I’m so over the concept of men.

I think I would rather just throw in the towel when it comes to believing I can find even an inkling of substance in the men that share my location in Atlanta, Georgia.

And don’t get me wrong, Atlanta is a lot on its own.

But like, let’s not romanticize the city too much. Atlanta is beautiful, Black, queer, creative, fun, loud, sexy, unserious, and deeply unserious again for emphasis. But dating here? Dating here feels like standing in line for a club you’re not even sure you’re dressed properly for, and the bouncer keeps looking you up and down like you should already know the answer.

There’s this quiet but deadly air in gay spaces where nobody says the rules out loud, but everybody somehow knows them. You need the latest clothes. You need the body. You need the apartment with the skyline view. You need the fat ass, slim waist, clean face, soft life aesthetic, and a mysterious lack of visible struggle.

And if you’re weird? That can be cute, but only if you’re weird with a fat ass and a decent face. You can even be ignorant with a fat ass… we have a few examples that I would not like to get into right now.

Because if you’re weird without the body, without the notoriety, without the money, without the face card that declines no transaction, suddenly you’re not “interesting.” You’re awkward. You’re not “mysterious.” You’re hard to read. You’re not “different.” You’re doing too much.

The same traits people romanticize on someone desirable become flaws on someone they don’t want.

Confidence looks good on people they already find attractive. Silence looks mysterious on people they already want to know. Femininity looks freeing on people they already decided are worth protecting. But for everybody else, it becomes a question.

Why do you act like that?
Why do you dress like that?
Why do you talk like that?
Are you masc? Are you fem? Are you vers? Are you this? Are you that?

And it’s like damn, can I breathe first?

I decided to meet a guy who I thought was interested in me, like I was in him. I decided to chill with him before I went to work. I came to his apartment, and my phone died.

I’m like, “No worries. This is his apartment number. I’ve made it through the hard part.”

Girl.

I pressed that ring button a good three times. Stood there for ten minutes. Nothing.

The feeling of embarrassment, rejection, and inadequacy came over my face like being sunburnt. Like I could physically feel myself getting hotter with shame. I immediately chalked it up as being set up. I started taking this experience internally and using it as evidence for the pessimism that already lives inside of me like a parasite.

“I’m forever meant to be alone. Who am I kidding? Nobody loves a guy with facial hair who wears makeup. Just a conundrum for disaster.”

But then I had an epiphany as I sat with the experience of being unique in such a particular grey area in my life and in the city that I’m in.

Why did my brain go to such extremes?
Why did one stranger have the power to make me question my existence and entire future?
And truthfully, why did I think being gay would automatically mean I’d find people?

Weirdly enough, I found his actual page… and he has a boyfriend.

Now I’m wondering if I was being pranked by the boyfriend or if this was actually him, and why would he invite me to the house that both of them live in? Then I started thinking about why men in relationships are so promiscuous, especially gay men, not caring about the consequences because the sensation of letting go is just too strong.

I had a lot of thoughts about what to do until I decided to just like the picture of them together and carry on with my day.

Growth? Maybe.
Petty? Absolutely.
Peaceful? In my own way.

But I think that’s why rejection doesn’t always feel like rejection at the moment. Sometimes it feels like confirmation. Like your brain starts pulling receipts from years ago. Every time you felt ugly. Every time you felt too soft. Every time you watched someone else get chosen while you were just… present. Not hated. Not loved. Just there.

And being “just there” might be one of the loneliest feelings in the world.

Because nobody really comforts you for being invisible. If someone breaks your heart, people understand that. If somebody cheats, people gather around like a press conference. But if you go out, look cute, smell good, try to be open, and still feel like a ghost in the room, what do you even say?

“I had fun, but I felt invisible.”

And I don’t want to be invisible.

I don’t want to be background.
I don’t want to be the funny friend, the interesting coworker, the person people admire from a distance but never actually reach for.

I want to be reached for.

And that sounds so simple, but it feels impossible sometimes. Especially in gay spaces where everybody acts like they’re free, but somehow we all still follow rules nobody admits are rules. Be masculine, but not boring. Be feminine, but not too much. Be confident, but not delusional. Be sexual, but not desperate. Be different, but still marketable.

I just find myself getting so overwhelmed. I barely feel like a person anymore, just a product of the gay agenda. 

Because I’m tired of feeling like I have to package myself better just to be treated gently. I don’t like wondering if I should lower my voice, change my walk, soften my makeup, sharpen my body, grow less hair, grow more confidence, become more mysterious, become less available, become somebody that even I wouldn’t recognize just to finally be somebody’s type.

And maybe that’s the part that boggles me.

Because I don’t want to be everybody’s type. I don’t even like everybody. Some of y’all are genuinely weird. Respectfully.

But I do want to believe that somewhere, in this loud ass city, there is a room where I don’t have to translate myself. A person I don’t have to perform for. A version of love that doesn’t make me feel like I’m being graded.

Because lately, love feels like an exam I didn’t study for.

Being around nothing but straight people growing up, and the people who I could relate to hiding the very thing I was seeking, did something to me. I watched romance movies, the typical “gay best friend” stereotypes, and I found myself swapping bodies in my head, wishing for my time to come.

