Author of hit dating blog, ‘The Guyliner’, Justin Myers has found just as much success with his irst novel, The Last Romeo. Having been through the gay dating mill, he talks to Stephen Boylan about how inding ‘the one’ isn’t where it’s at anymore.

Back in 2010, Justin Myers, whose fantastic debut novel The Last Romeo has just been published in paperback, started a wildly popular dating blog under the nom de plume The Guyliner. Best known for casting a beady eye over The Guardian’s weekly Blind Dates column, Myers built a substantial and dedicated audience online with his cutting (but almost always affectionate) commentary and strong gif game. Prior to this, he had blogged a number of his own first dates, detailing over 60 nights out, each with a pre-date and post-date rating out of ten.

The very nature of what we do and how we behave is, in the main, about keeping straight people happy, whether we realise it or not.

As the hoary old adage goes, write what you know. The Last Romeo centres on James, a talented but frustrated writer for gossip magazine Snap! who, having just exited a toxic relationship with the controlling and two-faced Adam, decides to embark on a series of dates with eligible young men and write them up in his blog ‘The Last Romeo’. Things start to hit the skids, however, when James’s blog takes off and he begins dating a closeted Olympic athlete. Given that the blog mirrored his own experiences, Myers is braced for the inevitable question.

“It became clear to me very early on that, even though The Last Romeo was going to be very vaguely based on my anonymous dating years, the character couldn’t be anything like me, because I’m not that interesting,” Myers tells me..

Throughout, James is most definitely not put on a pedestal – some of the choices he makes in the course of the story are questionable to say the least. “Something that really fascinates me is duality,” Myers says, “the way people behave, the way they behave with different people, and the ways they perceive themselves. wanted to create a character who wouldn’t always do the right thing. One of the early reviews said James was a bell-end and think that’s fine. He’s not a nightmare, just more of a fuck-up; he makes a lot of bad decisions.”

The novel is essentially a bittersweet romantic comedy with an appealing central character, but Myers is not afraid to explore some darker themes too. Nate, our closeted triathlete, insists on sharing taxis with James in silence lest something slip, and goes to great lengths to hide their relationship. At one point, James angrily tells Nate he shouldn’t be so scared because the media would lap up his coming out, and that his masculinity will give him greater power as the “acceptable face of gay”. Does Myers think we’re all too focused currently on gay men who fit a certain masculine ideal?

“The very nature of what we do and how we behave is, in the main, about keeping straight people happy, whether we realise it or not.

So this ‘acceptable face of gay’ is very much for the straight eye and straight media. But do also think that there are many naturally masculine gay men who, in previous years, had to get by without those role models. The problem starts when that becomes the ideal, and when we start punching down on guys who aren’t like that.”

For Myers, however, there is definitely another movement elsewhere. “From someone on the effeminate side, I’m enjoying watching all the slightly more effeminate queer famous people come through. I’m really excited for that generation who can feel they can be themselves. We have artists now like Troye Sivan and Olly Alexander who are huge poster boys for the gay community, but are not the straight-friendly face of gay.”

Another of Myers’ hats is that of dating guru for the British edition of GQ. Considering the plot of The Last Romeo and the very notion of the Guardian Blind Dates is to find ‘The One’, what does Myers think of the seemingly increasing amount of gay people in open or polyamorous relationships?

“I don’t believe in ‘The One’,” says Myers. “I think with the introduction of dating apps the sense that ‘The One’ is a necessity is disappearing, and people are much more open to having a relationship, not even an open relationship, but perhaps shorter relationships that do you for a certain period in your life, with the concept of forever not meaning as much anymore when you have more options.”

Myers finally removed his carefully constructed Guyliner mask of anonymity in January 2017, coinciding with the announcement of his two-book deal with Little, Brown. How has he found it, now that the world knows his identity?

“It was something that had been on my mind for at least the last one or two years of being anonymous, because was beginning to struggle with feeling authentic in some of my writing. wouldn’t share my face, and the anonymity was very handy at first, because it let me say a lot of things wouldn’t have been able to say. think for me it had run its course, so it was either stop altogether or make it evolve.”

And evolving is what Myers continues to do. He’s currently taking a break from cataloguing the woes of the Guardian Blind Daters, but you can still find the full library of dates online. He is also no longer writing up his own first dates, given that he found his own Romeo a couple of years back. Now barrelling through his second novel, he’s also looking to branch out into TV or film scripting in the not too distant future. close by asking him if he found the growing success of his blog intimidating or stressful at any point, and he admits he’s very hugely uncomfortable with popularity. Which seems a pity, because, on the strength of his writing, it’s clearly something he’s going to have to get used to.

The Last Romeo is published by Piadkus, €11.99