When Good Luck Turns Bad … Confronting the Modern Gay Man's Struggle

After my last post, I struggled a little bit.

Everywhere I turned, I ran into documents that talked about the good luck that gay men brought their lovers.  Many of my followers on Facebook chimed in with their own personal stories about the luck that they brought their ex-boyfriends.  However, that joke about the gay second date kept nagging at me.
 
You know the one.  "What's a lesbian second date?  A U-haul and adopting cats!"  And then the follow up: "What's a gay man's second date?  What's a second date?!"

Though it's just a joke, like most jokes, it has a ring of truth to it.

If gay men are supposed to be lucky in love, and, according to all my research into historical accounts on this topic, we are (not just for our lovers, but for ourselves as well), where was the love in our modern gay culture?

Why are so many gay men so unhappily alone so much of their lives?

Now, something you most likely don't know about me is my overwhelming desire to be married.  I'm in a relationship, but I'm not married, and, to me, there is a value-difference.  I can't explain it.

I don't know where this desire comes from.  Maybe it was watching my aunt approach her thirtieth birthday  as an unmarried woman when I was just a child, and hearing her say things like, "I'm not going to be an old maid!"  Maybe it was the fact that I watched her strong-arm her then boyfriend/my future uncle into proposing in just enough time to avoid the chiming of that dreaded biological clock.  Maybe it was facing the idea of gay death (also thirty, for the record) in my own dating life.  Maybe it was growing up knowing that I wasn't allowed to be legally married and then watching as the Supreme Court confirmed our right to express our commitment to each other in this way.  I don't really know.  I'm still working through this on a very deep, very real and personal level, but what I do know is, regardless of whether you want to walk down the aisle right along with me or you just want to connect on a deep, soul level with another man who wants the same things you want, most gay men today struggle with love.

So, if our ancestors are right and gay men are lucky in love (not just for our lovers but also for ourselves), why are so many modern gay men seemingly so unlucky in love?