The Epimic of Gay Lonels - The Huffgton Post

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
• IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?
• SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?
• A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’
• GAY PEOPLE 'AT RISK OF A LONELIER OLD AGE'

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

Part of realizg you're gay, or bi, or trans, or non-bary, or anythg other than cisgenr and heterosexual is acceptg you’re different—and somewhat separated—om the majory. Here he shar his journey to overe the sense of isolatn he felt growg up gay a small U.

At the time, there were no real gay role mols except for Graham Norton and Jack om Dawson's Creek—and I certaly didn't intify wh him bee I wasn't a football player. I felt like I was pletely on my rried on until I was 16, when I started gog out to gay bars my hometown.

For the first time I've been able to form a good group of gay iends and create my own support work. I'd go on gay chatrooms but that was jt a facels nversatn wh someone who uld have been anyone.

GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL

I thk if I'd had iends who were gay when I was growg up, my life would have been so different.

I now know there were other kids at my school who were gay, but they didn't e out till much later.

IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?

For years I’ve noticed the divergence between my straight iends and my gay iends. In our lifetime, the gay muny has ma more progrs on legal and social acceptance than any other mographic group history.

SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?

As recently as my own adolcence, gay marriage was a distant aspiratn, somethg newspapers still put sre quot. Public support for gay marriage has climbed om 27 percent 1996 to 61 percent 2016. ” Gay characters the days are so monplace they’re even allowed to have flaws.

A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’

Still, even as we celebrate the sle and speed of this change, the rat of prsn, lonels and substance abe the gay muny rema stuck the same place they’ve been for s. Gay people are now, pendg on the study, between 2 and 10 tim more likely than straight people to take their own liv.

In a survey of gay men who recently arrived New York Cy, three-quarters suffered om anxiety or prsn, abed dgs or alhol or were havg risky sex—or some batn of the three. Dpe all the talk of our “chosen fai, ” gay men have fewer close iends than straight people or gay women. I’m a perpetually sgle gay guy who was raised a bright blue cy by PFLAG parents.

GAY PEOPLE 'AT RISK OF A LONELIER OLD AGE'

“Marriage equaly and the chang legal stat were an improvement for some gay men, ” says Christopher Stults, a rearcher at New York Universy who studi the differenc mental health between gay and straight men. In the Netherlands, where gay marriage has been legal sce 2001, gay men rema three tim more likely to suffer om a mood disorr than straight men, and 10 tim more likely to engage “suicidal self-harm.