a temptation to treat the world- and people in particular, as disposable, replaceable, dime-a-dozen products that we can always come back to when we feel we want them.

How many times have you not replied to a message online? How often have you blocked someone you were chatting to? How often have you skim-read a profile or responded with a lazy ‘not bad, yourself?‘ If you’re anything like me, a shameful amount. Don’t.

Some of my closest friends, and my greatest relationships would never have happened had I written those people off at the first hurdle. You aren’t hiring for a job. Your messages aren’t CVs. Your Facebook friends aren’t candidates. Give people the chance to get to know you, to cultivate something worthwhile. If it’s worth having at all, it’s worth working towards and waiting for. Ditch instant.

2. Listen.

I remember a few years ago watching Skins alone in my room, and wondering how many of the characters were so popular. I’d seen people like them when I went out clubbing, and ‘knew’ many ‘internet celebrities’ who could lay claim to a similar scene online. I would watch cute boys at the club, surrounded by other cute boys, and wonder what sort of secret it was that they all shared- what mystical element that escaped me, bestowed them. Truth is, there isn’t one- they were either ridiculously good-looking, had contracts with Channel 4, or ..they listened.

If, like me, you’re not ridiculously good-looking and you don’t have a career in television, you have two very useful tools at your disposal: your ears. I’m amazed at the amount of first dates I’ve had with guys who just couldn’t stop talking about themselves, what they did today, who they work for, which celebrity they ‘almost’ met at the weekend. I’m sure it works for the fitties- what wouldn’t? But you know what- it bored me senseless. It doesn’t matter if you’re the most interesting person in the world, fair airtime will get you a long way with people. Ask questions, resist the temptation to be passive, and really get to know the person sat at your coffee table.

3. Get Hurt.

If ditching instant and listening more is the key to better relationships, getting hurt ..or rather; the acceptance that you might get hurt, rejected, humiliated even- is the door you have to walk through.

It’s easy to message somebody online and say hi, it’s a bit more difficult to ask them if they’d like to meet for coffee, but I implore you: do it. Nine times out of ten your gusto will be enough to get you a date, the other ten percent is part of the game: take that on the chin.

A last word of advice.

Cultivate, nurture, and care for the relationships you create. Don’t just jump from one prospect to the next. The thrill of meeting someone new is intoxicating, yes, but ultimately, old friends are better than new faces.

As a gay man I’ve grown accustomed to the arguments put forward by the religious in favour of restricting my civil rights and legislating for intolerance and bigotry. So often is the case made against my ‘lifestyle choice’ that it fades into the foliage- it becomes white voice chatter amongst those who believe god is on their side.

On occasion however, an article comes along that sets the bar that bit lower. Enter Alan Craig, leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance and ex-candidate for the London mayoral elections.

Alan, a self proclaimed ‘advocate for social justice and fairness for society’s down-trodden,’ recently wrote a piece for the Church of England Newspaper, entitled ‘Confronting The Gaystapo.‘

‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man,’ writes Alan; ‘for years Winston Churchill was a lone voice against the burgeoning darkness of Nazi ideology and intolerance. In the wilderness and with few public friends, he was marginalised and dismissed as belligerent and a war-monger. He was scorned as a political has-been, out of touch with the then-modern mainstream. But he saw clearly the hidden hegemonic ambitions of the Nazis and their intended assault on our civilization, our values, our way of life. To the fury of the Nazi leadership in Berlin he exposed the sinister truth, gave a trumpet-call for resistance and rearmament, and in due course galvanised the nation for an epochal battle against the fascist menace.’

The ‘lone voice’ is in Alan’s interpretation now the Christian way of life, and he its Winston Churchill. The ‘fascist menace’ you have no doubt already concluded, is the gay lifestyle.

He writes, ‘Having forcibly – and understandably – rectified the Versailles-type injustices and humiliations foisted on the homosexual community, the UK’s victorious Gaystapo are now on a roll. Their gay-rights storm troopers take no prisoners as they annex our wider culture. Flattered by appeasers and feted by the political class, the Oberkommandos from Stonewall and OutRage! have expansive goals for cultural hegemony and have long wanted to march on the next territory. They want to hijack a word and capture our culture at its deepest level. They want to reconfigure relationships, eliminate the traditional family and hence eradicate stable upbringing for our children.’