Before coming out, I truly thought my greyscale vision would turn into new colors with a new lens. But sadly, the only thing that changed was the perception people had of me.

I really thought all gay people were “sisters by chance, friends by choice” at sixteen.

Nope.

We’re fucked by chance, respected by choice, if anything.

And if only my fragile mind would realize that not only women get that overwhelming urge, like a siren scream, to have no waist, a fat ass, and muscles, while also having this sadistic urge to be masc when it’s time to be vulnerable.

What type of contracted misery did I sign myself up for? How do I break the terms without taking my soul with it?

I’m at this weird middle line in the spaces I find myself in, and it resembles a tightrope. If I fall right, I’m too feminine. If I fall left, I’m not feminine enough. I wish I could fall into a training pad while slacklining, and not a banana peel on a stage with a crowd full of masc4masc men and femboys, with the lights intensifying the embarrassment, revealing the insides of my insecurities like intestines.

Speaking of, I went to Bulldogs and MJQ last week, and I realized that I’m so shy it’s not even funny.

I would probably be looking over, or stuck so deep in a corner that I blended into the walls. And as I was having fun, I realized everyone had someone to talk to but me. It’s easier for everyone else to talk to a stranger but me.

And I know I technically have the ability to talk to anyone. I’m not mute. I’m not invisible, even when I feel like it. But I have a crippling fear of rejection.

Honestly, I know my lover isn’t at any of the places I keep searching for proof that I’m wanted.

I don’t even know if I’m equipped for a lover at this point in life. I’m just looking to be seen.

Not loved perfectly. Not rescued. Just seen.

Just looked at long enough for someone to realize there’s an actual person standing here.

Saying it almost makes it embarrassing out loud. Because wanting love sounds normal. Wanting sex sounds normal. Wanting attention sounds normal. But wanting to be seen? That feels so… immature. Like I’m just in an empty area waiting for somebody to raise their hand and say, “I’m just like you.”

I hate that I want somebody to validate what I already know exists.

But existing and feeling witnessed are two different things.

And I think that’s where I get caught up with men. I don’t even think the majority of these men are special. Let’s start there. Because sometimes I give men a higher threshold in expectations than what reality holds. Men don’t even change their shower curtains, let alone know the difference between their, there, and they’re. Why am I, let alone we, choosing these God-forsaken men to influence our future?

That’s wild.

But maybe I keep returning to men, dating, rejection, and loneliness because I’m not actually talking about men.

Not fully.

Maybe I’m talking about the thing I feel like I’ve lacked for so long that I don’t even know how to hold it correctly when it comes near me.

Love.

Which is funny, because I talk about love like it’s my field of study, but I don’t even know if I know how to express it. I can write about it. I can analyze it. I can romanticize it. I can mourn it. I can turn it into a metaphor, a podcast episode, a paragraph, a joke, a spiral, a voice memo I’ll probably never post.

But actually showing it?
Receiving it?
Sitting in it without flinching?

That’s where I get quiet.

Because I don’t think I learned love as a language. I think I learned it from hunger.

And when you learn love as a hunger, you start mistaking anything that feeds you for something that loves you back.

Attention starts looking like affection.
Desire starts looking like care.
Consistency feels suspicious.
Kindness feels temporary.
And being chosen feels so foreign that you either cling to it too hard or question it until it gets tired.

And that’s spooky. I want this deep, soft, best friend, family type of love, but I don’t even know if I have that with myself. So sometimes I wonder if I’m asking someone to give me a home I haven’t even built inside my own body yet.

Which sounds poetic, but it’s also very inconvenient.

And every time I get rejected, or ignored, or played with, it’s like I’m standing on that same stage again. Lights hot. Crowd quiet. Masc4masc in the front row. Femboys whispering in the back. Me slipping on the banana peel of my own insecurity, trying to make the fall look intentional.

Trying to make pain look like personality.

And maybe that’s why I joke so much. Because if I can make it funny first, then nobody can make it sad before I’m ready.

But it is sad.

It’s sad to want softness and keep meeting people who only know how to touch.

It’s sad to be desired in pieces but not held as a whole.

It’s sad to come out thinking you were walking into color, only to realize some people just learned how to make the closet bigger.

And I don’t know what the solution is yet. I wish this was the part where I gave some clean answer like, “And that’s when I learned to love myself.”

Uh, no.

I learned I need to charge my phone before going to a stranger’s apartment. That’s what I learned.

And maybe also that I can’t keep letting every closed door become a mirror.

Because that door wasn’t my future.

That man wasn’t my worth.

That club wasn’t a courtroom.

And being unseen in one room does not mean I was never meant to be witnessed anywhere.

I’m still shy. I’m still scared of rejection. I still want somebody to notice me without me having to beg the universe to make me noticeable. But I’m starting to realize I can’t keep going to places that make me feel small and then blame myself for shrinking.

Maybe I’m not hard to love.

Maybe I’m just tired of standing in rooms that don’t know what to do with me.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m tired of walking in front of closed doors when there’s open windows.

And maybe, for now, that has to be enough of an answer.