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

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?
• WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY MEN?
• THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED
• WHY DO LONELS GAY MEN PERSIST AFTER G OUT?
• LONELS AND GAY MEN
• GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
• A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’
• GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY
• GAY MEN ARE PECIALLY PRONE TO LONELS DURG THE PANMIC. HERE’S HOW TO BEAT THE FEAR.
• THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

In our lifetime, the gay muny has ma more progrs on legal and social acceptance than any other mographic group history.

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.

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

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. “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.

WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY 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.

TTravis Salway, a rearcher wh the BC Centre for Disease Control Vanuver, has spent the last five years tryg to figure out why gay men keep killg themselv.

By the late 2000s, he was a social worker and epimlogist and, like me, was stck by the growg distance between his straight and gay iends.

THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED

When the dispary first me to light the ’50s and ’60s, doctors thought was a symptom of homosexualy self, jt one of many maniftatns of what was, at the time, known as “sexual versn.

” As the gay rights movement gaed steam, though, homosexualy disappeared om the DSM and the explanatn shifted to trma. “That was the ia I had, too, ” Salway says, “that gay suici was a product of a bygone era, or was ncentrated among adolcents who didn’t see any other way out. He found that gay men everywhere, at every age, have higher rat of rdvascular disease, ncer, ntence, erectile dysfunctn, ⁠ allergi and asthma—you name , we got .

“We see gay men who have never been sexually or physilly asslted wh siar post-trmatic strs symptoms to people who have been bat suatns or who have been raped, ” says Alex Kroghlian, a psychiatrist at the Fenway Instute’s Center for Populatn Rearch LGBT Health. “When you ask them why they tried to kill themselv, ” he says, “most of them don’t mentn anythg at all about beg gay. “The trma for gay men is the prolonged nature of , ” says William Elr, a sexual trma rearcher and psychologist.

WHY DO LONELS GAY MEN PERSIST AFTER G OUT?

By the time he got to high school, Adam had learned to manage his mannerisms so well that no one spected him of beg gay.

And I kept nyg was a problem bee I had always told myself, ‘I’ve e out, I moved to San Francis, I’m done, I did what I had to do as a gay person. For s, this is what psychologists thought, too: that the key stag inty formatn for gay men all led up to g out, that once we were fally fortable wh ourselv, we uld beg buildg a life wh a muny of people who’d gone through the same thg.

“It’s like you emerge om the closet expectg to be this butterfly and the gay muny jt slaps the ialism out of you, ” Adam says. It got so bad that I ed to go to the grocery store that was 40 mut away stead of the one that was 10 mut away jt bee I was so aaid to walk down the gay street. Several studi have found that livg gay neighborhoods predicts higher rat of risky sex and meth e and ls time spent on other muny activi like volunteerg or playg sports.

LONELS AND GAY MEN

A 2009 study suggted that gay men who were more lked to the gay muny were ls satisfied wh their own romantic relatnships. Acrdg to Dane Whicker, a clil psychologist and rearcher at De, most gay men report that they want to date someone mascule, and that they wished they acted more mascule themselv. Or maybe ’s ternalized homophobia: Feme gay men are still stereotyped as bottoms, the receptive partner anal sex.

GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL

A two-year longudal study found that the longer gay men were out of the closet, the more likely they were to bee versatile or tops. Rearchers say this kd of trag, liberately tryg to appear more mascule and takg on a different sex role, is jt one of the ways gay men prsure each other to atta “sexual pal, ” the equivalent of gog to the gym or pluckg our eyebrows.

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

So, his sophomore year, he started watchg his male teachers for their flt posns, liberately standg wh his feet wi, his arms at his sis. The send reason the gay muny acts as a unique strsor on s members is not about why we reject each other, but how. In the last 10 years, tradnal gay spac—bars, nightclubs, bathho—have begun to disappear, and have been replaced by social media.

GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY

Usually when you hear about the shockg primacy of hookup apps gay life—Grdr, the most popular, says s average er spends 90 mut per day on —’s some panicked media story about murrers or homophob trawlg them for victims, or about the troublg “chemsex” scen that have spng up London and New York. But the real effect of the apps is quieter, ls remarked-upon and, a way, more profound: For many of , they have bee the primary way we teract wh other gay people. The worst thg about the apps, though, and why they’re relevant to the health dispary between gay and straight men, is not jt that we e them a lot.

In terviews that Elr, the post-trmatic strs rearcher, nducted wh gay men 2015, he found that 90 percent said they wanted a partner who was tall, young, whe, mcular and mascule. Walt Ots, a psychologist who’s been wrg about social isolatn sce the 1980s, says that gay men ed to be troubled by the bathho the same way they are troubled by Grdr now.

The gay men I terviewed talked about the datg apps the same way straight people talk about Comst: It sucks, but what are you gonna do? “We often live our liv through the ey of others, ” says Alan Downs, a psychologist and the thor of The Velvet Rage, a book about gay men’s stggle wh shame and social validatn.

GAY MEN ARE PECIALLY PRONE TO LONELS DURG THE PANMIC. HERE’S HOW TO BEAT THE FEAR.

PPerry Halkis, a profsor at NYU, has been studyg the health gap between gay people and straight people sce the early ’90s. He has published four books on gay culture and has terviewed men dyg of HIV, reverg om party dgs and stgglg to plan their own weddgs. “At the same time, I was watchg a ton of gay porn, where everyone was super ripped and sgle and havg sex all the time.

So I thought those were my two optns: this fairy-tale life I uld never have, or this gay life where there was no romance. One of the most strikg studi I found scribed the spike anxiety and prsn among gay men 2004 and 2005, the years when 14 stat passed nstutnal amendments fg marriage as beg between a man and a woman.

THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE

Gay men those stat showed a 37 percent crease mood disorrs, a 42 percent crease alholism and a 248 percent crease generalized anxiety disorr. The most chillg thg about those numbers is that the legal rights of gay people livg those stat didn’t materially change. Now square that wh the fact that our untry recently elected a bright orange Demogon whose admistratn is publicly, eagerly attemptg to reverse every sgle ga the gay muny has ma the last 20 years.

The msage this sends to gay people—pecially the youngt on, jt grapplg wh their inty—uldn’t be clearer and more terrifyg. Only around 30 percent of school districts the untry have anti-bullyg polici that specifilly mentn LGBTQ kids, and thoands of other districts have polici that prevent teachers om speakg about homosexualy a posive way.

For the last four years, Nicholas Heck, a rearcher at Marquette Universy, has been nng support groups for gay kids high schools.