Dating Men - Series One

Beth Mac: Part One Beth Mac: Part Two Console Dating Men: Series One Dating Men: Series Two Dating Men: Series Three Nights on Hindley Sherlock Homes: The Boscombe Billabong Mystery The First Great Emu War of 1932 The Second Great Emu War of 1932 The Magpie The Problem with Ralph: Chugging Ulysses' Odyssey: Cyclops Uncle Ian Warlocks of Lōbethal: Class Clown Warlocks of Lōbethal: Older Writer, Father, Killer

TAGLINE The road to romance is paved with absolute lunatics. LOGLINE A series of wildly misfiring office dates sends a pair of everyday Aussies stumbling through sex, chaos, romantic delusions as they search for connection in all the wrong places. THE OPENING >> Start reading the book now BUY >> See Original Edition on Amazon See Spellbound Edition on Amazon See Workbench Edition on Amazon GENRE Primary: Comedy. A character-driven, episodic comedy built on awkward encounters, workplace absurdity and dating misadventures. Secondary: Rom-com (but subversive), Workplace satire, New adult / Young Adult-adjacent humour, Australian Satire. 'Dating Men' is as chaotic as 'The Inbetweeners' and absurd as 'The IT Crowd'. Suitable for late teens, twenties and edging thirties. SETTING The world of 'Dating Men' comes together as a heightened slice of Australian life, where cafes, pubs and nightclubs collide with a ten-storey office building that runs on chaos, incompetence and a lot of Barossa wine. It's a setting where disaster spills into workdays, and readers will recognise instantly the messy, hilarious and painfully relatable struggle to look functional while everything around you is on fire. In this world, romance is a gamble, work is a circus, and surviving either requires equal parts luck, denial and a very dark sense of humour. BLURB The dating world is hard enough but for Ryan and Audrey, it’s near impossible! While Ryan is looking for Mr. Right and avoiding being outed to his best mate, Audrey struggles to escape her horny new colleagues and discovers the culture of harassment and sexual exploitation stems from the very top! When your workplace is a cesspit for wildly inappropriate relations and harassment claims, will Ryan and Audrey ever find love? The odds are stacked against them in their painfully hilarious search for the man of their dreams. REVIEWS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐5 stars What a read!! Hilariously funny. I’m always looking for books that take you on a journey and this did exactly that. I absolutely loved the excruciating comedy of the characters as they go on their quest to find love – it’s totally cringeworthy but equally entertaining to follow. If you’ve ever thought your office space was a hard one to work in, this will definitely make you feel less like complaining! There are so many twists and turns, and I was either kept on the edge of my seat or in tears from laughing at every chapter. I noticed a few personalities that are very much reflected in the real world but in a uniquely creative way. Couldn’t put it down! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This was a fun read. An office comedy where everyone is sleeping with everyone except Ryan, the unluckiest guy alive. It reads like a T.V. show, so the pace is fast and unrelenting. Brace yourselves for a hilariously raunchy adventure. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Anyone who has ever worked in an office can appreciate the humour in a book set in an office environment - not that many of us have worked anywhere like this! The story moves at a fast pace that I took a while to catch-up to, but once I did, the laughs kept coming. Very entertaining. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ There's a new series in town - 'Dating Men: Series One' by the brilliant D. M. Wright. Follow Ryan and Audrey as they navigate the treacherous waters of modern dating. Where finding Mr. Right is like searching for a needle in a haystack of creeps and questionable characters. It's worth the read. CONTENT WARNING This book is Not Recommended for readers under the age of 15. It contains: Adult themes Violence Explicit language Strong language Sex scenes CHAPTERS EPISODE ONE Women and sex and stuff EPISODE TWO Having cake and eating it, too EPISODE THREE Miss Conduct EPISODE FOUR Just Friends AUTHOR'S NOTE I wrote Dating Men: Series One because somewhere between childhood and adulthood, most people stop reading for pleasure. By fourteen, many teens have already decided books are too slow, too clean, too safe, or too far removed from the chaotic reality they’re living. I