22nd June, 2008
Question
It's taken me a long time to muster up the courage to write. I'm a male, aged 50 and feel life has passed me by. I'm gay, but not actively. I own my own house, am in a good job which I love, and to an outsider I seem to have it all. The awful thing is that most of the time I'm desperately lonely. My friends and family are all long since married and gone.
Most of the time I just drift to the local pub at the weekends, simply to find someone to talk to and ease my pain. I've no interest in the football, but put up with it. I do like the few drinks. Then it's home to an empty house and an empty bed. I particularly dread Sundays, as they are desperately lonely.
None of my friends know I'm gay, although they may suspect it. I would dearly love to be in a relationship with a woman, but can't see it happening. As I live in a rural area, a gay relationship would be out of the question. I don't think I would want to go that route anyway. I dread growing old alone. I am considered kind and caring and would be well regarded as popular and trustworthy. I just long for some fulfilment in life.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm a bit depressed. When I'm driving a long journey I talk to myself about all this and then the tears will start and I feel such distress. Suicidal thoughts sometimes enter my head, but then I think no, I can't do that to my family. Then, when I'm in good form, I wonder how I could ever have such thoughts.
I cannot open up to anybody. Nor are there any activities in my local area that I could get involved in. I just keep hoping and praying that some day things will be different. I pray a lot, but wonder if there really is a God. Witnessing the marital infidelity of some of my friends leaves me feeling very angry, and makes life seem so worthless. Thank you and God bless.
Answer
Loneliness is not simply a question of being alone, be it in the bedroom or kitchen or sitting beside the fire. Loneliness is about being separate from the rest of the world. You've said it yourself. You can't open up to anybody.
Communicating with people is not just about telling everyone you're gay and proud. It's about revealing enough of your inner world, however non-verbally, that others can get up close and personal with you. We can like and respect people who remain distant. But we can love them - in the broadest sense of human kindness and connectedness - only when we're allowed glimpses of their passion and their pain.
That's the context in which it matters that you're gay. You're hiding an integral part of who you are. You are being secretive the way a battered wife is secretive as she seeks to retain what she sees as respectability. You're putting a face on your pain the way a man banned from the marriage bed does, the walking wounded. It is not that being gay, or battered, or involuntarily celibate defines a man or woman. It's just that when we hide a central element of our life's experience, it's like static on a bad telephone connection, or fuzziness on a television screen - except that the distorted communication in this context is emotional. The interpersonal resonance doesn't ring true.
That still doesn't mean you have to tell everyone. It does mean that you have to stop pretending. Look at what you said to me, namely that you'd love to have a relationship with a woman, but can't see it happening. Isn't that a form of denial, a dodging of your sexual reality, off-putting for any friend who wanted to be close? To get comfortable in your skin as a homosexual, you need to come to terms with your sexual orientation and that usually means telling someone, just for the sake of self-validation.
From where I'm sitting, your isolation is self-imposed. I've lived for the past eight years in rural Ireland, and all of life is here, much as it was in Dublin. Perhaps it's a bit more up-front and personal, but kind and supportive and accepting when the chips are down. I understand and respect your desire for privacy. And of course it is your choice. Just be careful not to pay too high, or too unnecessary, a price for it.
