I'm a 22 year old gay man and just recently started accepting and appreciating my sexual preference. However, the only people who know are my mom and my boyfriend. I am in a serious relationship and I do really love him but he is the only other gay person I am associated with. I don't have any friends that are gay. I only have friends that have no clue about my preference. I want to make at least one gay friend that I can relate to and have a platonic relationship with but my boyfriend would be very suspicious and jealous. He's an amazing person but he gets upset very easily. I just want to have a social life with like-minded people that doesn't include my romantic relationship. What should I do? Any thoughts, comments, or advice would be appreciated. Sorry for the long ramble. :bang:
Hey, this is a similar situation i'm dealing with. I am an out gay man to most people, but I don't have a lot of gay friends. Just got out of a serious relationship, where I made a lot of gay friends through my boyfriend and now they're all gone and i'm back to square one, just like you. I'm not sure if you live in a city at all, or somewhere that there are gay bars, but you need to just go out to where the gay people are. Luckily, it's pride month, and the closest city to you may be having a pride parade! You don't necessarily just meet people out of the blue, so it will take some effort on your part to reach out to people. Personally, I just try to message a lot of people on ******* (A dating site, I know, but that's not all it's good for). When they respond and we hit it off, we exchange numbers and text then meet up later on. Doesn't always work out, but you can meet some really cool people that way. Once you get some gay friends, you won't want to go back to only having straight ones! It's very different to be with people who understand you fully.
Having a jealous BF is going to make meeting people more complicated. You might try making some friends with girls instead. He'll be less likely to be jealous of them (or suspicious) and lots of girls want a gay best friend. Good part is you can still ogle boys.. If you want to meet some gay male friends, you might need to drag the BF with you. maybe do a social event with a local gay group. Meet some other couples that have similar interests (wine tasting, rock climbing, working out at the gym...etc).. If you include you BF, you are more likely going to put him at ease and he'll let you go play without him and not be jealous.
The first step is to spend some time talking to your boyfriend. The jealousness/suspicion is a byproduct of insecurity, basically a deep-seated fear, probably unconscious, that somehow he's not good enough for you. That's not something that's going to go away overnight, and definitely not by your reassuring him, so usually the best (but hardest) way is to meet it head on and directly talk about his fears. It may take him awhile to own up to it, if he can do so at all. One thing that sometimes works (and can also strengthen your relationship) is to invite him to participate with you in meeting new platonic friends. The three of you meet up for coffee somewhere, if things go well, maybe you invite your new friend for a board game night, movie night, out bowling or playing laser tag or whatever sorts of things you might enjoy doing with the three of you. As your boyfriend figures out the intention is truly for friendship, he will hopefully feel more comfortable. One warning I'll give you: I've had friends around your age, in relationships, who sought out friends and made it exceptionally clear they were only interested in friendship. No matter how excruicatingly clear, unambiguous, and explicit you make it, there are a lot of assholes who won't get it and will hit on you anyway. So you need to be absolutely clear and solid in your own boundaries and communication, and prepared to directly and clearly address that as soon as it comes up. In some cases, they'll "get it" and back off and things will still be fine, but in other cases, they'll get offended, call you stuck up, or suddenly lose interest. Just be prepared for that. And sadly, sometimes, it doesn't show it's head for a month or three, so it can be really hard on you when it does, because it calls the whole friendship into question. Among my friends' experience, the ratio is probably 10:1 of people who are shady to people who are genuinely looking for friends and nothing more, but if you persevere and find the real people who are looking only for friendship, it can be a wonderful and rich contribution to your life.
I agree with Chip that you should try to work through your boyfriend's jealousy rather than around it. I've never really understood guys like that. But it seems to me that someone who loves you should want the things for you that you want for yourself. I have to admit for me the jealousy thing was (and I suppose is--I've been with my partner for 16 years and neither of us is at all that way) a deal breaker. But I hope you can work through it because it sounds like having gay friends is important to you and you shouldn't have to give that up to be with someone. On an upnote, while I'm sure many people have the experience Chip talked about while trying to make friends while in a relationship, it definitely was not my experience--even at your age. I had and made a lot of gay friends while in relationships. I had one very awkward going for coffee experience where the guy was very visibly disappointed and sort of upset when my boyfriend came up--apparently going for coffee meant something different to him than it did to me. But other than that no problems of that sort arose. The one thing I will say is that I wasn't using dating sites or apps but just meeting people out and about in life and most of them were fully out--I suspect that may be part of why I didn't have those sort of issues. I very much hope you work it out and find some gay friends. The bonds I have formed with other gay men are high up on the list of the most fulfilling things in my life. Good luck!