wanted to write something that felt alive again — loud, unfiltered and willing to go places 'respectable' fiction tiptoes around. The inappropriateness isn’t there to shock for the sake of shock; it’s there because life itself is inappropriate, messy, embarrassing, and often hilarious in ways we don’t admit out loud. These characters stumble, swear, drink too much, make terrible decisions, and try to hold their lives together with the emotional equivalent of sticky tape... and that’s exactly why they resonate. This book leans into the grit and absurdity young adults recognise, because pretending their world is tidy doesn’t bring them back to reading. Giving them something honest, chaotic, exaggerated and a little bit feral just might. And yes, that raises uncomfortable questions: should school libraries stock books with adult humour and messy themes to re‑engage readers, or avoid them and risk losing those readers entirely — pushing them toward fully adult content anyway? I don’t claim to have the answer. What I do know is that stories like this can be a bridge: a way to remind young people that reading can be fun, wild, surprising and deeply human. If this book gets even one disengaged teen laughing again, turning pages again, or seeing themselves in a story again, then the chaos was worth it. THEMES 'Dating Men's themes centre on modern dating, workplace absurdity, identity and the chaotic, deeply human struggle to function as an adult. They’re delivered through heightened satirical comedy, but the emotional spine underneath is very real. The absurdity of modern dating Workplace chaos and corporate satire The comedy of embarrassment Identity, insecurity and trying to fit in Generational tension (older millennials vs. teens) Found family The ridiculousness of everyday life Escapism through comedy Teaching boundaries through comedy TONE & VIBE 'Dating Men' is a blend of high‑energy comedy, Australian bluntness and sitcom‑level chaos, creating a world that feels both wildly exaggerated and painfully recognisable. The humour is fast, physical, and unapologetically awkward, driven by characters who mean well but make catastrophic choices. Scenes swing between nightclub disasters, workplace absurdity and dating misfires, all delivered with a dry, self‑deprecating Australian voice that treats embarrassment as a natural part of life. The vibe is youthful, chaotic, and meme‑adjacent — exactly the kind of humour late teens and early twenties latch onto — yet grounded enough in real emotional insecurity to give the comedy weight. It’s a world where adults behave like overgrown teenagers, workplaces run like dysfunctional playgrounds, and romance is a battlefield of delusion, hope and sheer stupidity, all wrapped in a tone that says: life is ridiculous, so you may as well laugh at it. POV Third person Limited Rotating POV Past tense 'Older' is written in a third‑person limited, rotating POV, shifting focus between different characters depending on the scene. The narration stays outside the characters’ heads - with the occasional except of Ryan - but moves closely enough to each focal character to capture their reactions, awkwardness and comedic inner logic without ever becoming full internal monologue. MAIN CHARACTER SNAPSHOTS Ryan - The Hopeful Romantic in a world that won't behave Ryan sometimes a sweet-natured, slightly anxious thirty-something who just wants a normal date with a normal guy: an ambition the universe finds hilarious. Earnest to a fault, he over-explains everything, backpedals mid-sentence, and tries desperately to appear unfazed while the world around him collapses into chaos. His strength is his optimism; his flaw is believing that logic has any place in modern dating. Whether he's escaping candle-obsessed suitors or navigating an office full of lunatics, Ryan remains the emotional straight-man of the series: the one sane person trapped ina sitcom he never auditioned for. Audrey - The Hot Mess with a heart of fool's gold Audrey is a thirty-five-year-old whirlwind of chaos, confidence and catastrophic decision-making. She parties like she's twenty, drinks like she's immortal, and wakes up in places which require escape plans. Beneath the smeared mascara and pyjama pants is a woman who genuinely wants a fresh start: she just keeps tripping over his own life on the way there. Audrey's strength is her resilience; her flaw is her absolute inability to read a room. Whether she's fighting teens at a nightclub, stumbling into a new job half-dressed, or trying to un-impress a boss she's accidentally slept