being gay before the smartphone era mustve been awful because they couldnt send dick pics and just had to hope the hookup was packin heavy
maybe there could be some kind of speed dating with an intervening glory hole and you could pass little slips of paper through the hole with contact info if u were into it
I'm pretty sure gays just met up in public restrooms before the internet.
aka cottaging. Though the early Internet had sites aimed at it (I have no idea if cottaging.co.uk is still going) where you could see what someone was packing before hand.
Fabswingers has been around since... 2006 (apparently). And obviously you had swinger clubs where what was on offer was seen.
And local ad sites like GumTree and Vivastreet.
Point being, not only was there very much ways of knowing but they're still going today.
(Fabswingers, while catering for everyone is mostly cis couples but it does also has a spin off site - Fabguys, aimed more at gay men and trans people - basically more focused on people looking for dick).
And you had the classic text message of "So and so gave me your number, they said you had a big dick" - which was always nice.
Always a sad time when you're out and headed back for a MFM or something and someone was way under measure. Like, just let the person know. When they're obviously a size-queen etc you're just walking into an awkward "I've changed my mind" conversation.
