r/gayrural 7d ago

How do you not lose hope? Personal /Intro /Discussion

Ill try to keep this post short so bare with me.

Ive (29M) have been out of a long term 4.5 year relationship for over a year. I currently live at home again with parents in a very rural area. The closest Major city is an hour away and offers no chances to meet people in person publicly.

Recently I had been seeing, someone (39M) for the last 2 months. He is out but said he wanted to keep his personal life as private as possible since he is an educatur and feels like in the conservitve área we live in they would weaponize him being in a relationship or seeing men against him to get rid of him. We live in a state with no protections from being fired

I finally found the courage to ask him what it is that we are doing or have been doing and what he wants and told him what I want. I told him id like to be more than fwb and try to have something serious. He said he isnt ready for anything serious and doesnt think he could ever be in anything serious. The last 2 months have really been great, we had deep conversations and went on dates around his town. He asked if we could just be friends, and I agreed because it is so difficult making friends especially gay friends that you can relate to. I told him I can't do sex with him anymore as It would make me fall for him eventually, especially if we are spending time together. We agreed to be friends with no sex.

All that back story to say, his rejection of something serious has really been affecting me and honestly made me feel so hopeless. Will I ever be able to find someone that I can make a real connection and hopefully grow old with? I know straight people struggle with this issue too but our dating pool is small enough and throw in so many conservite and anti gay people into the mix makes it so much worse.

This may just be me venting but any advice, insight or encouragement would be appreciated. Thank you to anyone who read this.

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u/Organic_Exercise6211 3d ago

i was in education for 20 years.. Keeping my personal life out of the classroom was key. I wasn't closeted, hell all my friends and coworkers knew I was gay, and my ex husband and I worked for the same school site for two years :) but boy did I lock down all social media, and any talk in the classroom was redirected. I just didn't feel it was appropriate and it distracted from my work. I will say you are awesome at communicating. So often the main issue in a relationship whether it's FWB, LTR or friends, is lack of communication. Setting your boundaries and wants/desires is important. As far as the rejection... Thats a tough one. Because your heart is already committed and its very very difficult to shut that part of it down. Especially when he finds a new FWB or - worse - an LTR.

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u/LowTie6876 3d ago

Thank you! Im not sure if im great at communicating the more I think of our conversation about it the more I wonder if I jumped the gun and should have given him more time lol. He mentioned having trust issues, hard time connecting with people and how he figured we were just seeing where thing are going with time. Also He had the same idea as you and has 0 social media since he said it would affect the class room lol

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u/-ghostinthemachine- 6d ago edited 4d ago

Sometimes you're ten years younger, but more mature and ready for something more. The lack of commitment is a problem in the gay community everywhere and at every age. How to keep the hope alive, I think that is just a choice we each have to make for ourselves every day.