Contrary to popular belief, gay men have a biological clock too. It doesn’t just revolve around our heterosexual counterparts, some of whom believe that you have to be married and have kids by a certain age. We feel it too, although the results of what we think we are up against can either be exactly the same or quite the opposite compared to what they are going through.
Facts are facts for me as of October 4, 2020: I’m overweight and single with no real dating potential right now and zero urge to want to drop the pounds (thanks Seamless and Uber Eats). I have had multiple opportunities to hang out with a variety of good looking and interesting guys this past year for which I have not actively pursued for a myriad of reasons. The gym is down the street from me and has opened back up in recent days. I just walk past it and smile when I see a hot guy breaking a sweat inside.
I’m getting to a point here. Being single and fat, especially in the gay community, can be largely seen as something negative. The fat part is what I’m focusing on here as the weight issues that plague our world have existed way before I ever stepped foot into a gay bar in New England sixteen years ago.
There’s also social media where your friends and acquaintances are constantly posting updates about getting engaged, married or having kids. At this point you’d think I would have the urge to feel the same given how Facebook/Instagram can set things off in your head with all these repeated life announcements that you are expected to go through soon.
Perhaps Covid has changed my mindset, or maybe its been here all along. But at this moment I’m still content with being the size that I am and not having a boyfriend or even a consistent f**k buddy. I’ve never been one to believe that someone completes you and I’ve been a bigger guy all my life so having a six pack will more than likely never happen. Again, these are all things that are fine in my eyes.
Covid has made us rethink so much ever since it came into our lives many months ago. The amount of time I spent with myself, not because I wanted to but because I had to for my own health reasons, reinforced what I’ve known all along: I’m enough.
So many friends of mine constantly talk with me about the insecurities they face in this community that go beyond size and singledom. There’s still a ton of problems, especially with the racist men existing within our world (that was definitely on display after George Floyd’s passing). Let’s also factor in the amount of shaming that goes on in our community albeit kink, HIV and much more. I still wonder why we call ourselves a “community” when there’s so much negativity happening within it.
Millions of us watch RuPaul’s Drag Race where the show’s host ends every program with the following: “If you can’t love yourself how are you going to love anybody else?” We all respond with an, “Amen,” but it’s a quote that really has quite a lot of depth to it if you really understand what Ru is trying to get across.
You can be fat. You can be single. You can be HIV positive. You can be anything that parts of society, gay or not, will judge you on. But at the end of the day you have to love you and ALL OF YOU so that those naysayers spitting negativity your way will just be white noise on your journey of self-discovery.
That last part sounds corny, but it has rang true for me and so many people I know. Be your authentic self and stop giving a crap what the world thinks.
This is the opinion of one contributing writer and not that of Instinct Magazine or other contributing writers.