Gay Life Mastery: Why is gay life more difficult than straight life?

Here is a question that I often get: “Why is gay life more difficult than straight life?”  Let’s re frame that by stating that gay life can be difficult but doesn't have to be.




Full Video Description With Bonus Explanations:

The lives gay men lead are different from straight people in many ways. We don’t have the same patterns of behavior, the same moral code, we don’t have any philosophy, nor guidance.   If during the first 10 years after coming out your life is difficult – it is because it’s supposed to be difficult because you don’t know how it “all” works, nobody taught you how to “Be Gay”.

However, after the first 10 years if you are still having the same difficulties, if you are not learning from your past mistakes - now the question is not “Why is your gay life more difficult?” but now the question is “What are you doing that makes your gay life more difficult”.

Other questions come up too. For example: “What kind of steps are you taking in your life to improve your life?”

You can divide your life into multiple categories - and this is classic life coaching principle - and you ask yourself a question: "If I don’t have what I want in finances, health, love than how do I go out there and find out what I am doing wrong and learn how to fix it?"

Life can be difficult when you surrender and you become rigid in your understanding and changing of your own environment as a gay man.  You have to be more flexible and adapting to your environment in which everything is an experiment because we don’t know how “Gay Life” works.
Think about it this way - straight people have all the answers provided to them, about love, sex and relationships by their parents, schools, churches, governments and everyone else.  In psychology we call that involvement the “individuation process” – a process for how you grow into your own identity...and as you are growing into it you change part of it to personalize it to your liking and that’s what creates your unique self in the world.

But gay men don’t have that process - the individuation process for gay men is completely absent - so the reason why gay life CAN BE more difficult is because we don’t have that guidance - we don’t have the teachers, family members, governments, religious organizations helping us in the process of developing our identity.

So what can you do - the first thing is to become more flexible and adaptive.  You must recognize the presence of a vast difference between straight and gay life. If no one taught you about gay life principles, than you have to somehow go out there, find the answers by yourself.

No one will give them to you – it’s your own full 100% responsibility to go to seminars, read books, meet the people whose lives you want to emulate.

So the question – “Why is gay life more difficult?” should be asked – “How can you live an extraordinary life that does not have to be difficult?”

Today we have better ways of looking and thinking of gay life - in terms of friendships, relationships and thriving in the gay world.  A world without worry about being single, having no friends - where things can happen automatically - and I call it gay life mastery - if you are interested in not having a difficult life - if you are interested in having an extraordinary gay life then the starting process is to recognize and accept the difference between gay and straight and once you accept it - then ask whole bunch of questions about everything else and going out there and getting it.

There are no shortcuts and you need to take full responsibility for your gay life - and I emphasize here gay because I want to anchor down the fact that gay life is really different than straight life in ways we don’t fully even understand . the sciences have really not caught up in terms of understanding gay philosophy, sociology and psychology - this area is completely open for exploration and new ideas and ways to live an extraordinary life that is not difficult at all - you just need to find those ideas, golden standards and that’s part of attaining your gay life mastery.
So I hope this video has been helpful. Until I talk to you next time – go out there, think big, stay present and be a leader in your life today.