I’ve written before about some of the disasters in my early attempts at dating. In some ways those disasters seemed worse than usual because most of them happened in my late twenties and early thirties. I didn’t date much in high school, and what dating I did do was with the gender I wasn’t actually attracted to, and while some things about navigating relationships are universal, there is a big difference between the awkwardness of trying to learn how to make things click with someone you’re attracted to, rather than the awkwardness of trying to make yourself feel desire for someone when there wasn’t any underlying physical attraction at all.

For a while I thought things were going so badly simply because I was playing catch-up. Other people had made these kinds of mistakes as teenagers, whereas I hadn’t. Other times I wondered if maybe the cliches about most gay men not wanting commitment had a grain or more of truth (this despite the fact that I was also hanging out with gay couples who had been together for many years). I wondered if I’d just had bad luck and kept meeting guys who only wanted a fling.

And then, eventually, I had to admit the truth: that the only thing all the failed relationships had in common was me, and I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong… Continue reading Love is in the bear →