How to Cope When You're Gay and Lonely | GQ

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• GAY MEN - HAVE YOU SETTLED FOR BEG SGLE FOREVER
• SGLE FOREVER: STORI AND INSIGHTS OM GAY MEN
• 20 HONT REASONS GAY MEN STAY SGLE (ON PURPOSE)
• “HELP! I’M A GAY CHRISTIAN”

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. I ma one gay iend, who I'm actually close to now.

GAY MEN - HAVE YOU SETTLED FOR BEG SGLE FOREVER

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. 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. In short - I will die a lonely old gay haha. Jt days ago, a ment ntributed to one of my posts alerted me to Steven Bereznai's book, Gay and sgle...

It strik me as ftg that Gay and sgle was published the same year that Sgled Out first appeared prt.

SGLE FOREVER: STORI AND INSIGHTS OM GAY MEN

Another is that my book clus no gay sex. What I loved about Gay and sgle were the many observatns, valu, and attus Bereznai and I did share. Sgle gay men, I learned, are targets of some of the same kds of stereotyp that other sgl are - and they, too, are at risk for takg those charg a b too serly.

His mom is OK wh him beg gay but worri that as a sgle person, he may grow old alone. "Beg gay and sgle is the new smokg. Once upon a time, the gay muny, sgle was good.

20 HONT REASONS GAY MEN STAY SGLE (ON PURPOSE)

"The gay movement of the 70s, " the thor explas,.

"regnized that the stigma of homos and sgl were tw opprsns om a sgle source - heterosexual uplehood - and so took aim at many of the assumptns of marriage and other forms of tradnal pair bonds. "In the shadow of gay and more sgle gay men are buffeted by a variety of ternal and external forc to buddy up, oftentim wh nsequenc not unlike those of the closet: a sense of shame, failure, and a quiet (or not so quiet) speratn.

“HELP! I’M A GAY CHRISTIAN”

The tle of the book ends wh a qutn mark: Gay and sgle... Do need sgle role mols, if only to know that 's possible to be gay and sgle and happy and dignified.

For Bereznai, ntemplatg a life-long sglehood meant "lookg at how, stead of g out of the closet to be myself, I have spent more than a nstctg the faça of the person I thought gay guys would want to date. "Instead, I pursued my own terts, put more time to fay and iends, foced on my wrg, slowly settlg to the quiet lm and fort of beg a sgle gay man.

Beg Gay and Forever Alone. Beg gay is no longer unique, special, ol, or tertg. I'm 100% fortable wh my sexualy and don't nsir myself any different om anyone else JUST bee I'm gay.