Dear Roe,
I am a 25-year-old gay guy, with a great circle of friends and a successful career for my age. I have been told I’m a people person, yet I’ve really struggled finding a successful relationship.
I've tried dating apps which have led to only very brief relationships. I try to put myself out there if I think I have a chance with someone, although I try not to come off as too "forward".
Recently, most of my friends are starting to have serious (heterosexual) relationships, and I feel left behind. This has caused anxiety, with thoughts and fears of never meeting anyone becoming more prominent. I’m open about my sexuality, but people tend not to know unless I tell them, as I’m not overly flamboyant.
I don't know what to do to meet someone. I have not had sex before which I feel holds me back. I feel I have a lot to give someone but have no idea where to find that person, especially as I don't have many gay friends.
It isn’t until the final sentence of your question that you say that you don’t have many gay friends, as though this is an incidental fact, an afterthought. I believe this actually lies at the heart of your current predicament, and addressing it will play a huge role in the solution.
Because there isn’t anything wrong with your life, or your relationship status, or the pace of your sexual milestones. You have just internalised the incorrect belief that there is. This can easily happen when we surround ourselves with people whose lives and experiences are different from our own, and when we internalise the idea that theirs is the “correct” way to live; that we are somehow doing it wrong.
This can happen to anyone. People who change careers or go back to school while their friends are getting promoted. People who get married late in life, or not at all. Women who choose to remain single or not have children. The many people who have written in to me worried that they don’t have “enough” sexual experience for their age. Anyone who has ever looked at a celebrity or influencer’s Instagram while eating a spice bag in curry-stained pyjamas on a Saturday night.
For LGBTQ people, this feeling of being out of sync with social norms can be heightened, because society itself is constructed around heteronormativity; the idea that heterosexual experiences and relationships are the norm, and everything else is other, and lesser.
Heteronormativity affects society’s understanding of “normal” romantic and sexual timelines, as we assume that everyone is comfortable expressing their sexuality around the same age, and has the same opportunities and desire to date. We also assume marriage will lead to reproduction, and thus centre the ideal age for marriage around women’s fertility.
By surrounding yourself only by heterosexual people, who are following a heteronormative life schedule, in a society based around heteronormativity, you are seeing only a heteronormative template. But that template may not work for you. Because you, like many LGBTQ people, may not have had the same experiences that fit it.
It's very possible that you haven't had the same opportunities for self-expression, connection, and dating that straight people have
You haven’t had the privilege of living in a world where it’s always safe for you to express your sexuality openly. You haven’t had the privilege of having people correctly assuming your sexuality. You haven’t had the privilege of having the giant, majority dating pool that straight people have.
So it’s very possible that you haven’t had the same opportunities for self-expression, connection, and dating that straight people have. Comparing yourself to their timeline and milestones is thus doing yourself a disservice, in the same way that comparing yourself to anyone instead of respecting your own journey is doing yourself a disservice.
This phenomenon, known as “queer time” or “queer temporalities”, is recognised by many LGBTQ academics and theorists, who acknowledge that social forces such as homophobia and an ever-shifting social landscape can affect how LGBTQ people experience social milestones, and how queer lives aren’t always “chrononormative”.
Sociologist Jennifer M. Silva notes that increasingly, young people – particularly those who have faced discrimination and/or trauma, such as LGBTQ people – construct new milestones, based not on age and marital status, but on “self-realisation gleaned from denouncing a painful past and reconstructing an independent, complete self”.
Trans theorist Jack Halberstam wrote that queerness itself is “an outcome of strange temporalities, imaginative life schedules, and eccentric economic practices”.
These theorists acknowledge that discrimination and oppressive societal norms mean that not everyone is offered the same opportunities on the same schedule. Their work is also hopeful, as they encourage embracing the freedom that comes with this; the opportunity to create a life not based on age-stamped markers, but self-exploration and acceptance.
I think this is a beautiful idea; the ability to respect and embrace life paths based on individuals’ personal realities, instead of enforcing norms that simply do not work for everyone. And I think accepting this idea and seeing it in action will be immeasurably helpful in alleviating some of your anxieties and improving your self-image, as well as opening up opportunities for connection.
Reach out to some LGBTQ communities and make a concentrated effort to make connections and friendships – online, in person, socially or through organised activism or support networks. You will see people living different, empowering lives on different, empowering schedules than the one template your current social circle offers. Combined with meeting peers who have faced similar pressures and anxieties, this will hopefully alleviate some of the anxiety and peer pressure you feel.
And, not unimportantly, LGBTQ communities include gay men, some of whom you may want to date. You say you “feel I have a lot to give someone but have no idea where to find that person”. I believe the first half of that sentence. As for the second half? Well, he’s not hiding among your settled-down straight friends.
Love yourself enough to not compare yourself to other people – but be brave enough to reach out to some, too. I really hope you find all the supportive friendships and wonderful romance you deserve. Take your time – yours, no one else’s.
Roe McDermott is a writer and Fulbright scholar with an MA in sexuality studies from San Francisco State University. She is researching a PhD in gendered and sexual citizenship at the Open University and Oxford
If you have a problem or query you would like her to answer, you can submit it anonymously at irishtimes.com/dearroe
