It doesn’t matter if you’ve had more boyfriends than Taylor Swift or can’t hold a man down past the houderves, why is it that every time the next guy comes along; whether it’s for a matter of minutes or a matter of months, we always believe there’s a chance that he’s The One?
It could be something as simple as a birthday wish on your Facebook wall or more intricate like three intense days of infatuation, but for a split-second at least, you’re convinced that he’s different from all the other men.
Is it because – as fulfilling as we pretend meaningless sex with random strangers is – we’re all secretly hoping to fall in love, buy His & His robes before moving out to a country manor and leaving this sometimes dismal scene behind? Or does the reasoning run somewhat deeper than that?
Gay men are sometimes perceived (by themselves as well as others) to have had tougher lives than the average person; between bullying, rejection, living secret lives, coming out, depression, loneliness, drug addictions, commitment issues, and all the other baggage that stereotypically comes with being homosexual. Does having a husband make the issues disappear, or are we simply bouncing between band-aid boyfriends to make us feel more complete?
Surely, one prominent desire to be partnered comes from a dissatisfaction from one’s own life. The dead-end job, monotonous social life and lack of something to look forward to can certainly be numbed by somebody to keep you warm (and horny) in the colder months. But is it really a healthy ideal to search for a man when your resentment comes from other things? Why don’t we postpone the man hunt, until we’ve become happy as our single selves?
After all, we’ve all heard the phrase: “Nobody can love you, until you love yourself.” It’s not technically true, but if we are content before falling in love, perhaps it’s more likely to last. Rather than finding ourselves swiping through Tindr the following week. There are then, of course, those that chose to ignore that mantra and instead prefer the thought that “You’re nobody until somebody loves you.” I for one, certainly know more than a handful of people who would be utterly lost as a singleton… Despite moving from one failure of a boyfriend to the next. Bitches literally have palpitations at eating lunch alone.
Then there are those, quite possibly the most common type, who spend long periods of their life single with each new boy who likes their latest Instagram snap or or sends them a mouth-watering dick dick, becoming the potentially new love of their life.
Maybe we were, as The Velvet Rage states, so brainwashed into believing that being gay was wrong that we constantly seek validation? After all, what’s more validating than having somebody want to spend the rest of their life with us? Or maybe most gay men just actually cherish the thought of having only sexual partner for the rest of their lives (lol).
Of course, it takes no psychologist nor brainiac to know that outlook on relationships, and reasons behind feelings vary for every person. But maybe rather than convincing ourselves that the next big love is just a right-swipe or ‘woof’ away, we should correct the imbalance that leaves us craving it.
And then when it doesn’t work out because he wants to go out in East and you wanna go out in South, or you have extremely conflicting views on what constitutes a good movie, we won’t be consuming half as much wine getting over them.
Maybe. Maybe not.