with, Audrey embodies the messy, hilarious struggle of trying to grow up when you're already late for work. Troy - The Delusional Boss who thinks he's the hero Troy is a middle-aged man with the confidence of a Greek god and the self-awareness of a houseplant. He swaggers through life convinced he's irresistible, competent and mysterious: despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As 'The Man', he runs a ten-storey office like a child playing CEO: dramatic entrances, imaginary cats, accidental seductions, and a complete misunderstanding of workplace boundaries. His strength is his enthusiasm; his flaw is literally everything else. Troy is the series' comedic wildcard, the human embodiment of a malfunctioning elevator: unpredictable, inconvenient and somehow endearing. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Big-picture points How does the book use humour to explore the chaos of modern adulthood? What does the story suggest about dating culture today? How does the workplace setting function as satire? Where do we see insecurity driving character behaviour? What does the book say about generational differences and identity? Character-focussed questions How does Ryan's desire for a 'normal' partner shape his dating experiences? What does he learn about himself? Is Audrey's chaos a flaw, a coping mechanism or a form of resilience? How does she navigate shame and reinvention? Is Troy a villain, a clown or a tragic figure? What does his behaviour reveal about power and masculinity? What do Clarence, the PA, Jeremy and Garrett add to the book's commentary on work and society? Social and cultural themes Gender and sexual-orientation expectations: How do characters perform masculinity or femininity? Where does the book challenge stereotypes? Consent and misunderstanding: How does the book use miscommunication, exaggeration, stereotypes for comedy while still raising serious questions about equality, bullying, assault, etc... The pressure to appear competent: How do characters hide their flaws, and what happens when those masks slip? Friendship and accidental community: How do unlikely bonds form in chaotic environments? Literary and craft questions Tone: How does the author balance absurdity with emotional truth? POV: How does rotating third-person limited shape the reader's understanding of each character? Setting as character: How do the office building and the city's cafes, pubs and clubs influence the story's tone? Comedy techniques: What kinds of humour are used - slapstick, situational, character-driven, verbal irony - and how do they serve the themes? Ethical and reflective questions When does humour punch up vs. punch down? How does the book navigate this line? Why do we laugh at other people's embarrassment? What does it say about human nature? What makes a character 'relatable' even when they behave badly? How does the book reflect the anxieties of young adulthood? E.g. identity, work, relationships, self-worth) Inappropriateness vs. Re-engagement A key question raised by 'Dating Men' is whether stories that lean into adult humour, awkward sexuality, and social chaos have a legitimate place in school libraries — especially for late‑teen readers who often stop reading for pleasure around fourteen. Many disengaged teens gravitate toward content with grit, messiness and irreverence because it feels closer to their lived reality than the sanitised fiction typically offered to them. 'Dating Men' was designed for the late-teen in mind: stepping toes across the line of appropriateness to re-engage them with what they want and bring them to a life-time love of books. Without some edginess, most won't return. This raises an important debate: should school libraries stock books with 'inappropriate' elements to meet teens where they want to be, or avoid such material and risk losing them to reading altogether? Which is more important? This tension invites a broader conversation about the role of discomfort, realism and boundary‑pushing humour in reconnecting young people with the joy of reading. If schools don't want to provide age‑appropriate-but-edgy fiction — however understandable — are they unintentionally pushing teens toward fully adult books available in stores and online, often with far more explicit content? ISBN 9798480968279 RELEASE YEAR 2017 SERIES INFO Productions Book 1 WORD COUNT 43,000 AVAILABLE FORMATS Original edition: Paperback, Kindle Spellbound edition: Kindle Workbench edition: Kindle See Original Edition on Amazon See Spellbound Edition on Amazon See Workbench Edition on Amazon