Why Gay Ghosting Is Worse Than Straight Ghosting
Call me Renoir, because I’m about to paint you a picture: it’s a second or third date with a guy you hooked up with off Grindr. You’re a month and a half in. That storm of butterflies that sits between your stomach and your groin has officially migrated somewhere far, far away. What was once the most captivating muse to ever send you their location is now repeating the same anecdote about that time they ran into Sam Smith at Horse Meat Disco, and every superlative you once used in bed is a foreign language to you now.
They’re nice, they’re fine, but that’s the worst thing: they’re just fine. They’ve never really got to know you, they’ve never met your friends, and the only place you follow each other is Instagram.
What do you do?
Remember that this is not about moral codes: this is about probability.
If you are anything like every other member of human society, you are probably torn between decency and the fact that it feels wrong for your first deep conversation to be a break up. It would just be easier to skip that part, wouldn’t it? Just… not responding to the generic "hey" in a few nights time. Just waiting for the Instagram story views to fizzle out. As the experts would say: ghost the fucker.
That, fair queer, is where you are wrong. Because ghosting originated in the world of heteros: a vast savannah breeders that makes up at least 90% of the population (and that’s by the most optimistic estimates). You can hide with exceptional ease in a society that makes every single space one for you.
The gay community is far more claustrophobic. There’s only a handful of us and we do have a magical ability to flock together: hook ups know your old college friends, son of your English teacher once met your colleague in a dark room, and your future bae is going to be super tight with the horny bro you just sent into exile.
Even worse? Gay meeting spaces are almost exclusively nightlife venues. And there isn’t even a plethora of these to hide in: take London, where I currently live, which has lost almost 60% of its LGBTQ venues according to a UCL study. Another outlet noted 151 gay clubs had shut since the millennium. Fewer spaces, all of them the same, and even worse—if you’ve gone full Irish exit—you’re probably both going to be cruising for another gentleman, which is going to require attending the few remaining club nights where you can confidently find more sodomites.
No, dear reader. Next time you find yourself at the familiar fork in the road between decent and messy or easy and cowardly, remember that this is not about moral codes: this is about probability. You will run into him again. He will know people, people you will want to charm, who don’t need to first see you across a bar as “yeah, that’s him, the guy who never texted me back.”
Instead maintain the cool, forced relations of two people who did each other the solid of settling the score. Burn no bridges: there are only treacherous rivers from here.
Watch Now:This Is Dacre Montgomery’s Insane Stranger Things Audition TapeRelated Stories for GQLGBTQDatingSex and Relationships