I Kissed a Boy: Kilkeel man on UK's first gay dating show

As a gay person growing up in a small fishing village in Northern Ireland, anxiety was a familiar feeling for Gareth Graham - but it is a feeling that he has overcome since coming out four years ago.

Now 28, he is preparing to enter the spotlight as a contestant in the UK's first ever gay dating show, I Kissed a Boy, on BBC Three.

Filmed in Italy and hosted by popstar Danni Minogue, the format is 10 single men paired up by producers based on their likes and dislikes.

They meet for the first time with a kiss that will decide whether or not they want to commit.

The ultimate objective, as with most dating shows, is to watch the drama unfold as the contestants try to find love, but Gareth insists this one is more relatable than the others.

"In Love Island, everyone is beautifully done up, the men all have abs. This show celebrates body positivity and diversity, with real backgrounds and stories.

"It's not a room full of Ken dolls and Barbie dolls... of unrelatable people, so I think that changes the trajectory of the reality TV blueprint. It challenges what beauty is."

As a child in Kilkeel in the early to late 2000s, Gareth was too young to remember fellow County Down man Patrick Kielty present Love Island in its infancy. Even in its more recent format, though, the show didn't appeal to him because he didn't feel reflected in it.

"I didn't see people like me on dating shows before, so I'm really proud to be representing Northern Ireland in this sense.

"This needed to happen and what I really hope is that some child who is feeling not accepted in their school or community will watch this and feel proud of who they are, feel confident to be who they are."

Growing up in a community where family life revolved around religion and traditional roles, the stylist, who now lives in London, used to feel like "an outsider".

"I used to watch fashion shows in secret in the dark and dance to Lady Gaga when I knew no-one was watching me, or I'd secretly flick through editions of Vogue and became obsessed with fashion.

"I heard things in school growing up, especially in the early to late 2000s, that made me feel scared and I realised Northern Ireland wasn't the right place for me - I'd never feel truly accepted there. I knew I was never going to buy a fishing boat, marry a local girl and have lots of kids."

I Kissed A Boy is about love more than sex, he said, adding: "We have real life stories and real feelings and we want to love and feel love just the same as anybody else.

"I sometimes feel frustrated by those who would say: 'I'm okay with you being gay, just not in my face.'

"We deserve to be here; we need to exist as ourselves, not some version of ourselves that isn't authentic."

He has also, at times, felt a degree of frustration at what he calls the "toxic masculinity" within the gay dating scene.

"It's a recurring theme - some men don't want to get together with a man who is too overtly feminine, some want a man who is gay but acts straight.

"I spent 24 years of my life pretending to be straight and it's not healthy.

It took me so much time to come out to my family, to come out in my own town, to feel proud of who I am, and it makes me sad when I see other men still struggling with all of that, still fighting against it."

Gareth feels society, particularly in Northern Ireland, still has a long way to go in terms of acceptance and understanding of the LGBTQ+ community.

"The suicide rate amongst gay men is so worrying. If being gay was normalised, gay men wouldn't be dying because of who they are," he said.

Although he views Northern Ireland as conservative and religious, Gareth stressed that he is "absolutely not against religion at all", but rather against the use of Christianity as a means to criticise gay people.

"They say it's wrong [in the Bible] - well, so is cheating on your wife, so is hypocrisy, so is hatred," he added.

"I actually love the sense of community in a church and the feeling you get from a choir, so I recently went with a friend to a church in London where the singing was just amazing and the minister was gay and not one person cared, and I thought: 'Wouldn't it be great to see this happen in Northern Ireland?'"

Popstar Danni Minogue has said that as a straight woman, she had doubts about whether she was the right host for the show.

"I didn't want to be part of a reality show that was using people," she told the BBC. Assured that it wasn't, she signed up and Gareth said she became a maternal figure for the 10 contestants.

"Aphrodite doesn't come close - she's an absolute goddess," he said. "Yes, she's outwardly beautiful, but she's inwardly beautiful too. She was like a mother figure to us - so protective and caring."

The overwhelming memory of the show, Gareth said, is laughter and he hopes viewers will find it entertaining.

"You put 10 gays in a room together, you're going to get a laugh. But there's an important message there too - we're not promiscuous, evil creatures to be feared. We just want to find love like everyone else."

I Kissed A Boy episode one was released on BBC iPlayer on Saturday. The remaining episodes air Sundays and Mondays on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer.