The Connection Paradox

Why Gay Men Feel Alone in a Connected World

He sat across from me on the screen—successful, handsome, followed by thousands on Instagram—as he broke down crying.

"I don't understand what's wrong with me," he whispered. "I know more people than ever. I'm never alone. My phone never stops buzzing. But I feel... hollow. Like no one actually knows me."

I fought back my own tears because I knew that hollowness intimately. I've lived in that paradoxical space where you can be surrounded by your community yet feel like you're watching your life through glass.

This isn't just his story or mine. It's a wound I see in almost every gay man who starts seeing me for therapy.

The Invisible Wall We Build

Do you remember the first time you edited yourself? Maybe at the dinner table when your family was discussing "those people" on TV. Maybe on the playground when your natural gestures earned you mocking imitations. Maybe at church when you learned that what stirred inside you was an abomination.

I remember mine with painful clarity. I was eleven, st…