01-01-2018, 11:30 PM
This post is a kind of response and extended commentary to an Australian guy's post.
I deal almost exclusively with guys "in the closet", but the subject is very general: how to meet other gays is practically, and I would say of course, the most recurring thought in the minds of gay guys, what is difficult to understand is that these meetings involve real people and, as I often repeat, the "gay + gay = love" theorem has not ever been demonstrated but there are many evidences that indicate that it is just fantasy.
The Australian guy writes:
“I spent a very long time while I was in the closet convincing myself that I could never have a boyfriend and I had to get comfortable with that idea. Now that that’s changed and having a boyfriend is totally an option, I didn’t realize how important a romantic relationship is to me.”
In fact, the facilitated methods to meet other gays with specific apps or through dating sites and erotic chats, completely neglect the emotional dimension, which in reality is fundamental. The extreme simplification of the so-called "love speech" and the ease of access to other gay guys seem to promise happiness at a low price, but the meetings often show themselves disappointing, because the filter of careful selection through behavior is completely lacking. In the reality of everyday life it is possible to build step by step increasingly important affective relationships. Some think that friendship is a banality and that sex is happiness, but experience teaches that things are not like that at all.
Then there is the social pressure that leads us to think that having a boyfriend is synonymous with being adults. In fact, many guys complain that they are alone and don’t have "yet" a boyfriend, as if having a boyfriend was something mandatory, a real license for adult life. But before you feel good in two you have to feel good about yourself, which is anything but easy.
This is what the Australian guy writes:
“The strong independent guy in me say’s don’t worry about it and concentrate on being happy in yourself. But there’s a part of me that starts to wonder. At what point does it start to get weird that I’ve never actually had someone who I would refer to as my boyfriend?”
And he concludes his post with a bitter joke:
“But because I’d like to be optimistic I’ve already started planning my wedding to be determined at a later date.”
So many guys think that being openly gay is a necessary condition to create a happy couple life, but it's not like that at all. I know many couples of gay guys "in the closet" or rather not "publicly" out who have their gay friends, and who live a wonderful couple life. They are usually stable couples of not very young people, far from the logic of the apps.
Has the Internet really facilitated things? In other words, has it made it really easier for gay guys to create real emotional contacts? Frankly I don’t think so. The idea of sex and also of affectivity as a consumer good is spreading and in this way the best of being gay is lost.