so I came out to a young friend a little over a year ago, I am 48 and he is 22. He was very accepting as he is bisexual. I have told only a few people since, mostly gay guys. Anyway I have said this on other posts but I feel I have wasted my life, my youth anyway. I want to have sexual experiences with other guys but I want it to be like it would be if I were 20 something. I find guys my age unattractive including myself. I really kind of fell in love with my young friend, he has been so supportive and actually lives a distance away from me now. We talk on Skype for hours each night and we tell each other I love you all the time. We are soul mates at the wrong time in each other's lives. I have seen him hook up with other guys and I envy that so bad, I am also jealous of the other partners he ends up with. I feel as though I am stuck behind a plate glass window watching every one else exploring their own sexuality and that I am left out. I feel like I just don't fit in, as if I were trapped inside some terrible dream. The one thing I feel so strongly is love for my young friend, love like I have never felt in my life. I have talked to him about it too, I have told him how I feel about him and he understands where I'm coming from. I want to be happy but I hurt so much. I try looking on apps and am totally not into guys my age. I would rather go through life single. The love that I feel for my friend however is strong and I feel as though if we had a relationship I could come out to my straight friends and could care less what they thought. On the same note I know that will never happen so I try and cherish the friendship and almost give up hope for any kind of relationship with someone else. So I am not sure what I am looking for here but I know that I am having a hard time accepting myself as gay, I am having a hard time loving myself, and I am having a hard time trying to find happiness within myself. I am also having a hard time accepting that my youth is gone, as well as having a hard time accepting that a romantic relationship with my friend just isn't in the cards. To anyone who read this, Thank You. Please feel free to comment.
1. 40s are the new 20s. Age is but a number. Youth is mental. 2. Love is ageless. You dont have to date people your age. And there are surely plenty of 20yr olds that are into more mature men. 3. What has your friend said about you having feelings for him?
My friend hasn't had a bad reaction to me expressing my love to him I just think he would be on the losing end of it. He would love to move back close to me. We are both there for each other when we're felling down. We hug each other every time we get the chance. I think his love for me is more of a very strong friendship type of love. I would hate to lose that but I feel adventurous for romantic love. It is such a battle within me. Thank you Soundofmusic for responding. It is just nice to talk about it with someone.
Everything Soundofmusic said. I went through what you are going through. I was so depressed about missing out on my gay youth, I felt I was past my gay expiry date. I used to lie about my age a lot online, but eventually I discovered that if I was just myself, people of all ages would respond to that. Being authentic was both liberating for me and attractive to people around me. On a pragmatic note, there are lots of young guys who LOVE older guys, they crave the maturity and stability that an older man can provide. You can be hurt, but that goes for any relationship. Also, you may find that if you work to accept yourself, love yourself as a gay 48 year old hot dude that you find a wider variety of guys attractive. 30 somethings may start to appeal, and shock horror even 40-somethings! I don't think there is anything wrong with dating younger guys, you can both provide things that each other needs. On your friend, would he be prepared to have a relationship with you? Is he attracted to you physically? If not, the sad fact is that you need to move on. There will be plenty of young guys itching to date you, be exclusive and want you for you! It's true, we missed out on that magical time of youth as gay men, but why waste the time that is left? Work on loving you, embrace your "daddy" status, watch the twinks drool!
My heart breaks for you. To be head over heels for someone and not be able to fully experience that love is brutal. Trust me. I know. So what I'm about to say may sound harsh, but it is said with the best intentions. First, we would all love to re-live our youth BUT THIS TIME, on our terms, not anyone else's. But we cant. Not to say we have to "act our age," but we dont look, act or feel like these hot college guys. We just don't. I too wasn't at all attracted to guys my own age. That was until one day that I looked at myself naked in a full length mirror. I wasn't depressed. I was amused. I had been thinking I looked like a Calvin Klein model. OK, not a guy in a metamucil ad either. But it certainly was a good shot of reality. But what concerns me more is that you wrote that both of you say how much you love each other. Which is great, but I'm not sure you both look at love the same way. You say he hooks up quite alot and you are jealous. But if he loved you as much as you love him, should he be hooking up as much as that and telling you all about it? I mean you can tell me now to bug off. I might suggest you separate your questions. Can you be happy as a gay man? (Separate question) Will you find a guy who is mature enough to return your love? (Separate question) Will the two of you ever be together? And so on. What I can tell you is that once I stopped searching for the Calvin Klein model, I found the one of the greatest lovers you could hope for. And both of us were 52 when we met. My wish for you is to receive all the love you're aching to give.
