Why are a lot of gays shallow?

[artyboy]

I believe I'm on a different wave length than most people. I think in very logical terms, if I don't understand something I look it up, most people get scared and make up BS like stereotyping.

So I put it this way acting like a bunch of totally muppets and looking down on everyone puts people off the idea of being LGBT etc and think I'll rather stay in the closet than have people think I'm a shallow (plastic) sort of person. Doesn't matter where you are in the world really lol!

Though you know I'm talking about countries where the law is on our side.

[Charon]

Wow! Charon, a lover at 13? That's precocious.... and you kept him for 16 years, no bad going.

He was 30 years my senior and, yes, I wasvery[B][B][/B][/B]precocious in a flotilla of ways. His death is what put an end to it"Les Adieu Comencent"....In 57 years I've had only four lovers and two of them were killed in plane crashes. This why I'm worried that "shallowness" seems to be a mantra of some. Any adult looking back at most of the young find they are both callow and shallow, it's really just a phase. When I was young I wanted to be as urbane and sophisticated as Cary Grant....well, that didn't work out but what I learned to do was develop my own style that had nothing to do with group ethic. Was I too young at 13? You can argue it both ways and have some correctness. I suppose in the end it's necessary to see what happened over that 16 year period and how it ended. I honestly believe had he lived, I would have stayed with him until one of us died. I understood the mechanics of growing older and felt I could adapt to them....Could others? Well, if one is really shallow, no. Apart from that...if you love someone, care for them-the two are not the same-then yes, it's entirely possible.

[artyboy]

As god said himself "I Am that I Am" or in modern terms I am who I am.

[Trollileo]

Because that's all I'm good at.

[Mark]

Definitely not just gays that are shallow. Theres one guy I've known since being 5 and he's the most shallow, self obsessed guy I've ever met. He now does some modelling so all HIS friends are EXACTLY the same as him and its creepy as hell. Going out to bars if Im honest? I tend to drink a little too much to care what people are like and I have an awesome night!

[princealbertofb]

He was 30 years my senior and, yes, I wasveryprecocious in a flotilla of ways. His death is what put an end to it"Les Adieu Comencent"....In 57 years I've had only four lovers and two of them were killed in plane crashes. This why I'm worried that "shallowness" seems to be a mantra of some. Any adult looking back at most of the young find they are both callow and shallow, it's really just a phase. When I was young I wanted to be as urbane and sophisticated as Cary Grant....well, that didn't work out but what I learned to do was develop my own style that had nothing to do with group ethic. Was I too young at 13? You can argue it both ways and have some correctness. I suppose in the end it's necessary to see what happened over that 16 year period and how it ended. I honestly believe had he lived, I would have stayed with him until one of us died. I understood the mechanics of growing older and felt I could adapt to them....Could others? Well, if one is really shallow, no. Apart from that...if you love someone, care for them-the two are not the same-then yes, it's entirely possible.

Charon, I find your story admirable. That you knew at 13 that you were gay and could fall in love with someone 30 years your senior does amaze but is by no means rare, I'm sure. I've heard of many such affairs between people of vastly different ages. Still, at the time, it would have been, as today, completely wrong in the eyes of the law. How did you keep it a secret? And how did you manage it once you were 'of age'?
You couldn't possibly be shallow if you managed to stay with someone much older than you. I am sorry, however that you had to survive to two of your partners on account of plane crashes, which must have been devastating. Who was there to pick up the pieces when this happened? What an extraordinary life!

[princealbertofb]

Because that's all I'm good at.

You discredit yourself, Trollileo. I'm sure there's more to you than that. Focus on getting some depth... you'll eventually end up having longer 'shelf value'... if you see what I mean. Develop a skill, or a hobbie in which you can learn, if not to excel, at least to be good at.

[yourname]

I reject the premise out of hand.

If you go looking for (oh, I don't know...) "green hondas", you shall surely see them where you saw none before. Do you think "black men are thugs" --lots of media on that, if that's what you're looking for (but it doesn't represent even a minuscule portion of that community, let alone serve as a meaningful generalization.) "Asians are bad drivers" --if you think that, and see a bad driver....and then another, and another, and then finally one who happens to be Asian, you'll scream "ah-ha! Proof!!!!" (but it isn't.)

Is this thought of yours a light shone on your own internal insecurities, an invitation for others to support the disappointment you associate with yourself, only for the arbitrary reason that you're gay? Maybe, and if so, I'm so sorry for you for that: but you can change your entire world just by changing your mind.

