Gay Men & Improving Our Dating Experience

Finding a boyfriend isn’t easy, but is our approach to dating all wrong?

If you’re gay, single, and reading this, you’ve probably had your share of dating mishaps and disappointments. We traverse through dating apps and emotionally unavailable men in hopes of finding love with little to no success. It can easily become a vicious cycle of downloading the apps, collecting numbers and social media handles, little to no communication, deleting the apps out of frustration, and downloading them again when feeling lonely.

With all the time and emotional labor spent on dating, have we stopped to consider if our approach to dating will get us what we want? Let’s pause the swiping for a second and explore skills that can help improve our dating experience.

Skills kneaded for better dating

Establishing a romantic dating connection and developing that into a relationship is like baking bread. Not that I’ve ever baked bread personally, but I’ve seen The Great British Baking Show, so I know the basics. Among the many ingredients and techniques required for a fulfilling relationship, the most crucial are time, emotional investment, and effort from everyone involved. Without the proper skills, dating can leave us feeling burned or under baked and with a soggy bottom.

Here are 7 skills that can help us become master bakers of dating and get us closer to finding the loaf of our life:

Photo by Lucas Vicente from Pexels

1. Acknowledge your emotional capacity for men and dating. We are driven to date by our loneliness, hope, pursuit of love, habit, heartbreak, or boredom. After several rounds of dating, we can be left feeling hurt, frustrated, lonely, and vengeful. These emotions impact how we engage with others romantically. Check in with yourself on a regular basis and take intentional breaks from dating when you’re feeling drained. Dating can be a better experience when we pour from a fuller emotional cup.
2. Avoid overwhelming yourself with options. Depending on where you live or how you approach dating, you can potentially have access to dozens of guys across dating apps and social networks. This creates a habit of engaging with multiple guys at once instead of giving ourselves the chance to get to know someone on a deeper level. The virtual revolving door of men can leave us feeling lonelier and emptier than we did before. Give yourself a chance at finding what you seek by reducing the number of guys you expose yourself to.
3. Unpack your dating baggage, and heal from it. Unchecked dating baggage and unprocessed pain can be barriers to the joy and love we seek. Signs of an unhealed dating past include comparing guys to men from our past, overanalyzing and jumping to conclusions, and expecting to be wronged by someone we just met. Healing and learning from our experiences can be uncomfortable, but doing so can save us from future dating hardship.
4. Envision the type of relationship you want. Take time to determine what you’re looking for in a guy and future relationship. We are more likely to notice those qualities when we keep them in mind, just as we are more likely to notice undesirable qualities when we only allow ourselves to focus on those.
5. Communicate honestly and clearly. Dating on apps and via texting comes with potential communication pitfalls. Tone, response times, and getting left on read are just some of the anxiety- and stress-inducing aspects of modern day dating. Practice clear and honest communication with your dates, even if others haven’t given you such courtesy.
6. Know when and how to call it quits. The truth is that most of the guys who we encounter won’t be a match or result in the relationship we want. Thus, it’s important to know when to let go and how to properly end things, especially to avoid ghosting him.
7. Appreciate how amazing gay men are. Gay men are more than just their looks, bodies, and status. We are dynamic members of society who have the capacity for greatness and love. Choose to look past the surface to see guys for the amazing people they are. If things don’t work out, wish them well and appreciate the opportunity you had to meet another awesome fellow gay man.

Dating is not easy, but with the right skills and approach, we can try to make it easier on ourselves and others. We can choose to treat ourselves and others with the compassion and respect we deserve. It’s easier to do that when we take care of ourselves, heal our wounds, and appreciate the lessons learned along the way.

Reflection Questions

• What is my current mindset toward men and dating at this time? What adjustments am I willing and able to make to it?
• Do I carry my past negative dating experiences into new ones? Have I given myself the time and space to heal and learn from them?
• What characteristics to I want in a man and potential boyfriend? What does my ideal relationship look like?

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