‘How watching I Kissed A Boy made me realise I wasted my youth’

“Own it, your energy, nobody else here has what you’ve got – own it.”

I wish someone had told me that growing up feeling completely out of my depth in the Bristol gay bars during my 20s. 

Instead, that wisdom has been shared with Adam on I Kissed A Boy, the contestant who has been breaking my fragile heart. 

The BBC Three gay dating series returned last week, with a new batch of hungry guys thrown into a Spanish Masseria where they snog a boy picked especially for them before even saying a word to each other. 

Ideally, they’ll find a connection together – or they’ll find it with someone else. 

Adam is a marketing and brand manager who has been single for four years and loves to dance the night away to disco in east London. He’s fun, cute and could easily slot in as the fifth member of A1 with his impressive curtains. 

He’s been matched with Ruben, an artist and designer who is intimidatingly good looking, and is one of those rare breeds of men who is wonderfully humble about it. 

Their kiss was packed with chemistry, they both ran into the Masseria to join the other boys with happy faces but Adam’s self-esteem rapidly declined through the very first day and it was clear where this story was heading. 

I’ve walked many miles over many years in Adam’s shoes and I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

I look back at my 20s with the power of hindsight and realised I wasted so much time doubting myself, telling myself I wasn’t good enough for anyone who showed me the slightest bit of attention. I’d admire so many men across a dance floor, but it wouldn’t even cross my mind to go over and say hello, make a move or shoot my shot. 

I’m not exactly ancient. I’m 37, which is still young – or so I tell myself. But it’s old enough to look at photos of myself, and have a completely different reflection of the boy I used to see all those years ago. 

I somehow thought I was too fat and too skinny at the same time. I thought I was too femme for typically ‘masc’ guys but also too ‘laddy’  (who was I kidding?). I felt too weedy, too awkward and somehow too confident. I thought my teeth were a mess, my skin was dreadful and I was everything that can turn a man off. I don’t see any of those things now or at least none of them matter anymore. 

I was everything I didn’t want to be and I’d look around at everyone else who just seemed to be so happy in their own skin, so content in who they are when the truth was many of them were actually feeling exactly the same way. 

I even had feelings for someone close to me for years and instead of plucking up the confidence to tell him, I just waited anxiously for him to find someone else and anticipated the heart break. 20 years later, we don’t talk anymore and I’ll never know how he felt. 

I felt sick watching Adam repeat my biggest mistakes. 

He sheepishly admitted: “I do like Ruben but I feel like I’m holding back because I don’t think I hold myself very high when it comes to appearance.”

He couldn’t possibly imagine Ruben would be into him because, like I did, he couldn’t see his own worth when he is so bloody worthy. 

Ruben even said in a confessional to camera:”‘I’m really excited to get to know Adam a bit more and I definitely find him really intriguing. I’m really interested to see what would happen with him but part of me feels like he might not be into me.”

His comments slapped me round the face so hard I had to pause and take a timeout. How many times had I given guys the cold shoulder because I didn’t feel worthy of their attention? 

Perhaps I’m being delusional and those many men just weren’t that into me, but I put so many barriers up my whole life that I’ll never know what I’ve been missing. 

Adam came so close to losing Ruben to another guy, Callum, and I was gutted for him, thinking, ‘I know how this story goes.’ 

Eventually Adam found the animal inside himself though and just went for it. During a game of spin the bottle he asked if he could just pick the boy he wanted to kiss and planted the steamiest snog on Ruben – and it worked. Ruben picked him over Callum – at least for now. 

Adam found the courage that I never could and it worked. 

Today, I have a the best boyfriend and wouldn’t change a thing about my life. We’re four years in and it’s taken me a long time to finally feel like I’m enough. I don’t walk into a room of attractive gay men and feel like I don’t belong there. 

I don’t know if Adam feels that way, I hope not – he’s much more open and confident around the other boys than I would have been. But it was a real gut punch watching someone not back themselves, remembering what that was really like, and how I wasted so much of my youth which is suddenly behind me, not feeling good enough for anyone I found attractive. 

Thankfully, he’s surrounded by boys who are more than willing to pick him up and I hope this series we not only see him believe he is the right guy for Ruben, but leaves the Masseria believing he can be the right guy for anyone he wants. 

My words to Adam: don’t waste time with self-doubt like I did. Love the man you are because so many other men want to love you back if you let them.