As an openly gay person in this country, I feel that life is beyond pride month. I understand the importance of pride month. I agree that the pride month celebration is essential in this country when the majoritarian groups are overpowering all the spaces. But beyond pride month is my constant struggle with loneliness.
I wish I had a magic wand; with its help, I could vanish all my desire to have a partner and love in my life. I am frustrated by getting up every day with a desire to have love in my life. The most depressing moment is when I come out of the airport to see heterosexual people warmly greeted by their partners and me standing alone, waiting for an Uber. That day I was talking to my colleague, and she was sharing how the life of a straight married woman is also full of loneliness even though she has a loving husband and children.
But this loneliness is different from the loneliness in a gay person’s life. Just like, if, while returning home in her car, the vehicle breaks down in the middle of the road, she knows whom to fall back and call for help. Her husband will come to rescue her. But if in Delhi, I am in a problem, I have no one to fall back on and call. So I have to come out of it by myself. That’s my loneliness.
The desire to have a partner was an eternal dream for me. Though I started very late in my age (in my mid-thirties), I started looking for partners through gay dating sites (basically gay dating apps). Initially, I made the mistake of considering it a matrimonial site. It was my foolishness. But with a mature brain and immature heart, I landed in an invisible gay world. I can proudly say that I was open and always put my picture in the profile, clearly articulating what I was looking for.
I was sincere in my hunting for a partner. To my extreme shock, I found that most gay men are scared and want to be discrete. Most of them are good performers. In front of the world, they portray themselves as straight and for the sake of their family, they marry a woman and then through the gay dating apps, they just meet men for their physical satisfaction. They are all liars and cowards. I always felt that “truth makes you free.”
My experience has made me come across a few gay men who have married and blamed their wives for having extra-marital affairs. Then these gay men chose to fight the highly complicated divorce process rather than tell the truth about their orientation and live a truthful life. I don’t blame these gay men fully for the systems and beliefs that demean homosexuality in our society. However, a change of law and celebration of pride month will not help. All love to accept gay men outside their family, but the moment they find gay men in their own family, the story of acceptance changes.
Once I met a married gay man through the dating app. His story shocked me. He shared that in his 20 years of married life, he never had sex with his wife with open eyes. He did not close his eyes out of love. Instead, he closed his eyes to imagine his wife as a man while doing sex. What a great performance! Wow! Ultimately, whether you agree or disagree, our women are knowingly/unknowingly facing the consequences.
Secondly, acceptance is just the first step toward inclusion. I hope the pride month celebration helps take all other steps for inclusion. After acceptance, people need to show genuine interest in the lives of gay men. Then, people should provide that safe space where a gay man can speak his mind. He can share his love life and his breakups and cry openly. He should also pull his leg when he blushes or stares at any man. Finally, he should be openly invited for dinner with his partner or boyfriend and introduced in every space with full dignity as a heterosexual man enjoys.
Inclusion means that society should provide a platform for gay men to talk about serious partnerships. There are many things that everyone needs to do beyond the pride month celebration besides standing with the rainbow-coloured flags. Ask me. The life of a non-camouflaged gay man like me is not colourful. It is just grey – the colour of depression and loneliness.
To share my sexual orientation on any platform, I am given to talk about is used politically by me to educate and sensitise people (beyond the definition of LGBTQIA++) on the need for the inclusion of gay men. I hope other sexual orientation people use the same. This is now my single plan and purpose in life. Unfortunately, America has gone back 50 years on the issue related to abortion by banning it altogether. I hope the jurisprudence of the Indian judicial system remains for life, and no such call back happens in India, which may again criminalise homosexuals in this country.