Ask HN: How to hack relationships if you're gay?

Work on cultivating your interest in other people - literally make an effort to figure people out, what makes them tick, how they became who they are or did something they find interesting. You'll have to make an effort to start small talk conversations but don't put pressure on yourself for them to blossom into friendships, that's something that happens but itself later on - and I'm sure it will happen. People like a good listener! I find fursuits a bit baffling, but certainly not boring, so don't be so hard on yourself.

It's good to have a solid job but it's good to maintain a vibrant outside life too - if you're working so much that you don't have time to make friends then you need to tweak your work-life balance a bit, not least because it might be gradually lowering your productivity.

Hahaha :3

I don't think I'll make it to FC this or next year. Maybe Megaplex in Kissimmee.

My FA is InfoSecFurry if you or anyone wants to bark my way.

It sounds like you want a relationship and you're not doing anything about it that works to get one.

There's currently no technology that lessens the fundamental barrier to meeting new people: fear. Online dating, singles events, subculture meetups -- if you see them as a guarantee of some people meeting you, they're snake oil. If you see them as what they are, just opportunities for you to overcome your fear of meeting new people, they'll bear (...) fruit.

Maybe you consider yourself quite outgoing and "not afraid" of talking to people. Well, the fear that stops you meeting new people who you end up with will get you in other ways: fear of intimacy, fear of believing someone likes you.

I bet, after you get into a relationship and you reflect on all the times you hung out with other people, you'll gradually realise there were plenty that liked you, and you just didn't see it, or act on it, at that time.

Whenever I break up, and I want someone new, I get out there and talk to people. A lot of people. Start conversation. This trains you into a certain energy level of relating to strangers, which then carries over into your interactions that are going to matter. The barrier of starting a conversation with people will seem less, because you'll be used to it more.

Also, you might be in a city which doesn't work to be gay. Some cities are more anti gay, go to one more permeable.

If you really don't want to take any effort, and you just want someone else to do all the work, then at least you have to give them an opportunity: get out there and do something where you meet a lot of people. Some of them will try to get close to you.

At the end of the day tho, the thing which works best is to be yourself. So maybe that work on yourself you've been delaying, might be time to get to it. The reason is because when you're yourself the people you meet and connect with are right for you, and also what you offer them is truly you. So if you don't even really know who that is supposed to be at this point, work that out. So maybe get the relationship with yourself first.

Yeah 3:

Being gay is kind of terrible. Especially if you want a committed monogamous relationship.

Do you read Dan Savage? http://www.thestranger.com/columns/savage-love

Your new city probably has a gay counseling phone line. If it doesn't, you need to move somewhere that does. You're the reason volunteers spend their time on those phones, so call them. They're gay, and they know where gay people hang out in your part of the world.

> Has anyone else found themselves in this situation? How did you get out of it?

By joining the university choral society, persistence, and a fair bit of luck. You'll probably do it differently.

> None of my friends are gay, nor do they know any gay people.

Let's do some probability theory. Trait X is randomly distributed across 10% of the population. (You can cut the Kinsey scale at different places. It's a round number, and it's true for some plausible definition of "gay".) The likelihood of your assertion is around P=0.9^(N²), where N is the typical number of friends you or one of your friends has. Go run hoc.

Case 1: P is above, say, 5%. This is the easy case. You could be right, and you just need to get out more. Stop reading HN and do it.

Case 2: P strains credibility. You might have to replace "are" with "say that they are". This is the hard case, because meeting more people who say that they're not gay won't help, and you need some different friends. A few things to consider at that point:

Things like online dating, and events where 30% of people are gay, make it sound like you're still at least partly in the closet. If you fix that, you can start going to pubs and parties where 99% of people are gay, and they're 99% sure that you are. That makes everything much easier. For one thing, closeted guys in their late 20s aren't boyfriend material.

Coming out is like standing on a diving board: make sure there's something safe to land on, take a deep breath, then take a step where you can't step back. The feelings of exhilaration, existential choice, and not standing on anything solid, are pretty similar in both cases.

People tend not to be out at work. Therefore pretty well all sane gay men have a significant life apart from work. That has some negative career implications, but it also has some positive ones.

Good luck.