Sams story

'In a previous blog post I talked about my use of technology to aid my quest for love. Dating technology has evolved over time, from dating agencies and singles ads in newspapers, to phone chatlines and texting services and onto dating/hook-up websites such as Gaydar, Fitlads and Manhunt.

'The latest technology to be adopted for this purpose is the smartphone – there are countless apps promising to help you find love, make friends or just get a little action.

'The most popular of these (among the gay community at least) is Grindr. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Grindr, you create a profile with your stats, add a photograph and a short welcome message and in return Grindr shows you other guys logged in near your location by use of Global Positioning System (GPS). You can message the guys and swap pictures. All very cool.

'I’ve been on Grindr since it was launched. I’ve always been at the cutting edge, trying new apps and gadgets as soon as they come out. My profile has remained largely the same, my age has changed with the years and my photograph has been updated a few times.

'One weekend I started wondering what kind of responses someone would get if their profile said that they were HIV positive. So I created myself a second profile on Grindr, almost identical to mine in (but different enough to look like a different person), still looking for 'friends, fun and dates' – but this time I mentioned my HIV status in the profile text.

'Over the course of the week (25 February to 3 March) my existing profile received messages from 74 users. On the other hand my (almost identical) profile that mentions my HIV status received message from only 11 users. Four of those 11 messaged purely to ask me questions about HIV and one felt it necessary to send me foul mouthed abuse for seemingly no reason. Which leaves me with six people actually showing an interest in me.

'Let’s look at that for a second shall we? That’s a 92 per cent reduction in interest purely by mentioning my HIV status. It was this realisation that led to a few miserable Tweets on Saturday night as I thought we were really making progress. The more things change eh?’

Have you ever tried an experiment similar to Sam's? Let us know in the comments field below. You can also read Sam's blog  or follow him on Twitter @UKPositiveLad