If Instagram is to be believed, gay friendship is mostly muscled, tanned men smiling topless on the beach or in a club surrounded by an armour of hashtags. A million miles apart with no wish to edge closer, thank you.įor a long time, I believed it was only me who was in this predicament, and that my biggest failing was my appearance. Crude and discriminatory as these sorts of self-descriptors are, at least I know where I stand. In case you’ve never used an app or dating site before, let me give you some examples: “Masc4Masc”, “No fems”, “No Asians”, or “Gym-fit looking for same”. No one likes being rejected, but it’s certainly harder when the door is closed by somebody who promised you that they aren’t judgemental, and pride themselves on escaping the vexatious shallow stereotypes that have long plagued, and to some extent been perpetuated by, the gay community. I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to make friends with other gays, only to feel just as alone and outcast as I did as a bookish thirteen-year-old in a sport-obsessed, country high school. (To his credit, at least the French man was honest enough to let me know that “you are not the one for me.”) My words for all the others read a lot like heartbreak, even though they were written in memory of gay men I’d never so much as kissed. In my bedroom, I have journal after journal filled with pages of yearning for people who disappeared, never to return, to come back or at least explain why they left. Sadly, he’s not alone in this assumption. I mean, who uses “least” and “friend” in the same sentence, as if acquiring someone to spend time with in a non-sexual manner is some sort of pathetic consolation prize?
Possibly he meant well, but this flimsy promise made me realise I was already in trouble. “At the very least,” he assured, “we can still be friends.” (Image courtesy of Pexels)ī efore our first - and final - date, the French man whom I’d been chatting to for the past 48 hours offered some comforting words to help calm my nerves. Many gay men are battling with being alone.