So I wanted to touch on this subject for a moment.
I was scrolling through TikTok, as most do at the end of the night, and came across this video of a man crying his eyes out and talking about how toxic the gay culture is. You could tell he was genuinely hurt from someone and basically the gist of his video was how nasty some guys are and how hurtful they can be.
This sort of hit home for me. I’ve had my fair share of hurtful things said to me and continue to experience the nasty side of our community daily. By no means am I some hot, hunky, six-pack-carrying piece of man meat, but at the end of the day, I am human, looking for love (or even a quickie), like everyone else. While I do understand that it is the nature of today’s day and age, hiding behind a profile and saying nasty things is just not ok.
This spans well beyond the gay dating apps. It’s just online overall.
So one day, I was sitting in my living room, watching some Ellen and I get an alert from Grindr. I launch the app to come to some messages about how I am ugly and no one would ever want to have sex with me. Mind you, I don’t have a profile photo at all, so he was saying these things solely based on my profile information. I didn’t instigate this conversation at all. I wasn’t even on the app looking. Of course, before I could even write a response, he blocks me. I’ve become an avid Reddit user more recently, so, feeling a bit hurt and attacked, I took to Reddit and posted in r/Grindr about the experience. My intent was to shed some light on this and encourage people to think before they say things like this. Thankfully I am not a suicidal person, but there are people out there who are on their last nerve and a nasty message like that could push them over. At the end of my post, I wrote – in the words of Ellen, “Be Kind to One Another.”
I thought it was a well written post and expected to get some positive comments back from it. Well, I was wrong. People started attacking me on there. People wrote things like “you’re probably fat and ugly. you deserve it” or “maybe you should become suicidal” or “who the fuck quotes Ellen. she’s a cunt anyway.”
I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes. These were coming from people whom I thought would’ve been more supportive. Instead, they just added fuel to the fire of hate. I had actually got into it with a few of them. The one thing I refuse to do is back down from assholes online. I always make sure I get the last word in and boy did I ever. In the end though, I was genuinely disappointed.
More recently, I’ve been experiencing a lot of abandonment. Is that the word for it? I honestly don’t know. I don’t consider it ghosting, but maybe it is? I understand we’re in the middle of a pandemic right now, so meeting up is not really an option. But I start talking to a guy, put myself out there, share my photos and see an interest, have great conversation and then the next day it’s like I’m talking to a completely different person. They either don’t respond or they seem to not be interested at all.
This one guy made it clear he’s not meeting up, to which I said I completely understand. He unlocked his photos, as I did mine, we had great conversation and the next day, he’s short with me and then stops responding completely. Three weeks pass by and I get a “hey” and then nothing else. I just don’t get it.
You see all these guys on TikTok, being all cute and looking for a boyfriend but then reality sinks in and you realize they’re all fake as fuck. I watched a video recently where this guy says “how my Grindr is” and then shows how one person says hello, it goes ignored. A few days later, they say hello again and they’re ignored. Then they send a “?” and they’re still ignored. I read the comments and a lot of guys were like “OMG. Same” or “why don’t they just get it?” or “They’re so obnoxious when they send the ? message.” Meanwhile, I’m like you’re obnoxious for not responding. Like really? It would take two seconds for you to respond back with “Sorry, not interested.”
Why are we like this? Can someone please tell me why?