It's such a trope, isn't it? That gay guys have it easier than straight guys when it comes to hooking up. It's amusing to hear straight guys make observations like that, and I've been hearing them since I was at least 18 years old.

The notion isn't offensive to me, and I highly doubt that the straight guys who think that have anything offensive in mind.

It's just ... well, I don't have to tell you; you just wrote a whole article about it.

I'm just thinking about something really interesting that had never occurred to me before. I never met a boyfriend at a gay bar. And I've spent some serious quality time at gay bars.

There was that one time I was in college and formed a very intimate friendship with a guy I met at the Question Mark in Des Moines, but I was leaving the area, he was still in college, and long-distance relationships in those days meant writing letters on paper... Not impossible. Not likely to succeed either.

Thinking back in my various boyfriends, including two commited partners, I realize we met by accident, not in the flirting-permissive spaces of gay bars.

Either friends introduced us, we met because of related work or other interests, or flirting happened openly, in public rather than in a gay bar.

Interesting!

That does make the scarcity thing kind of stand out more. It's not like I was just at a bar picking and choosing from a smorgasbord. (Much as my staright-guy friends envy me for in their imaginations. 🤣)

Thanks for writing about this. And thanks for not centering dating apps, which can help us forget that a whole lot of relationship-forming happens off line.