After a difficult day at work in February 2009, Stefan went to a popular gay bar in London with a friend. “It was around the time of the economic crisis and I was a junior lawyer. We’d just had to let lots of new recruits go,” he says. While there, he spotted a “cute guy” in the smoking area. “I really liked the look of him and asked my friend to give him my number,” he says.
It wasn’t the first time the two men had seen each other. Sebastien, who had been working in financial services in London since 2006, had spotted Stefan on a night out two years earlier. “I was so shy and just coming out at the time, so I didn’t speak to him,” he says. “I remembered him instantly, though, and told the friend I was with that he was ‘the man of my life’.” Sebastien still felt too shy to approach Stefan, so he was delighted when his friend passed on the phone number. “My cheeks flushed and I was so excited,” he says. “I sent him a text the next day. It took me ages to write because I didn’t want to mess it up.”
