1. You need to be in a healthy relationship with yourself before starting one with someone else.
To be in a healthy relationship, you need to first be comfortable in your own skin. There should not be feelings of guilt or shame for being gay. Instead, there should be a quiet confidence in your own self-worth.
Self-knowledge is the most important kind of knowledge. And for most people, it is not an end state, but a continuing journey. We each of us grow and change with the passage of time, and it's important to love the you that is you.. As Carrie Bradshaw said in Sex and the City, "the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself."
Not everything in your life has to go swimmingly before you start dating seriously, but you should have some idea of how you want your life to unfold. You need not necessarily have any concrete plans per se, but you might want to evaluate your existing relationships with the people important in your life, or your career perhaps, or your values, your priorities, or any combination of the above.
Finally, it is important to retain your identity as an individual even when you are in a relationship. As the sex therapist Esther Perel speaks about in her TED talk, the modern committed relationship is a contradiction; we have to reconcile our fundamental need for security, comfort and permanence from our partners, against the opposite fundamental need for surprise, mystery and novelty. It is only when we retain our identities as individuals that we preserve that erotic space which is so important for sustaining long term committed relationships.
2. You don't necessarily have to come out, but it certainly helps...a lot.
We talked about this previously in another post. Read it here.
3. Step outside your comfort zone.
The confidence that you will gain from setting a challenging goal for yourself, surmounting obstacles and finally achieving what you set out to do will help immeasurably, both in dating and in all other aspects of your life where you must risk something to get something.
Dating and relationships are about putting yourself out there; they are as much about risk-taking as anything because you risk rejection, disappointment and heartbreak when you expose your heart.
Forcing yourself to step outside your comfort zone will challenge preconceptions you had about yourself, allow you to gain new self-knowledge, and bolster your self-confidence. This new-found self-confidence will sustain you when you encounter the inevitable rejections and disappointments that are part and parcel of dating and relationships.
Some examples of how you can step outside your comfort zone and challenge yourself:
- Finish a marathon.
- Take up an extreme sport.
- Volunteer for a community organization.
- Learn a new skill.
- Start a personal project that requires dedication and commitment.
4. Invest in yourself.
It is much easier to attract someone worthwhile to be in a relationship with if you yourself are attractive.
Attractiveness is not solely physical. If you don't have the looks, work on your body. If you have neither the looks or the body, rely on your charm, your personality, your wit. The good news is that each of these aspects of attractiveness can be improved.
In general, the male body only looks good when it is muscled. While some guys are blessed with better genetics, it is a biological fact that muscle is the most adaptable of tissues. It is both a curse and a blessing that for a man to look good, he needs to exercise. A curse because there are no gains without effort, a blessing because it is entirely democratic and equitable; everyone has to exercise and one gets rewarded based on exactly what one puts in.
This doesn't mean that every gay man should live at the gym. Neither does getting a good body necessarily entail going to the gym. It does mean eating sensibly, incorporating regular physical activity, such as sports, into your lifestyle, and having reasonable expectations, both of yourself and others.
As for the aspects of attractiveness that are not skin-deep, these can be cultivated as well. Read widely. Think. Develop ideas and opinions. Have a point of view. Learn new skills. Practice the art of good conversation. Be interesting, because that will hold the attention of potential mates long after your looks and body have faded.
5. Prioritize what you're looking for in a relationship.
Part of the process of dating is figuring out what's important to you in a relationship and what are things that are negotiable and just nice-to-haves. The physical aspects are important, but it's not helpful to have impossible standards, especially if you yourself can't meet those standards.
Avoid the checklist mentality. It's not about trying to avoid being picky. Being picky is good. Rather, be picky about the right things.
6. Don't wait for the right guy to appear in front of you. Create opportunities for yourself. Make things happen.
Too many single people, straight or gay, bemoan that there are no good guys/girls out there.
Waiting for something to happen when you "least expect it", relying on serendipity to deliver the guy of your dreams to you...these are not reality-based ideas. In short, simply hoping is not a viable strategy.
If you're going to find someone, you have to put yourself out there. Speed dating, online dating, asking friends for introductions, participating in activities and events, these are all ways to increase your chances of meeting someone worthwhile.
7. Be prepared to work at any relationship you get into.
Relationships are hard work. Don't expect that you and the guy you're dating are an item after just a handful of dates. The two of you will have to put in the hard work of getting to know each other beyond just the initial phase of attraction.
Even if the two of you have established a certain level of comfort with each other, it takes a long time for love and intimacy to develop beyond the initial flush of passion. And that takes commitment, solid communication, compromises, empathy and a shared sense of destiny.
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