A
male
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes: So I'm a 19 year old, college, gay guy. And I just feel so behind. I've never been in a relationship in my life. I've never even kissed a guy before and I just feel really lame about it. I feel like everyone's lives are moving forward while mine is staying stagnant. I'm really tired of being alone and not having someone to call my own. I want to explore a more romantic/sexual part of my life but it's so much harder being gay in that matter. I don't really want to just hook up. I want to actually meet someone naturally and build up our relationship to a point where we feel we can actually have a romantic relationship. I feel like a good relationship starts from a great friendship. Although I feel like I'm ready to have a boyfriend, I also feel like I'm not emotionally prepared for one. I just feel really insecure and unworthy. I know shallowness and high expectations exists in all sexual identities. But I feel like it's really highlighted in the gay community. I'm no Adonis. I don't have six pack abs, a humongous penis (I'm average at best, tbh I feel like guys will laugh at me. I'm only about 6 inches) , bulging biceps, bulging pecs, a perfect jawline, perfect hair and etc. I'm nothing like that. And I just feel really inadequate all the time. Sometimes I just try to except the fact that I will most likely be alone for the rest of my life. How do I overcome this? Do I even have a chance of finding someone? Are there really any gay guys out there who aren't expecting perfection?
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reader, anonymous, writes (7 October 2014): As a gay man myself, I can understand how a young man just coming of age might feel in a world of technology; where people offer profiles online with photo-shopped and airbrushed perfected images of themselves. They portray themselves as globetrotting super-athletes. Try to make you believe they've been to every exotic country in the world; and they're so hot they aren't settling for anyone who makes less than a six-figured salary; and has the looks of an international super-model.
These guys don't live up to the standard, and if they were so perfect; they wouldn't be online selling themselves so damned hard. They're retail clerks, bank tellers, valets, hairdressers, and charlatans who make sweet innocent kids like you believe they have to be nothing short of royalty to get a boyfriend. They are ordinary young men just like you. Some are lucky enough to have a gym passes and a schedule flexible enough to spend hours primping and flexing in-front of mirrors. They aren't as happy as they'd lead you to believe being that shallow.
They steal from their jobs, throw away their life-savings, and sell their bodies to wealthy old perverts, and live in an imaginary world trying to attract someone who they hope will give them a short-cut to success. I've seen it all my young friend. So don't come out, and feel that's what being gay means. That's the downside. You want to start on the upside. Love who you are first. You'll meet great ordinary guys like yourself. Who outnumber the types you described almost 100 to 1. Everyone isn't beautiful. Most people are average.
Gay men pretty much feel the pressures of perfection experienced by women. They must be beautiful and forever young. The media sets a standard of beauty that earns billions in the fashion and cosmetic industries. Gays are the other demographic they've targeted. Now young men feel they're not desirable until they have 8-pack abs and bulging biceps. You'll soon find that image requires a lot of work, and most cheat by taking growth-hormones and steroids.
First of all, being so young; at 19, you're still growing and maturing physically. You will until you're almost 22. So you're not quite a finished product of nature. Not only are you still developing physically, you are still maturing mentally. Your mental-development can suffer many setbacks believing all the junk you see in the media, or on gay dating sites. A vast number of the profile pics featured on these sites of those perfectly beautiful guys, are not actual subscribers. The profiles you're reading of actual subscribers are just as phony.
You believe just about anything you read or you're told, for the lack of having life-experience to draw upon. You're as impressionable now, as you were when you were just a kid.
You will find boyfriends, but they will come and go. You will yourself reject people; because they were not as perfect as you wished them to be. You will break hearts, and hurt feelings. It's a part of growth and learning. Forming character.
You can't believe the hype being fed to us. You can't start hating yourself for not meeting unrealistic standards. What you described in your post does not fit the majority of people you will meet in your journey through life.
The rampant narcissism is an unfortunate reality in a segment of our gay subculture. However; it is a negative stereotype that is perpetuated by desperate self-loathing homosexuals who think they define what being gay is. You will find they have lived lies. Being who they aren't is all they they know. They never got past they're self-hatred; so spending hours in the gym is how they create an image. Purchasing expansive wardrobes full of expensive designer clothes, is their way of compensating for the hatred they felt for being born gay, and pretending part of their lives to be straight. They only want to protect themselves from the disgust and rejection by their families and society. They crave adoration and subsist on lust. You don't have to live that way. It's not really what being gay is. Your life isn't tragic as portrayed in the movies.
The demand for perfect looks is not the norm. It is not as prevalent as some would lead you to believe. If you start believing what you described in your post, you will stunt your psychological-growth and development. Cut yourself off at the knees, like so many people nowadays who believe looks will guarantee you happiness, love, and success. Funny thing, there are so many beautiful athletes, actors, and performers who have committed suicide; and love was all they wanted. The just wanted people to see who they are beneath their appearance. Someone who loves you sees more than what's on the surface.
