Why You Can’t Just Ask Him for Coffee
Why many gay men believe they’re only interesting if someone wants to sleep with them, and how to recount the evidence that contradicts it.
The text sat in his drafts for forty minutes.
“Want to grab coffee sometime?”
He deleted it. Rewrote it. Deleted again.
Not because he was scared of rejection. Because he was scared of acceptance.
Scared that saying yes to coffee would require this guy to find him interesting. Smart. Funny. Worth an hour without the promise of anything else. And somewhere deep in his chest, where the fear lives, he didn’t believe those qualities existed separate from sexual availability.
Friendship requires someone to value you for reasons that aren’t your body. And if you’ve spent thirty years learning that your worth is measured in attraction, that your personality only matters if it leads somewhere, that your insights are foreplay and your humor is just lubrication for the real thing, then asking someone to want your company platonically feels like asking them to care about the B-material.
The stuff that’s nice. But not the reason anyone stays.
The Inventory You Don’t Want to Take
When was the last time someone wanted to spend time with you for reasons unrelated to whether they found you attractive?
Not tolerated as a backup option. Actually wanted. For your thoughts, your presence, and the specific texture of how you move through the world.
Most gay men I work with can’t answer that question without qualifiers. “Well, my best friend, but we used to hook up.” “My ex, maybe, but even then...” “People at work, but that’s professional.”
The options without sexual history or romantic potential are thin. And when you notice that, when you really look at it, something acidic rises in your throat.
Because it means you’ve spent years building a life where your value is indexed to desirability. Where interest without attraction reads as charity. Where friendship feels like what people offer when you’re not enough.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s math.
You scroll through your contacts and count how many people would grab coffee if sex wasn’t historically or potentially on the table. The number is small. And that smallness confirms what you’ve always suspected: that you’re not actually that interesting.
Your body is interesting. Your availability is interesting. You, the person who has thoughts about architecture and gets obsessed with niche podcasts and has that specific way of noticing things… that version is just set dressing.
How We Learned to Measure
You didn’t invent this. It was taught.
The first time someone was interested in you, it was probably sexual. The first community that welcomed you was likely organized around who you wanted to sleep with. And the first space where you felt seen, more often than not, was an app with your stats in the bio.
Even straight people confirmed it. Your family worried you’d “recruit” their kids. Your classmates joked about dropping soap. Every question was about who you were attracted to. Never who you were.
So you became what was wanted. Funny enough to be charming. Smart enough to be intriguing. Vulnerable enough to seem deep. But always in service of attraction. Your personality as sales pitch. Your complexity as bonus features.
The apps didn’t create this economy. They just made it explicit. Your height. Your build. Your position. Right there, above your name. Because that’s the information that matters. Everything else is flavor text.
And after years of that, after thousands of profiles where your interests are listed under “About Me” as afterthought, after enough conversations that died the moment you mentioned a boyfriend, you absorbed the lesson:
You are valuable when you are available. Everything else is just what you offer while people decide if they want the real thing.
The Friendship Paradox
So now you want friends. Actual friends. People who know you and choose you and show up for reasons that aren’t sexual.
But asking for that requires believing you’re worth knowing. That your company is the whole offer, not the consolation prize. That someone could spend an hour with you and leave satisfied without ever considering whether they’re attracted to you.
And that belief? You don’t have it.
Because if you did, you would have sent the text already. You wouldn’t be workshopping the phrasing. You wouldn’t need to clarify “platonic” like a warning label. You’d just ask.
The way straight men ask each other to watch football. The way women ask each other to try brunch. The way everyone else extends friendship invitations without wondering if their personality justifies someone’s time.
But you do wonder. Because you’ve received the data for years: people want you until they don’t, and the variable that changes is always attraction.
The guy who was so interested until you mentioned your boyfriend. The friend who got distant when you weren’t interested back. The pattern of attention that evaporates the moment sex is off the table.
Each time that happens, you don’t think: “That person was shitty.” You think: “See? I was only interesting as a maybe.”
And now you’re stuck. Lonely but unable to reach out. Wanting connection but convinced you have nothing to offer once the sexual possibility is removed.
The Real Cost
This isn’t an essay about how to ask someone for coffee. You already know how. “Want to grab coffee?” Four words.
This is a post about why you can’t believe those four words are enough.
Why you need disclaimers. Clarifications. Some kind of proof that your request for someone’s time is reasonable despite offering nothing sexual in return.
The coffee invitation becomes a referendum on whether you matter. And deep down, you’re not sure you do.
Not because you’re unlikeable. But because likeable, for you, has always been measured against a specific question: Would someone want you sexually? And friendship asks a different question entirely: Would someone choose you?
Those should be the same question. They’re not.
The people who slept with you didn’t always choose you. And the people who chose you, you’re not sure they would have if sex had never been part of the equation.
So you’re sitting here, phone in hand, paralyzed by a coffee invitation because what you’re really asking is: Am I enough without my body? Do I exist as a full person or just as potential?
And the silence in your head is loud.
💭 Close your eyes. What evidence do you have that you’re interesting beyond being attractive? Not what you hope is true. What you know is true because people have shown you.
Why This Feels Impossible
Straight men just say, “Let’s grab a beer.” No rehearsal. No disclaimers. Not because they’re more confident, but because they were allowed to be people before they were sexual beings.
Many of us weren’t. We were gay first, which meant sexual first. Our value was erotic before it was anything else.
And now we’re trying to build platonic friendships with the vocabulary of people who learned their worth through desire. The phrase “just friends” tells you everything; just friends, as if friendship is the diminished version. As if you’re taking up space in someone’s life without offering fair compensation.
What You’re Really Asking
That text in your drafts isn’t about coffee. It’s about whether you believe you’re a complete person.
