It's strange to me that we're gay, and forced to deal with all that entails, yet we are hardwired, as all human beings are, to seek companionship. If we could turn off all want and need of connection to someone who validates us through their company and emotional attachment, being gay would not be an issue. We could go about our lives, as so many religious fanatics and homophobic bigots would have us do, without acting on the impulses of our sexual orientation. We could get a dog and forget about it.
But, alas, we are unable to do that. We are compelled to seek the warmth and the love of someone special, because that's what we do, leading to no end of challenge and heartbreak.
Because we intrinsically hate ourselves--given what our parents do to us and what our culture does to us--we don't have the ability to give ourselves what we most crave, and we are unable to accept it from anyone in a constructive and mutually satisfactory way. Instead, we spend the rest of our lives digging out from under the pile of shit that's been heaped on us, and, along the way, through no fault of our own, we mess up countless friendships and relationships, because we don't believe we deserve them. Many people reach out to us, but we, introverted, removed, and suspicious, cut them off in many ways.
The trick is to realize it's perfectly fine to be gay; to make peace with the reality of who we are; and to risk loving ourselves unconditionally. Nothing else puts us firmly on the path to recovery, from something that wasn't our fault in the first place, and to achieving our birthright as human beings--connection, love, and meaning.
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