So I've been out for a good three years now. Very happy, living in a place that is very accepting and where I'm completely free to be who I am around everyone. It's wonderful. Seems like an ideal situation in which to find someone special. Right? Wrong. At this point, I've been with five different guys, and been on dates with many others. Yet, each relationship or dating period has been successively shorter than the previous. I know that I'm ready for something real. In fact, I pine for it. I've tried dating guys on campus, online, through friends, etc etc. So why do I still feel so lonely? I think my main problem is this: I am almost 20, but identify with men who are older than myself because of maturity. I don't mean to sound at all arrogant, but I've always felt to be a bit of an old soul (in the good way), but I think it's hurting my love life. My solution for awhile was to look for men who were older than myself, or at least out of college and with real-world experience. However, I very much long to have someone to take care of, and in each situation with men a few years my elder, I felt a strange inferiority to them...feeling as if they had advice to offer me, like I was the one that needed caring, when I wanted to offer that to them as well. Yet I felt unable to. This could have just been the specific people I saw, but it was a trend that kept repeating. Conversely, I have yet to find a person my age that seem to have any sense of grounding. Either people have been very self-important and concerned with impressing me, or they have been huge partiers and still had a lot of youthful energy to get out, something that I don't really identify with. What this all has done, is it's started to play mind games with me. Because of each successive failure, I feel myself growing more and more concerned that each date I go on is just going to result in yet another failure because the person just isn't right for whatever reason. Of course, I'm looking for the person to spend my life with, BUT I'm more than happy to just have a mildly successful relationship for a few months. One that I feel pleased with. One that, even if it ends, I can look back on fondly and be glad that it happened. I need that confidence boost in my love life. So how to I get it? Am I being to picky? I want to keep trying, but I'm just afraid of the damage that all these short-lived, failed attempts at relationships are doing to my mind and spirit. The reason I ask is that there is yet someone else I'm interested, but I am afraid of becoming invested in the idea of something happening...any help would be appreciated.
The main problem I see here is that you already have an image of what your ideal relationship is going to look like, and the reality simply isn't measuring up. I've met some people who have a physical ideal they keep comparing their would-be boyfriends to (tall, dark and handsome), and finding them wanting. Yours is more of an emotional or "position-based" ideal, and it has the rather contradictory requirements that the boyfriend be older/"mature" but also "needing your care/nurture/attention". Given that, it's perhaps not surprising that these relationships are coming up short. Perhaps you need to stop demanding or expecting anything specific from guys. Don't try to force square pegs into round holes. Just meet guys, hang out with them. Maybe they'll be older or younger, mature or immature, needing care or self-sufficient. Doesn't matter. See if you click with them on some level. It may be the relationship dynamic you end up in is utterly different than what you thought you'd really like...and it may be that you like it just as much. Lex
"Of course, I'm looking for the person to spend my life with" You're almost 20 not almost 30 I think maybe you need to focus on what you said right after this. "I'm more than happy to just have a mildly successful relationship for a few months. One that I feel pleased with. One that, even if it ends, I can look back on fondly and be glad that it happened." That seems more sensible. Besides you don't want to look back in 40 years and think, Oh dear I spent my whole life with one person and I barely saw what the world had to offer. I mean if you found that one person to spend your life with that'd be amazing but don't spend your 20s searching for it when you'll probably regret it later. Believe me I understand that being in a life long fairytale relationship might seem like the best thing in the world but then when do you get to live. Me, I've never had anything and I look at the future wanting to be with one person one day but I want that one day to be many years from now. You're almost 20 and you live in New York, like you said you couldn't be luckier you have a great place to have an awesome life. (and between you and me we both know that you're one of the best people in the world because New Yorkers > anyone else so don't worry you'll find someone just don't rush it and that is coming from the biggest pessimist ever.)
This might sound odd but... if you're feeling like you need a relationship in order to be happy, it will be very, very hard to ever be happy, long term, in a relationship. This is one of the hardest things to learn, but it really is true. To be less cryptic... you can't love someone else in a meaningful way until you learn to really love yourself. And if you really love yourself, then you can be content and relatively happy being single. Only when you reach that stage are you likely to really find a connection that will be long-lasting. I'm also going to call BS on "maturity" as the reason you find yourself attracted to older men. Yes, I do know many people your age who've had a hard time finding people their own age that they relate to, and who aren't immature/partiers/ungrounded/flaky, but those people absolutely do exist. A lot depends on where you're looking. You're a lot more likely to find grounded, motivated, mature people in university groups or activities than at a typical bar or club. You can also find great people by volunteering at gay-centered activities (community center events, Pride planning committees, etc.) This isn't always the case, but many times, younger guys who find themselves attracted to older guys are seeking out something they didn't have growing up; very commonly this is an unconsciously desire to re-imagine a childhood or adolescence where their father was either physically or emotionally absent from their life, and by seeking out an older guy for a relationship, the (unconscious) hope is to fulfill that need. The problem is, if that is the motivation, then it rarely works, because it tends to foster a dependent or codependent relationship, which limits the younger person's ability to grow and mature. Of course, it also depends on how much older you're talking about; 2 or 3 years at your age isn't a big deal, but it's when you get into 5 or 10 years that you might want to look a little more closely at what's going on. And to be clear, it's not impossible for older/younger relationships to work, it just usually isn't very healthy in the longer term for a variety of reasons. Another factor to look at is what happens that makes the relationships end. Very often, particularly in gay relationships, the connection with your partner goes south after a couple of months because one or the other party is unconsciously afraid to be truly emotionally intimate, and it usually takes a couple of months for that level of emotional intimacy to begin to develop to its fullest extent. Often one or the other, while consciously desiring that closeness, finds it frightening at some very deep level, and so some sort of acting out occurs (cheating, picking fights, etc) that provides a "safe" way to keep from developing the deepest level of closeness. If you find that your relationships tend to end for similar reasons, this might be an issue. Or you might be attracting the same types of guys who, for one reason or another, are emotionally unavailable. I'm not sure if any of the above fit your situation, but if so, exploring those feelings and experiences is a great way to better understand yourself and begin making changes that will better help you attract and maintain healthy relationships.
The other thing to consider is that you're only 19! I don't know of many people who have had serious long term relationships with anyone - gay or straight - at 19. TV and the movies might suggest that it's happening all around you, but it isn't. LOTS of people here on EC have confirmed that they didn't enter into a serious relationship until they were in their mid to late 20s, or later. I didn't until I was 25, and as it turns out it was with someone of the wrong gender. It wasn't until I was 35 that I met my boyfriend - the person who I feel really complete with. Not til I was 35! And do I feel cheated or disappointed that it took me that long? NOOOOO!!!!!! I feel truly blessed and like the luckiest guy on earth to be with him. I know that all of my life's experiences made me who I am - and brought me to the place where I ultimately met him. And likewise for him. So reset your expectation - not only in terms of the person or the relationship, but also in terms of time. You might be 5 years away from meeting that really special guy - but you have to live life and enjoy it in the mean time. And that might mean being single for a while. That might mean having some shorter or longer relationships with some really awesome (or not so awesome) guys.
