Hook-up hoedown

As Great Debates go, it doesn’t get more serious than scoring points on where to score.

This year’s debate will put online loving to the test against the tried and true beer-goggle pickups of the gay bar, as participants relive every horrifying detail of their own hook-up disasters while debating the topic Gaydar Versus Gay Bar.

Captain of Team Gaydar and veteran of the debate scene, Bernie Hobbs, claims to be a novice at online dating.

But what she lacks in experience she makes up in enthusiasm, and is confident she’ll score better than in past Great Debates.

We lost abysmally last time, but I always enjoy the opportunity to slag off at ex-girlfriends, at least the two that are in the crowd, Hobbs says.

The ABC science broadcaster and New Inventors judge will bring an objective scientific rigour to the fracas as she declares: Gay bars suck.

If you’re like me and just get nervous and twittery and become a self-conscious dancer, you end up getting drunk and taking home someone you overlooked in the first hour of the night.

I go to women’s bars. It’s like the d?r has to emulate a womb or something with lots of lilac and cr? paper, bad graphic design, and 20 people on a carpeted dance floor. It’s not like The L Word , she says.

In comparison Hobbs thinks online dating can’t be any worse, and probably makes it easier to pick up.

Anyone can write like a poet given enough editing software and time to compose. It’s very easy to make yourself look damn fine on a website with flattering lighting or the right angle if you’ve got a potato head like me.

Joining her in the Gaydar chatrooms will be comedienne Jackie Loeb who is really looking forward to her first Mardi Gras debate, declaring, The benefits of online dating are endless.

I must confess I’ve never done this online dating before, but just creating these false profiles with photoshopped pictures from 20 years ago is great.

You never know online, that’s what appeals to me, Loeb says. I can appear to be 17, anorexic, six-foot-two and never been with a woman before and no one would be any wiser.

Author Neal Drinnan is back for his second Great Debate, and is keen to defend the bar scene.

I’ve always preferred an environment where people don’t necessarily know how big your penis is. A man is more than the sum of his parts, he says.

I live close enough to Oxford Street that I can do my thing in the bar and run away home if things get too much.

As for the universal horror stories of beer-goggle disasters, Drinnan admits to a few.

It depends on how many I’ve had to drink and how impaired my judgment is, but I can’t really blame the bar for that.

The Great Debate is an ACON fundraiser, and will be held at The Factory Theatre, 105 Victoria Rd, Enmore, on Wednesday 21 February from 7:30pm. Tickets cost $30 ($20 for HCC holders) plus booking fee. Bookings on 9550 3666 or at the Moshtix website.