Gay Loneliness: Why We’re Lonely and How to Deal With It

Something I’ve noticed recently is how lonely so many gay men feel at the moment. This kind of isolation is by no means new, but it seems to be especially bad right now.

Here’s how I rationalize this — and, crucially, what we can do about it:

Loneliness Is Part of the “Gay Experience”

For starters, being queer has always been an isolating experience.

Across the world, we’ve made a lot of progress on LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance, but most queer people still feel othered, or at least that our acceptance can’t be taken for granted.

What that means in practice is we’re constantly questioning when, where and how much we can be ourselves. This is emotionally exhausting, yes. But it’s also isolating: we feel emotionally distant from others when we can’t be authentic around them.

To avoid potential judgment or rejection, we get used to lying about our weekend plans to a straight co-worker, or just saying “no” when our barber asks us if we have a girlfriend. We do that for our safety and comfort, but it still takes a psychological toll. It still feels isolating.

So OK, we might not have the basic acceptance we’d like from mainstream society. But you’d think we’d at least be able to get it from each other, right?

Right!? (/sarcasm)

Gay Men Often Aren’t Great at Supporting Each Other

As you won’t need me to tell you: the gay community is often a really terrible place to find acceptance and support.

In short, a lot of us internalize all the isolation and invalidation we feel from mainstream society, then weaponize it against each other.

This is basically why gay men have a reputation for being cliquey, cutting and superficial:

We coalesce into tribes, make ourselves feel better by excluding people who don’t fit whatever narrow criteria we’ve decided make you acceptable, and become skilled at putting others down to mask our own insecurities.

And sure, not every gay man is like that. But male culture plays its part here too: whether it’s genetics, psychology or social conditioning, men are often more individualistic and less empathetic than women.

In short, we don’t value community or giving and receiving support as much as we really should.

The result is that most gay men don’t feel part of a community. Many gay men don’t have any gay friends at all, and they’ve been hurt by other gay men enough that they’ve given up trying to find them.

Other gay men find conditional acceptance in cliques based on having money, a hot body, or whatever. But these friendships are often isolating in their own way because everyone in them senses they’re being valued for what they (temporarily) have, not who they fundamentally are.

Rejecting a heteronormative standards but just replacing them with homonormative ones (abs, money, as much sex as possible) also feels isolating if you’re just chasing those things for others’ approval.

All that is to say, this has created a culture where gay men are emotionally guarded around each other and often actively suspicious of each other.

We might be physically nearby, as friends, partners, f*ckbuddies even, but as a group, we’re pretty terrible at genuinely opening up to each other, never mind relying on each other.

The Internet Has Made Our Loneliness Even Worse

And then, the sh*tty cherry on the cake — and why gay loneliness feel especially acute right now — is the internet.

It’s that social media and the apps promised easier connections, but they often just provide pseudo-connection that, in a lot of cases, makes us feel more depressed, anxious and isolated from each other.

Instagram and Tinder did not create superficial gay culture, but they definitely amplified it: what gets attention online is (more often than not) what you look like, not who you are.

So to get matches, followers, whatever, we’re incentivized to hit the gym or the botox clinic over a therapist’s couch or gay men’s support group. We’re rewarded in the short term for looking good, while the personal qualities we most need from each other right now — kindness, empathy and support — get ignored.

And this is my hunch about why our isolation seems to be peaking right now:

We’ve been perpetually online so long that we’re burnt out by it, we’re craving deeper and more authentic connections, but we don’t quite know where to find them yet.

And actually, that gets me to the potential solutions:

They’re not necessarily quick fixes, but together they can go a long way to helping us end the epidemic of loneliness we’re feeling right now.

How to Deal with Gay Loneliness

The first is to start prioritizing in-person connections more.

Actively try to see the friends you do have (queer or otherwise) in person more. Try to make your social life more in-person than via social media or apps. Make an effort to be in in-person queer spaces — events, book clubs, hiking clubs, whatever — more if you can.

I know this is often easier said than done, especially depending on where you live.

The second is to start prioritizing more fulfilling online experiences over the draining ones.

For example, I find having conversations on Threads much more fulfilling than on most of the apps these days, where people seem to be especially fed up. And if you can, join one of the growing number of online men’s groups or events designed to facilitate more authentic connections.

The third is to work on your side of the fence, hun. By which I mean: resolve the emotional baggage you’ve picked up by being gay in a world not build for you.

If you have the means, an empathetic coach, counsellor or therapist is the best solution here — they’ll help you become aware of your emotional patterns, overcome the ways you’re not helping yourself, and help you make choices that serve you better in future.

The fourth is that we just have to start showing up for each other better. We have to give other gay men the acceptance and community we really crave from other gay men.

We have to lead with acceptance and curiosity over judgment and avoidance. We have to lead with “Here’s an interesting person to get to know” over “Urgh, that bitch looks so boring and judgmental.”

We have to listen to each other better. Part of the problem is that men often aren’t good listeners — and we often jump in with advice before empathy.

What a lot of us want most is to feel heard and understood, not to have others solve our problems for us. We want to feel like the people we’re close to will support us while we solve our problems for ourselves.

The past decade might have felt like it belonged to gay men with abs, but the next decade belongs to gay men with empathy, generosity and a belief in true community.

I absolutely believe that.

We have the power to make replace gay loneliness with gay community and connection. And I hope we will.