Don't start out your journey into life cynical and bitter.
It's hard enough dealing with day to day life, without creating imaginary obstacles for yourself. You must never allow yourself to believe you will never find love, and you're only guaranteed to get it if you're perfect.
Don't confuse idol-worship with real human relationships. There is no similarity. The size of your penis, the color of your eyes, and your body-type were determined by your genetics; and it makes absolutely no sense in hating yourself for how you were born. How many gay advocates have stuck their necks out to make it possible for you to even walk the streets without getting your brains beat-out for just being gay? Don't do this too yourself. Your life has only just begun. We meet people to love; because there is always a match that makes their way to us. It will happen when you least expect it to happen. That's how life works.
You have to get an education. You have to discover your potential. You have to develop survival skills, tools to navigate your way through live, and you can't be destroyed by myths about what everybody wants. You're barely out of high school.
You want people to see you for who you are, not what they want you to be. These are not just words, this is wisdom from experience in our community. Every inexperienced person who has never been in-love, starts out wondering when and if it will ever happen.
Stop creating bogus notions that reality will surely knock out of your head. You haven't had your heart broken yet, so you will wish one day you never found love.
There is plenty of time for that. If you continue thinking as you are, you're not ready for the world. Think about college first. Getting caught-up too soon in obsessing over your orientation, will make you miss important callings and opportunities in your life. You don't want to end-up some tattooed aging loser with a slacker job; who threw away his youth. All because he thought life revolved around having pretty boyfriends and five-minute whirlwind romances. Chasing multiple sex partners, who ate away at his dignity and self-respect. Those are the gay men whose lives revolved around hookups on sleazy websites, worrying about their looks, and fighting age. That's what happens to those guys who put so much value in tight-abs, chiseled looks, and nothing else. When age catches up with them, and they look back as lonely wretched old queens. They're sorry they spent so much of their youth being shallow and plastic. Putting so much value on appearance, and so little on personality, character, and true love. Hating themselves for all the great guys like you, that they passed over.
A
male
reader, no nonsense Aidan  +, writes (6 October 2014):
A good relationship starts from a great friendship indeed, you’ve quoted one of my catchphrases that I find myself using all the time to people just like you, who have such a negative view of themselves and their chances of finding a meaningful relationship.
The gay community isn’t wildly different from the straight community, but I think one of the differences, according to a few articles and perspectives I’ve read on this topic, is that gay men can be much more explicit and overt about what they want. Essentially, the argument goes, if he just wants to bed you and never see you again, he’ll be crystal clear with you about it. There is indeed a so-called “gay scene” which a lot of people find to be casual, shallow and judgemental, and, if we move to the on-line world, I’ve seen pretty graphic profiles for no-strings sex, whose heterosexual equivalent I’ve yet to see. So I think the shallowness is clearer to see among the gay community, but make no mistake, I’ve seen countless heterosexual guys with exactly the same worries as you, that their apparent lack of perfection means they’re not going to have a successful relationship and be pleasing to girls, who are shallow. These are basically sweeping generalisations.
The truth is, there is as much variation between gay people as heterosexual people. The overwhelming majority of gay people I know are in relationships or seeking lasting commitment. They don’t like the gay scene and they don’t do casual hook-ups. There will be plenty of gay men who aren’t seeking some-one so perfect he could never exist in the real world. They are, in fact, emotionally vulnerable and insecure just like you. They’re the kind of people who will make wonderful friends and build up to becoming true and sincere lovers. I think the problem is you’re making this about being gay, but in fact you’re simply making the mistake a lot of people do of all orientations, which is thinking that when you know, you know, that it will suddenly fall in to place just like that. Actually, you’ll have to get to know people, go on dates, take it slow, and take a few risks of rejection by learning how to let a man know how you feel. I highly recommend on-line dating especially if you are shy and not sure how to go in cold and ask a guy out you like.
My worry is that, if you’re talking about being alone forever at such a young age, when many of us were still yet to have a first romantic relationship, you won’t recognise interest when it’s shown to you. You’ll come across as disinterested and people will just decide to leave you be. So I think you should try to meet other gay people, not exclusively, but some of your friendship circle should be gay people, just so that you can learn to be more confident around men and start to see the value people place in your qualities as a person. It may indeed be a while before you have a relationship, for some people things just work out like that. But if you can find away to grow in confidence, value yourself and not resign yourself to a permanent state of singlehood which you don’t want, you’re giving yourself the best chance. Hopefully in addition, you’ll have some fun and enjoy a good social life, because when single you need to make the most of having friends and family in your life. If you can be complete, and able to enjoy life on your own, you’ll find a better partner.
I wish you all the very best.
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