Call me crazy and delusional, but I think we are amazing. We are liberated, without being without morals. We are self-assured, without requiring that come at the expense of others. We are empathetic, and sensual, and feeling, and loving, and I will never for a moment feel guilty of what "we" add to ALL of humanity. I dare say, we are nearly as good as Hope itself. We invent possibility where many see only a well-trodden path lacking in imagination. Our fight with convention is a gift to everyone who wishes to be unshackled from it (and most of those people are straight).

We are what tips the scales in our species' favour....we're the secret ingredient. Any and all of our suffering is an investment in everyone in our respective communities, gay/straight/whatever, and paid ten times over. We are what changes the world for the better. We break chains, because we show another way that wasn't know or sought out before us.

We are light itself....knowledge. And if periodically, we revel in our own gifts, so be it....because I think we've earned it.

[East]

I will share an experience with you...take from it what you will...

This guy comes to the Bay Area from Texas and feels extremely out of place. I was the bartender who would try to make people who were uncomfortable or uneasy feel at ease...it was my "thing"...I was shit at helping people come out or listening to them blame everything on everyone else...both staples in that business...so I did what I can do...and I did it well...or so I thought....this guy made me rethink everything.....

He was about 100 pounds overweight...extremely introverted....talented in his own area of expertise...and he would try to stick close to my station getting my attention which wasn't really great because it was BUSY most of the time and he needed a lot of attention and I had to give hundreds of guys my attention....

He would lament about the shallowness of the gay community and I would insist that attitude is everything and he needed to inhabit his own body instead of being a visitor...so I did the cheerleader thing with him and he lost ALOT of weight...got outside of himself...went to the gym...

I then taught him how to meet guys...what NOT to do....blah blah blah...and so when he became relatively happy with himself and he had a lot of guys who were interested in him....

HE became the exact shallow person he was complaining about a few years earlier. It was he who was judging everyone and deciding who was worthy or not...and he was particularly nasty about it. He delighted in rejecting men who were "not worthy"....

He never knew how much of an effect he had on me but I was barfing on the inside. He quickly became the ugliest man I ever met....and it had nothing to do with his appearance.

[Charon]

Charon, I find your story admirable. That you knew at 13 that you were gay and could fall in love with someone 30 years your senior does amaze but is by no means rare, I'm sure. I've heard of many such affairs between people of vastly different ages. Still, at the time, it would have been, as today, completely wrong in the eyes of the law. How did you keep it a secret? And how did you manage it once you were 'of age'?
You couldn't possibly be shallow if you managed to stay with someone much older than you. I am sorry, however that you had to survive to two of your partners on account of plane crashes, which must have been devastating. Who was there to pick up the pieces when this happened? What an extraordinary life!

I knew I was homosexual when I was nine and told my grandfather with whom I lived. I've mentioned this elsewhere but...he'd worked on some of the first oil rigs in Pennsylvania in the 1870's. In those days when a man needed a whore and there wasn't one, he'd grab a 12 or 13 year old boy-they were tough little bastards to according to my grandfather and rape them, My grandfather said he'd had the privilege of being fucked by Colonel Drake himself. Some have difficulty imagining their parents "doing it" push that barrier to imagining you 86 year old grandfather over a railing getting it in the ass. There was no secret kept. I told people if there was a reason to, and, yes, I was criticized, told I was crazy, told I was immoral and the rest. There's no name I haven't been called. But...I knew I was correct and hiding would have made me not only a hypocrite but a coward, two things I am not. And, again, I was very, very old for my age. At 13 I was 6'6", looked like a tight end and acted like an adult. I grew a moustache when we went to the track so I could place my own wagers and drank Bourbon straight with a spring water chaser. And, you might as well, know, I was intellectually gifted, graduated with a double doctorate in Physics and Applied Mathematics Magna Summa Cum Laude. My grandfather did live long enough to meet my first love and told him straight out, "hurt my boy and I'll have you killed". Yes, it was sad to lose him but there it is. Numbers two and four were awfully nice men, one was in Paris and got me on the cover of L'homme Vogue not to mention all his ads for men's cologne as well as L'uomo and several others. But he wanted someone French I wanted to go work with ROSCOMS in Murmansk. Then came another pilot and that lasted eleven years until...well, you know. The last one, a terrific guy who had no ambition, had a good job but was satisfied. Our fracturing came when, one day, he said, "How about going for a drive in the country?" and three days later he said..."I meant Tarrant County, not Portugal." We're still the best of friends. I still miss my first and that's a mistake I try not to make. I'm 70 now and to quote a title a good friend of mine used for a film, you cannot bring back that moment of "Splendor in the Grass." Would I take another lover? Maybe....in fact there's one warming up in the bullpen now. Problem is, he lives in Milan-that would be the one in Italy-and, rather chillingly, is 30 years my junior. So, apologies for the length of the answer but your kind and thoughtful comments deserved some explanation? Want more, you are welcome to contact me privately.