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So I've been trying to make some gay friends, as I just moved to a new area and literally know no one, and I swear training to become an astronaut would be an easier job. The supply of gay males in the area doesn't seem to be an issue, but most seem to be motivated by their attraction to you or you being open to sex. I'm not looking for anything sexual, and I even make that clear, any relationship I find locally will be platonic now and most likely into the future. It just doesn't seem like anyone else is really on the same page. My feeling is that the reasoning stems from:
-Not being interested in developing friendships. They don't feel gay men make good friends for them, they think they already have enough friends, are DL, etc.
-If you're not sexually attractive to them then the friendship can't move forward.
Does anyone else have any opinions on why I'm having difficulty. Is it like this for most people, or is my situation unusual?
Heck, I'm a straight woman and I wish I had gay male friends. Gay men are the best of both worlds in friendship.
Gay people can be extremely picky. I know, I have the same problem. All you can do is be nice and offer friendship. If no one wants it, then it's their loss. We just had to write someone off because he's a drama queen. I tried to accept him for who he was, but he refused to accept us for who we are. It's a familiar pattern to him. This is why he has no friends. After a rude text message from him as a response to a simple "hello", he's blocked, and on his own again. Toodles.
Why are you so concerned about about forging friendships with other gay men? I can literally count the number of gay male friends I have on one hand - nearly all of my friends are straight men, and like snj90, I can't find much common ground with women - I like fashion and dislike football, that's about it.
It's way less than ten percent. More like two or three, I believe.
You would be amazed...ten percent seems like a low ball number. It's all the ones who aren't on social media/out that you don't know about. There's SOOOOO many that you just never know.
I think part of the problem is that you're in the SOUTH. Southern people tend to stratify, in social terms, in accordance with income, social class, age, race, and attractiveness. Until recently, in most of America, everybody was mostly of one race and one social class. The South has never been that way. There were the five separate social classes - just for White Protestants (Fine Old Families, Lovely Old Families, Nice People, Rednecks, and White Trash). And then, there were the "others", in other, more outre categories. Stratification and exclusion are so endemic in Southern Culture, people there don't even realize they exist. They're as much a part of life, there, as is breathing air. Air is invisible and ever-present. But unless you're taught the word, 'air', and told it exists, you don't even know it's there. Same with Social Stratification. And the bigger the Southern city, the more strata you'll find.
Straight people there tend to be born into complex social networks. They can remain within those networks at school, at college, in their Sororities/Frats, at work, at church.... Most Middle Class Southerners already have more friends/family friends/extended family than they know what to do with. When they get to Assisted Living, they tend to know the folks THERE.
Gay men in the South tend to stratify according to attractiveness, butchness, and money. While someone may be good enough to have sex with you, once or twice, he may not be good enough to be your friend. If you're not masculine enough; if you're not affluent enough, and in an 'acceptable' profession (nothing creative!!!); or if your muscles are not big enough, your face too delicate, your limbs too long, your torso too short, your pelvis too wide, your brow not prominent enough, your neck not thick enough, your jaw not square enough.... YOU'RE AN EMBARRASSMENT, and will only do as a temporary sexual convenience.
I'm from the Jackson, Mississippi 'metro'. It's probably the most miserable place in North America, for a Gay person: not because of homophobia, but because of the 'Gay Scene' there. What is subtle in Atlanta is blatant, around Jackson. Then again, Gays from Jackson say that Atlanta is even "worse" than Jackson. My Gay friends from Jackson won't even GO to Atlanta: not for shopping, not for the "River Raft whatever", not for ANYTHING. They don't even like booking trips where they have to change planes in Atlanta. "I'm not good enough for those people. And really, I'm not sure why I'd WANT TO be good enough for those people."
Two of the original members of our 'pod' of friends, whom I assembled from our Freshman, First-semester, Economics Study Group (which I also organized), are Gay. Both left Economics, and went into the dreaded "creative" fields, which, in the South, doom Gay men to being alone until the day they die. Today, having just turned 50, neither has formed a single long-term friendship outside our original 'pod'. One evolved into our 'Ad Man' (He owns a fairly large concern, offering Integrated Marketing Services). The other became "Our Decorator" (again, a sizeable concern - mostly commercial - projects scattered across the Contiguous USA). Their teams interface with each other, and, together, control the face we (the 'Pod', and our holdings) show to the world.
Because they began in Economics, and because they have, from the beginning, invested along with the rest of our group, the two have become reasonably wealthy - far wealthier than most 'creatives' should expect to become. Like my husband and me, they have been lifting weights since that Freshman Year. While other Gays were lifting beer cans in bars, those two were pumping iron and treading the StairMaster. After thirty two years, a two-hours-a-day regimen can transform a body. But, for them the transformation did not come soon enough. By the time they'd become majestic to behold (in addition to the musculature, a five-thousand-Dollar suit works wonders), they were accustomed to rejection. By the time they bought McMansions in 'posh little Madison' (https://www.city-data.com/forum/attac...es-cvs-030.jpg), they were accustomed to hearing things like, "I just want to git off. I ain't gon' kiss you or nothin'. I save my lovin' for somebody special. You're nothin' special.". As I said: what's subtle in Atlanta, is blatant, around Jackson.
And so it goes: by the time they bought concert grands, to have objects large enough in scale, for the vast voids in their never-used Living Rooms, it was too late for them to expect to host 'Gay entertainments'. Neither has a single Gay friend. (they consider each other to be 'esteemed business associates, and nothing more'). By the time they owned really expensive automobiles, they were so accustomed to being rejected, by Gay Docs and Attorneys, as "broke little creative losers", they were no longer able to see themselves in terms of being 'good enough' for other Gay men. One rude rejection after another, and they see themselves, in social terms, as being less-than-nothing.