Whether the parts of you that aren’t sexual (your thoughts, your humor, your specific way of noticing things) whether those parts are substantive enough to sustain someone’s interest. Whether you’re a full meal or just an appetizer that never gets ordered without the main course.
Most of the gay man I’ve worked with who struggle to initiate platonic friendships has this in common: they don’t believe their non-sexual self is worth knowing.
They’ve spent so long learning that attraction is the price of admission that they can’t imagine anyone valuing them without it. And asking for platonic friendship means asking someone to engage with the version of them they’ve been taught doesn’t matter.
The version that’s knowledgeable about ceramics, has strong opinions about urban planning, and gets emotional about certain songs. The version that exists when arousal isn’t in the room.
That version feels small. Insufficient. Like asking someone to care about the liner notes when everyone else just wants the album.
And the loneliest part?
You’re surrounded by other gay men who feel exactly the same way. All of you convinced you’re not enough. All of you unable to reach out because reaching out requires believing you have something to offer beyond your body.
All of you wanting friends. Most of you unable to ask.
The Question That Changes Everything
What if your personality isn’t the bonus feature? What if it’s the whole thing?
What if friendship isn’t what happens when attraction fails, but what happens when someone sees you clearly enough to want the parts that don’t fit in a profile?
I’m not asking you to believe this yet. I’m asking you to notice what happens in your chest when you read it.
That tightness. That resistance. That immediate: Yeah, but...
That’s the voice that keeps you from sending the text. The voice that’s convinced you’re only valuable when you’re available. The voice that learned early that your worth is measured in desire and everything else is just what you do while waiting to be wanted.
That voice is wrong.
But it’s been right for so long that you’ve forgotten how to count the evidence that contradicts it.
The Evidence You’re Not Counting
You think you don’t have proof that your non-sexual self matters. You do. You’re just using the wrong accounting system.
The coworker who asks your opinion on things unrelated to your job. The friend who texts you random thoughts because you’re the person who’d find them interesting. The people who stayed after the sexual possibility evaporated. The conversations that went three hours without either of you checking your phone. The ex who still calls when something happens because you’re the one who gets it.
All evidence.
You have data. You’re just not counting it because it’s not sexual, and sexual is the only metric you learned.
Instead of asking “How many people would want me without attraction?” ask “How many people already choose me for reasons that have nothing to do with my body?”
The number gets bigger.
That guy at the gym who always saves the bench for you. He’s not doing that because he wants to sleep with you. He’s doing it because you show up consistently and you’re not an asshole, and that matters to him.
Your best friend who calls you when they’re spiraling. They’re not calling because they’re attracted to you. They’re calling because you’re the person who can sit in the dark with them without trying to fix it.
The acquaintance who invited you to their birthday, even though you barely know each other. They’re not inviting you as sexual possibility. They’re inviting you because you made them laugh once and they remembered it.
The guy you dated briefly two years ago who still sends you articles he thinks you’d like. Not because he wants you back. Because your brain works in a way that matters to him, and when he reads something, he thinks of you.
The neighbor who knocked on your door to ask your opinion about their kitchen renovation. They have other friends. They chose you because you actually notice design in a way most people don’t, and your attention felt valuable enough to interrupt your evening for.
The colleague who always saves you a seat at meetings, even though you’ve never discussed it. It’s not attraction. It’s recognition that your presence makes the room feel different in a way they want around them.
These moments feel small. Inconsequential. Not evidence because they’re not dramatic declarations of your worth. But they’re people choosing your specific way of being in the world.
Not your body. Not your availability. You.
They’re real. And if you keep dismissing them as insufficient, you’ll spend the rest of your life believing you’re worthless while surrounded by evidence to the contrary.
And if you keep dismissing them as insufficient, you’ll spend the rest of your life believing you’re worthless while surrounded by evidence to the contrary.
Send the Text
Not as exposure therapy. As acting on data you already have.
The text isn’t a leap of faith. It’s a small bet based on evidence: you’re already someone’s person for things unrelated to attraction. Your personality has sustained relationships beyond the sexual. People choose you for reasons you’ve been trained not to count.
The guy from the gym might say yes. He might say no. He might misinterpret. He might need clarification.
But you’re not asking him to invent value that doesn’t exist. You’re asking him to recognize value you’ve been carrying all along but couldn’t see because it wasn’t measured in the language you learned.
The coffee invitation is practice. Not practice faking it. Practice counting the evidence you’ve been dismissing. Practice measuring your worth in the currency that actually matters: whether people choose your company for who you are, not what you might provide.
You are enough. Not because I said so. Because the people in your life have already been showing you, and you just weren’t watching for it.
The text finally sent at 11:47 PM.
“Want to grab coffee?”
No disclaimers. No qualifications. Just the question.
He replied the next morning: “Yeah, sounds good.”
It wasn’t revolutionary. It wasn’t proof of anything. It was just coffee.
But it was the first time in months he’d asked for something while actually believing he had something to offer beyond his body.
Not because he suddenly felt confident. Because he stopped discounting the evidence that he already mattered to people for reasons that had nothing to do with whether they wanted to sleep with him.
That counts.
Take inventory over the next week: Who already chooses your company for reasons unrelated to your body? Don’t dismiss the evidence because it’s not dramatic. Count it anyway.
Until next week,
Gino 💙
P.S. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please tap the Like button below. ❤️ It really does help.
All examples in this piece are composites drawn from patterns observed across therapeutic work with gay men. Details have been altered to protect confidentiality. No single story represents an individual person.
This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not replace therapy, diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition.
I had been out of the closet for 12 years before the first time I went out with a guy for a meal before sleeping with him.
'... but if you were a real friend you'd let me have sex with you as well'....