Why Gay Dating Is So Hard

“Gay dating is just so easy and so fun!” is not a phrase you hear very often. I’m a dating and relationship coach for queer men, and I can explain why.

I’m 37. Of my straight friends, I’d say 80% have settled into long-term relationships by now, most with mortgages, kids or both.

Of my gay friends, it’s the other way round — more like 80% are single, and maybe 20% are in long-term relationships.

And sure, lifetime monogamy is not the only way to live a happy and fulfilled life. Being single has its advantages. But many gay and queer men do long for long-term connections but consistently struggle to find them.

So why are so many gay men so f**king single?

There are lots of reasons, but as I explain in my book Boys Who Like Boys, most fall into three categories. Let’s talk about them.

Men often suck at relationships

I’m sorry, don’t shoot the messenger, but if you’ve ever had one bad experience too many and yelled “Urgh, men are trash!”, you weren’t entirely wrong.

Whether gender roles are a social construct or not (they are and aren’t), they exist. And generally speaking, men are socialized to compete and control. We often grow up learning to put our needs before others. Especially in Western cultures, we grow up learning we can solve our own problems, we should bottle up our emotions, and we don’t need to rely on anyone.

It’s easy to learn that to live any other way is not “manly,” and to be an unmanly man is somehow wrong.

Of course, many of us have a more subtle relationship with our masculinity than Bruce Wayne or Ghengis Khan. Queer men — who, by loving other men, are already breaking some traditional definitions of masculinity — don’t necessarily feel as boxed in by masculine norms as many straight men do. 

But most queer men still wrestle with these issues. And when lots of us learn that being “a man” means avoiding emotional vulnerability, seeing compromise and collaboration as weakness, or just thinking you can navigate life alone, that does impact gay dating and how we connect with each other.

Gay trauma stays with us

Gay men often throw the word “trauma” around like it’s going out of fashion, but to be clear:

Living as an LGBTQ+ person in a still homophobic society is traumatic.

In short, when you grow up in a society that’s still deciding whether it’s cool with queer people or not, you pick up a ton of emotional baggage that absolutely affects your daily life, including your close relationships.

Straight privilege is being able to spend your teen years building relationships with the kind of partners you want. Most queer people don’t get that. We have to fight an extended battle even just to figure out who we are. We learn from a very young age to filter and control how and when we are ourselves to avoid hatred, rejection and even physical harm. (That’s specifically what creates trauma.)

And sure, you might have been comfortably out for decades, but the harsh truth is that even once you’re out of the closet, the trauma of the closet partially stays with you:

Compared to straight men, queer men are way more sensitive to rejection, struggle to be assertive, and often still find it hard to know how they feel and what they want. (Years feeling like who you are and what you want is invalid or wrong will do that to you.)

As a relationship coach I see firsthand how that means breakups for gay men can be extra devastating emotionally, how gay men seriously struggle to communicate directly and openly, and how many of us stay in relationships that aren’t fulfilling our needs, often for years.

The internet is the worst

Last but not least, there’s the digital elephant in the room: the internet has completely changed the way we all connect with each other, and not always for the better.

In short, the internet has made it possible to connect with too many people. It’s called the Paradox of Choice: when given too many options, we spend way more time thinking and optimizing instead of just fucking choosing something. That is: more options is not necessarily better.

In practice, it means we’ll go on a date, it’s not perfect (because no one and no relationship is perfect) so we’re already back on the apps on the way home hoping that the next date will be “the one.”

We also treat people differently online that we ever would in real life. It’s much easier to be mean to someone when you’re talking through a screen. To most people, being blocked or ghosted without explanation is far more hurtful than being rejected by someone in a bar saying “It was nice to meet you, have a great night!” then walking away.

Add to that our general sensitivity to rejection as queer people, and spending even an afternoon on the apps can really hurt your mental health. It’s no wonder that at best, most of us have a love-hate relationship with even the more wholesome apps.

Yes, online dating has made it easier and safer for gay men — and all queer people — to connect with each other. But it’s also made dating more stressful and superficial, and made us feel more like throwaway commodities than people. So it’s no wonder many of us hate it.

So what, I should just give up on dating?

So no, gay dating is not easy.

But with the right tools and insights, gay dating does get much easier:

You can get past the baggage of being raised as men and the baggage of being queer in a society not built for us. You can make the internet work for you, not the other way round. And you can — wait for it — still find great ways to meet offline.

There are plenty of great men out there who have a healthy relationship with their masculinity and a good handle on their emotional baggage. There are plenty of great men out there who want what you want too — whether it’s something casual or longer-term.

The key is making sure you truly understand what you want — and that you’re emotionally ready to receive it. And the key is finding the right ways to put yourself out there to attract what you want.

Finding ways to get better at gay dating is the main focus of my book, Boys Who Like Boys. It’s also a big part of my one-to-one coaching work.

And I can tell you: whoever you are, wherever you’re from and whatever you want, what you want is out there. It isn’t always easy to find, but there are plenty of gay men who do build happy and fulfilling lives with happy and fulfilling relationships. 

Queer love is always possible. With the right tools and bit of right-time-right-place luck, you will find it. Plenty of gay men do every day.