My impression, after seeing them positively BRISTLE, when confronted with other Gay men - maybe a flight attendant, or someone selling marble mantels on Melrose, or staff on the gym floor at the Eden Roc's Fitness Center, or someone working the desk at a Ritz Carlton somewhere, or an estate manager in Southampton, is that they have come to see other Gay men as 'The Enemy'. "No, I'm still wearing Zegna. 'You-know-who' has the exclusive on Oxxford in Jackson. I hate that evil queen. Michael at Great Scott is straight. And he's nice. He doesn't give me attitude. He doesn't go into 'Roll-the-eyes Mode' every time I open my mouth. So, I buy from HIM. Zegna's their top label, but it's fine, if you go with their top line, and order their version of Escorial Wool, or a silk-cashmere blend."
They are no longer capable of even envisioning themselves as parts of Gay social networks. And they're no longer capable of forming romantic relationships with other Gay men. "I'm sorry, Gloria. But after the first quarter-century of being alone, that part of my brain just dried-up and died." So, while they're considered hot stuff, in Seattle and Southampton, they no longer have the capacity to connect, on a romantic level. "I read those studies, back in the Eighties - about how if you didn't form primary relationships in youth, you'd become unable to do so, later. But I didn't think it would happen to me."
And they're among the LUCKY ONES: at least they have 'The Pod' (and our kids, who consider them to be part of their communal 'Pack of Parents'). And at least they have money (and powerful friends, to help them defend their assets). They do not face the typical 'all alone and flat-broke' old age that is far too common for Gay men in the South.
I know another Mississippi Gay man, half-a-generation older than our group. He's a well-published author of Architectural books, and the genius behind what's good about the built environment in the South (he pioneered colorways currently emulated throughout the South, and his signage designs and gated community entrances somehow broke through what, at the time, were conceptual barriers). My people consult with him on color: he's the Grand Master Wizard, in that regard - a semi-reclusive oracle, of sorts.
His life in the South has followed the same trajectory as my friends'. "I realized, around age 28, that I was never going to get anything from the "Gay Community", but rejection and ridicule. I just started dumping all my Gay friends. And when the epidemic hit, and everybody started dying like flies, I did not shed one tear - not for Southern Gays, anyway. People in New Orleans (considered Latin American: NOT Southern) and New York, I mourn, a little. One night, I stumbled into the 'Italo Disco' part of YouTube. One song ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdEyZ3-OjU8) took me back to my Tulane days, when I was in the little inner circle of bodybuilders in the health club part of Menefee's. That made me a little farklempt. All my beautiful friends from there are dead. But that song brought them back to life, for a minute. I wasn't built and beautiful. I guess I was 'The Rich Jewish Girl with the Volvo' - a Tulane cliche. I was accepted, there - by guys so huge, we'd walk over to the Quarter, and they'd pick up models for Colt and Fox - the big guys, the the legends - guys with bodybuilding pro-cards and major titles - right there on the street. I have calendars they autographed for my friends- 'after'.
" I was good enough, in New Orleans, to hang with attorneys, engineers, opthalmic plastic surgeons... Not in Jackson, though. Here, and in Atlanta, I'm an untouchable. And on Fire Island, or dancing at The Saint, in Manhattan, I was good enough to move among the best. But not in the South. In the South, I've always been 'UNTER NULL' - lower than zero.
There's nothing wrong with YOU. Simple fact is, in Atlanta, unless you're rich enough, built enough, and manly enough, nobody is going to go out of his way, to invite you into his circle of friends. My Mississippi Gay friends consider themselves to be "living alone on a mountaintop". In a place like that, you have to become extremely self-sufficient.
I'll give my two cents. Making friends for anyone anywhere new is difficult. It's even more difficult when you don't know anyone. I supposedly have a social communication disorder, and I've always had trouble making friends. I tend to seek out people who have the same interests and / or hobbies. It's not a perfect solution, and most of the people I associate with, I usually get to the point that I only meet up with on Facebook, but it keeps me from going crazy, at least. Then, there are those few people who click with me and we remain friends until they decide to move off somewhere new and exciting.
You would be amazed...ten percent seems like a low ball number. It's all the ones who aren't on social media/out that you don't know about. There's SOOOOO many that you just never know.
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I don't need them to be certain that it's under five percent. At the very least, fewer than five percent of males are living with another man or in a relationship, or self-identify as gay. Whatever metric you want to use. Obviously, it's higher in certain cities, though. And for lesbians, the numbers are even lower.
So I've been trying to make some gay friends, as I just moved to a new area and literally know no one, and I swear training to become an astronaut would be an easier job. The supply of gay males in the area doesn't seem to be an issue, but most seem to be motivated by their attraction to you or you being open to sex. I'm not looking for anything sexual, and I even make that clear, any relationship I find locally will be platonic now and most likely into the future. It just doesn't seem like anyone else is really on the same page. My feeling is that the reasoning stems from:
-Not being interested in developing friendships. They don't feel gay men make good friends for them, they think they already have enough friends, are DL, etc.
-If you're not sexually attractive to them then the friendship can't move forward.
Does anyone else have any opinions on why I'm having difficulty. Is it like this for most people, or is my situation unusual?
If I were you, I'd start that astronaut training pronto.
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Gay men are the best of both worlds in friendship.
