There’s a reason that nine out of every ten songs you hear are about love. We’re consumed by it, obsessed with it, we seek out more and more of it and when we’re done doing it, we go back for thirds.
But as obsessed as we are with L-O-V-E, is it harder to find when we’re L-G-B-T? How do we navigate that route and come out on the other side with a mate for life? Acknowledging a few simple facts will help us find the way.
Straight people have several factors in their favor when it comes to dating. Take the numbers game for instance: Atlanta’s LGBT population is 12.8% according to a study by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy. “Everywhere straight people go they’re in a majority heterosexual environment,” says Will Mahan, Director of The Equality Counseling Center. “Whereas gay people only have a couple dozen places like that, even in a major city like Atlanta.”
There’s also the fear factor gay people have when showing interest in someone out in public who may or may not be gay. “The most straight guys have to worry about is good old-fashioned rejection,” says Mike Alvear, author of the gay dating book “Meet the Hottie in the Corner.” “A lesbian or gay guy could literally suffer physical harm for simply flirting. That’s a huge barrier.”
Many of us justify our loneliness by blindly subscribing to stereotypes about the LGBT community: nobody dates, nobody wants to be in a relationship, everybody is in the bars just looking to hook up.
“That’s not what I’ve seen from my clientele,” Mahan says. “There’s a lot of good, decent people out there looking to date and be in a relationship. But people quit trying because they have this perception that there’s nothing else out there for them.”
Pay attention to those dinner conversations or wall posts where someone complains about how every gay guy just wants sex. Friends then chime in echoing the same sentiment, so there’s obviously an audience out there searching for something more than a night in the sack.
According to some, it just comes down to biology. “Of course gay men want to hook up!,” says Alvear. “The only reason we have more sex than straight guys is because straight women won’t let them. It’s not because we’re gay, it’s because we’re men.”
The peer-reviewed journal Evolutionary Psychology seems to back up the notion of the differences in promiscuity between men and women. “According to one particular study,” Equality Counseling’s Amy Bryant says, “men prefer quantity while women prefer quality.”
An unfortunate byproduct of preferring quantity over quality when it comes to gay men’s sex lives, especially when not playing it safe, is the HIV virus. It’s the last thing gay men want to talk about even though it is still a substantial issue in the dating world.
“I think most of us live in a fantasy world where no one has HIV,” Alvear says. “That explains why no one seems to ask anybody if they are [positive] or not.”
Many HIV-positive people are afraid to address it because of the fear of rejection, while those who are HIV-negative assume the burden of disclosure is on the pos person. The bottom line is that the conversation must be had no matter who is bringing it up. And it must be had before any sexual contact is made.
HIV is not nearly as large an issue for lesbians as gay men. “Lesbians are largely unconcerned with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases,” says Bryant. “However, women who have sex exclusively with women should be aware that they are not immune from sexually transmitted diseases.”
But these are all speed bumps in the gay dating world, not roadblocks.
The bottom line is that for each of us to find the right guy or girl, we need to do something most of us are very familiar with: come out—not just out of the closet, but out of our element.
“Nothing is going to happen at home. You have to go out, you have to be social,” says Alvear.
“If you keep going to the same place every Friday night, you’re going to meet the same people,” says Mahan. “Cast a wider net, try different things and shake things up a little bit.”
Volunteer, worship, get involved with a political group or a sports team, join a networking group like AEN or AGLCC. If you enjoy roller skating in all denim on Thursdays at 2:00PM, there’s bound to be a group of gays in this city with a Facebook page devoted to the same thing. Use our differences with the straight world to our advantage.
However for all the differences we have both within and with those outside of our community, we all tend to make the same mistakes—like settling.
“Unfortunately many people often, regardless of their gender or sexual identity, sacrifice their potential for finding the right person with whom to share their lives for finding someone to fill in the loneliness,” says Bryant.
So settling for the wrong man or woman is a universal mistake, because loneliness doesn’t disriminate. But regardless of the mistakes that we make in our love lives, we’re all looking for the same things.
“It’s the basic things,” says Mahan. “You want someone who treats you well, that you’re attracted to and has common interests in things that you enjoy.”
When we strip away the barriers and excuses and put ourselves out there, maybe we’ll see the search for the right man or woman is simpler than it seems.
