Thanks for this piece, Alexander! I really enjoyed it, and especially connected to the point about not fully expressing our pain or emotional needs for fear of not being fully understood, of not getting our needs met. While I do have gay male friends I have crossed this barrier with, the loneliness and forced emotional self-sufficiency that many of us experience as kids is a tough habit to break. A lot of practiced self-soothing. I’ve been toying with my own feelings around gay “community” and the ways it feels both safe and inadequate — this piece gave me some more insight into that feeling, so thank you.
Thank you for reading - I'm so interested in the tension between safety and inadequacy that you mentioned, I'm curious to do more reading on what a community actually "is" and how its defined.
I’m yet to develop with gay and non-gay men the kind of friendship I have with women. What makes it so hard to get close to men and have the kind of openness and genuine intimacy that I can easily have with women?
We just aren't taught to have the range! That's why I think it's so important to keep trying to break through this barrier between us - we can only get there by trying.
This is so rich in yearning & faux accessibility vs having an authentic exchange. One is a cry for help and the other ushering that cry into the arms of vulnerability, being seen, heard, & held. Thank you so much for sharing this. It speaks to the depths of engaging w/ my male friends and walking through fire 🔥 together. 💜
Thanks for this piece, Alexander! I really enjoyed it, and especially connected to the point about not fully expressing our pain or emotional needs for fear of not being fully understood, of not getting our needs met. While I do have gay male friends I have crossed this barrier with, the loneliness and forced emotional self-sufficiency that many of us experience as kids is a tough habit to break. A lot of practiced self-soothing. I’ve been toying with my own feelings around gay “community” and the ways it feels both safe and inadequate — this piece gave me some more insight into that feeling, so thank you.
Thank you for reading - I'm so interested in the tension between safety and inadequacy that you mentioned, I'm curious to do more reading on what a community actually "is" and how its defined.
I’m yet to develop with gay and non-gay men the kind of friendship I have with women. What makes it so hard to get close to men and have the kind of openness and genuine intimacy that I can easily have with women?
We just aren't taught to have the range! That's why I think it's so important to keep trying to break through this barrier between us - we can only get there by trying.
This is so rich in yearning & faux accessibility vs having an authentic exchange. One is a cry for help and the other ushering that cry into the arms of vulnerability, being seen, heard, & held. Thank you so much for sharing this. It speaks to the depths of engaging w/ my male friends and walking through fire 🔥 together. 💜
Thank you for this beautifully rendered comment!
YAYYYYY - and omg not me *featuring* in this newsletter! J'adore. Excellent piece.
A deserved feature! Thanks for being my substack fairy godmother :)