This afternoon, I got the umpteenth rejection. Once again, it was from a gay cis-man. I was expecting it, I had a gut feeling he didn’t return my feelings of physical attraction, but still I needed to clarify explicitly.
We’ve been friends for only a couple of months, having met through a common climbing buddy, and we connected really fast because of all the things we have in common: apart from both being climbers, we’re also both in hard STEM, both ride motorcycles, both enjoy getting out on the trails to run or hike and tend to have adventurous characters. And on top of all this, we’re both openly queer, which isn’t easy to find in general and even less in STEM and climbing.
Despite my expecting the rejection and needing the clarification, the fact that he doesn’t feel physically attracted to me and that he only wants a platonic friendship with me (while he’s going out on dates with other gay men) really hurts me on multiple levels. There are many layers to my pain and disappointment, and I feel the need to unpack them here.
The first, of course, is the pang to my ego: the more superficial pain coming from knowing that someone doesn’t find me attractive or handsome (while he’s talking about so many other men as “beautiful” or “handsome”).
Then, there are the deeper levels:
– Firstly, it’s yet another cis gay man who doesn’t find me physically attractive, so that undermines my own gender identity and confidence in my gender expression/presentation because, my reasoning goes, if cis gay men don’t find me physically attractive, then it must mean that I don’t look enough like a (cis) man, that I’m not “masculine enough”. And this hurts and rattles my (gender) identity at a deep level.
– Then, there’s probably, once again, the pain of a rejection from a cis man (independently from the sexual aspect) that compounds old wounds from the neglect and abandonment and rejection I experienced from my own father (a cis man), and also adds to the sense of neglect that I’ve been feeling from many of my cis-het buddies who don’t keep up the friendship/connection with me (thus making me do all the work in our relationships).
– Also, this gay climber is a decade younger than I, and I’m sure part of me is attracted to men who are so much younger because I’m trying, or wishing, to recapture years that I lost when I couldn’t be my full boy self more openly.
– And last but not least, there’s my insatiable yearning for an adventure buddy who could also be a sexual/more-than-platonic partner: I had this with my sailing buddy a quarter of a century ago, my first “great love”. It was wonderful and I’ve never been able to find it again with anyone else. With this gay climber I thought it might be possible because, as with my sailing buddy many years ago, we had so much in common, including our adventurous characters. From the things I’ve done and said with this gay climber over the two months that we’ve been hanging out, I’m sure we both would have enjoyed going on climbing trips and adventures together — to a small extent, we already did some playful, adventurous outings even with the limited time available in these past weeks. I’m sure it could have developed into becoming full on “adventure buddies”. And, as with my sailing buddy so many years ago, there’s a complementarity in our approaches to adventuring: like my sailing buddy, this gay climber tends to be playful and lighthearted in his way of going into adventures while often also needing some prodding, whereas I’m a little more serious or responsible, and I’m usually happy to take the initiative. Generally, I need a follower to inspire me to take the lead, whereas he’s usually an enthusiastic follower; but then, sometimes, we also swap roles. I need that. So when we started to get to know each other and I sensed this dynamics between us, it felt wonderful to me, like I had finally rediscovered a long-lost treasure, both a long-suppressed part of myself and a type of relationship that I was longing for and thought I’d never have again.
For a moment there, it — he — felt like a breath of fresh air in my life, and one I could really use.
So now, with his rejection of me, I feel that I’ve lost that dream again, too. And given my age, on top of the fact of being trans/nonbinary and gay and aro-ace (all of which reduces my “dating pool” drastically), I feel I’ll never find anyone again that checks so many boxes: queer, STEM, climbing, adventuring, lightheartedness/playfulness complementing me and lightening me up.
This is making me feel terribly sad: dark and heavy and old (on top of unattractive and “not masculine enough”). Hopeless. And envious of this gay climber who, a decade younger than I (& cis), still has his entire, promising adult life ahead of him, while the best part of mine is behind me, lost and gone forever.
The Little Prince and the Fox 