I think you can totally have the experiences you feel like you missed out on and the qualitys you are looking for in a relationship now. It's not too late for you! I think it might be helpful to be clear about the qualities you are after when you feel attracted to younger guys. Maybe it's a quality of innocent exploration between you along with wanting to be with someone you feel is physically attractive. If you focus on the qualities you will be able to recognize what your after and not miss it if it comes to you in a package you are not expecting. I don't think there is any reason why you shouldn't date a younger guy if that's what you want, and... sometimes the thing we want comes a way we are least expecting and if we are attached to getting the package a certain way, we miss the gift inside. This post reminds me of when I started going bald and like you I am really usually attracted to younger guys then me. I felt like my life was over lol, and I'm over the hill and really old and unattractive. Now its 5 years later or so and I feel really young and attractive again. I have a husband who happens to be 10 years younger and we both have different strengths and things we offer to the relationship, and in some ways we are in the same places and get to learn and grow together. There is no age. Relationships are alot more about development then age. There is development that you have that someone else wants, and visa versa and then there is development that you both want and dont have and gaining that together makes a relationship exciting. Good luck and have fun.
There have been previous threads about dating younger guys. Your dating a guy who is 22 is probably not a good idea for him since he has not yet reached a certain level of maturity and he'll likely get hurt and set back in life. PatrickUK elaborates here - http://emptyclosets.com/forum/2881583-post11.html. The romantic relationship with your friend seems like a poor quick fix for the deeper issues you mention. Until you love and accept yourself and can be happy with yourself, you are not ready for a relationship with someone of any age and would most likely harm your younger friend. I feel that you would be better served trying to understand the deeper issues affecting you. (&&&)
Having gone through a period of renewed adolescence after coming out, I actually did so much of what I thought I missed out on during my first adolescence - albeit in a much safer and wiser way. My lack of self esteem and personal confidence aligned with an earlier attraction I had for younger guys. Younger guys, looking for father figures, reciprocated without any issues. And I had a lot of fun. Do I think I missed out on my youth? Actually for me not really, since I was active with guys when I was younger as well. I had just put my gay life on pause for about 20 years. But the desire to try and relive my youth was strong after coming out nonetheless. Today, while I do have a partner that is younger than me (but no where near as young as some of the guys that I was hooking up with), my roaming eye no longer seems to gravitate towards younger guys. Instead, I find more beauty and attraction in older guys and even guys older than me. This even goes to fantasizing or watching porn, where I only focus on guys that at are older at this point. My conclusion? Attraction to younger guys is correlated to where your emotional maturity, self esteem and confidence is. As my emotional maturity evolved, so did my taste in the age of guys I like. Now I do wonder, for younger guys that like older, how does their tastes evolve over time? Hmm
Thank you all for the advice and comments. I will try to get through this phase of my life but this is definitely tough to deal with.
There is a quote from Maya Angelou that is worth bringing here: SiennaFire mentioned this above and it is worth repeating. You cannot truly love another, nor be loved by that other, unless and until you find a way to love yourself, this is as cliché as it gets, but it is no less true. Of course, just saying this all by itself is no help at all. So a few pointers are in order. You mentioned above that you could never come out unless you were in a loving relationship. May I suggest that part of loving yourself means living with integrity. Why do you feel the need to enter into a relationship in order to come out? That is quite a burden on a relationship! And what if, for whatever reason you change your mind? You would be a closeted partner, which is a very difficult situation to be in. Decide to come out on your own, the benefits of doing that are immense, first, you will have conquered a major fear, that builds incredible self-esteem, second, you will be known for who you are, this has a tendency to bring others to you, because they know you. The time that has passed is gone, there is absolutely nothing you can do about that, what you can change however is the way you see yourself and others. Before you can see the attractiveness of others, it would be wise if you could honestly be a little kinder to yourself and the age that you are and see what is attractive about you! I have met people who at first glance are less than attractive, but invariably, as I get to know them, in real 3-dimensional life, their appearance or rather, my perception of their appearance, changes with time. To love requires knowledge, so you need to first know, respect, care for, and love yourself, so that eventually you can have a "shirt" to offer to someone.