A sign of a healthy relationship is when both partners have friends with whom they maintain the friendship. No relationship can thrive if you must rely only on your partner for all your social needs. That is an impossible burden for anyone to bear, and it will ultimately, and ironically, destroy your relationship. When you discuss this with him, make that precise point; that you need to have outside friendships, if only to relieve him of the responsibility of being everything for you (which is impossible).
I think your feelings of wanting to meet other friends that you can relate to is very normal and thats what most people want. Im a straight woman and so of course I can relate to other straight women, not that I wouldnt be friends with someone that is gay but I wouldnt want to have (only) gay friends and no straight friends at all or only one straight friend that I was in a relationship with. You could find out where your nearest PFLAG is and you and your boyfriend start going there to meet other people, maybe you two would meet another couple. If your boyfriend is jealous and suspicious that has nothing to do with you guys being gay. My son is gay and has never had a relationship but he has many straight male friends, he doesnt have any gay male friends because he hasnt met any yet.Im sure he will meet them once he starts college. There are many amazing people that can have a problem with all kinds of things such as jealousy. If it is getting in the way of your relationship it might be best to consider taking a step back and maybe possibly ending the realationship for awhile anyway. You are only 22, gay or straight it doesnt matter dont stay in a relationship just because you think you cant find anyone else. Your boyfriend needs to address his issues with or without you.
You know, there is one thing that hasn't been mentioned but which to me kind of sticks out in your post: To me, the single greatest trick to finding gay friends is, in fact, being as out as I can manage. That's not to say I casually mention my sexuality to just anyone the first time I talk to them, but anyone who means something to me knows. Why? Because quite often, your friends have other friends. Potentially gay other friends. That they'd have never thought of introducing you to until they know you have something in common. That is quite literally how I met every single gay friend I have. Well, that and when I came out I did find out that one or two of my friends were actually gay themselves but never bothered to tell me either xD Also, I do think being out to friends has benefits even if they're straight. Even now that I'm out and have gay friends and all... the people I relate the best to are actually my straight friends. They might not know firsthand what it's like being gay, but being out to them pretty much broke any other barriers that were there between us.!
Wow thank you everybody for the sound advice! I've been wanting to talk to him about this issue for a long time but I stop myself from fear of him reacting irrationally.. Anyway, I know if I told him that I wanted to go to a gay bar to meet friends, it would not go over well. He would probably get very upset and think that I want to go and screw around on him. And if I go somewhere to meet friends and don't tell him, then it looks like I'm sneaking around. Right now our relationship is going really well but it's because we only socialize with eachother. I think that's how he wants it.
I'm in partially the same situation (but a fair amount older, and minus the part about having a boyfriend, as I've always been single) .. I have no gay friends (the few gay people I've known in the past have been co-workers. Also met someone off another gay forum just to say hi/talk a couple times). In general, atleast where I'm at I see GLBT people as being very rare. Personally I'd love to have some friends who are gay...but for -friends only- I'm deff not looking for sex or even relationships or anything like that. I pretty much see it as being impossible though due to me being sorta shy/socially awkward. And due to where I live...On top of that the fact I'm not out probably adds to it too (no wish to be out, plus even if that wasn't the case live in a place where it really wouldn't be a good idea anyway) (well in daydreams/perfect-world I'd love to have a sorta-boyfriend...basically like an asexual boyfriend / or 'love, not sex' type relationship LOL even if such a guy existed though I'm in no way ready for any sorta emotional relationship stuff)
You could always find some sort of local GLBT support group. I know that my local support groups tend to be full of bi and gay men, as opposed to lesbians (woe is me). There are lots of Internet resources, and I know that some public places like libraries and cafes carry free GLBT magazines and pamphlets.
i would love to be your friend my friends gets annoyed from me cause i call a lot and i want to see them all the time people say im a good friend but they say im annoying oh well if you dont want your BF getting jealous why not being freinds with some chick ^.* like someone else already said it would better cause your BF wont get jelouse of girls around you or something
Thanks everybody for the support. I'm starting to go to a men's coming out group. I've been meeting quite a bunch of good people to be myself around.