The homosexual community, if you can call it a community (there’s much debate about that, never mind the assertion that we have a unified plan of cultural domination) are used to the charge that we want to eliminate the family and endanger children. Me and my gay friends often ponder this accusation over a cup of newborn baby blood, and can’t for the queer of us fathom where it comes from (urgh!)

Indeed, the calls for gay marriage and adoption rights seem to many a conservative ambition: a way of integrating further into societal norms. That’s a far cry from the aims of the initial gay rights movement of America, which sought to distance itself altogether from what it considered to be conservative norms. The days of Harvey Milk were full of ideological debate about things as fundamental as monogamy, the family unit, and freedoms of expression. Today, the desire to be a part of society at an equal level is termed by many a radical step too far.

To equate the gay rights agenda to that of the Nazi imperial ambition however, is not only an attempt to misrepresent the gay community, but to rewrite history.

In 1936 Heinrich Himmler sought to cleanse Germany of gay people. More than a million German homosexuals were targeted, with more than one hundred thousand arrested and fifty thousand imprisoned or institutionalised. There gay men faced castration, shock therapy and later torture. When concentration camps were finally erected, thousands of gay men and women were murdered in the name of Nazism.

Alan Craig’s article conveniently ignores the horror that faced gay people in Nazi Germany, and ends his hate filled article with a call to arms: ‘Now is the time for people of courage to rise up and defend marriage, our children and the very foundations of our civilisation.’

The Nazi genocide gained public acceptance only by convincing the public, through the use of propaganda, that the Jews and any other minority that Hitler sought to remove from the face of the Earth, were subhuman. The Jews were equated to pigs, the homosexual to the mentally ill and perverse, and now Alan seeks to convince you that the modern gay man is a fascist.

This sinister propaganda should be challenged. For an article of this kind to be published in the Church of England Newspaper, the official newspaper of the church that our monarch and head of state oversees, raises very disturbing questions about the nature of this debate, and the extent to which those who seek to persecute us are willing to go.

Since yesterday’s blog post, London’s Burning: The JDSports Riot, new stories have emerged with a different perspective. A great many among those are the stories of people not involved in the rioting or the looting, but who witnessed events, or even attempted to prevent them. In this blog post I want to explore what I regard as the most surreal elements of recent events, in particular the bizarre ways in which looters and vandals were rationalised with, and the way this might grant us an insight into the mentality of those doing the damage.

For me it started with the story of Louise Smith. Louise owns a salon (of the same name) in Wolverhampton town centre. She explained in an interview with BBC News that she often worked nine to seven to make ends meet as a single mother, and that there was ‘no way’ she was going to let rioters smash her business to pieces. Defiant, despite calls from her daughter to give it up for her own safety, Louise single-handedly saw off near enough three-hundred vandals, rioters and looters.

The surreal moment for me was when she explained that after reasoning that she was a single mother, “just like your mothers,” the rioters left her salon unscathed and moved onto the next shop – a florists, proceeding to trash that as if it was the most average, everyday thing to do. See the video below for the full interview.

Another interview on BBC Radio4 focussed on the looters themselves, who candidly expressed that they would “keep looting until I’m caught.” One of the looters explained, “why are you going to pass up the opportunity to get free stuff?”

In a bizarre twist, the looters went on to say that they thought that thirteen year old girls who they had seen out and participating, were wrong to do so, and that they would be “outraged” if their own homes were looted. The interview was nothing if not refreshingly honest, but it has put, in my opinion, the pop-press mantra that the looters have ‘no moral awareness’ into a tailspin. Evidently they do have a moral awareness, they’re just also aware that they’re under no obligation to follow it. Listen to the full audio below.

These stories and more shine light on a subject often framed as alien, disconnected, and hidden away under hoods, and whilst the media is still full of pictures of balaclava wearing rioters, and hooded looters, the often brutal (and naïve) honesty with which many involved explain away their actions seems to me at odds with the stereotypical, unapproachable chav.

Or maybe it’s just the cameras.

One thing is for certain however. Whilst London, and indeed many other parts of the UK have suffered at the hands of a small but vocal minority, what has emerged in response is a new, confident type of Briton, unafraid to assert him or herself to protect what is dear, or to recognise the value of local community. Despite the circumstances of its arrival, if this is Big Society, I hope it sticks around.

What are your thoughts? Have you experienced anything like this first hand? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe.