Is it harder for a gay person to find a relationship

[Etcect]

DS is in his early 20s . He wants to find a long term relationship but he says people seem to want hook ups or open relationships. He often gets hurt emotionally.

Is it harder for gay people to find a relationship? Or is it no different to a heterosexual person?

Well there are fewer gay men to choose from than straight people, and there is a big hook up culture for gay men so it's not easy but I don't know any gay man who has never had a long term relationship so it's clearly possible. Does he have a lot of gay friends? He probably needs to find his people if he hasn't done already.

This is extremely stereotypical, but my experience of having a gay best friend is that when he was young and he was beautiful nobody wanted any more than one night stand
It’s only really as he’s become old and fat and grey that he actually had people look at him as a human being to engage with.

That's sad really.

No different to any other relationships.

Yes. There are fewer of us, hook up culture and trauma/MH difficulties meaning a lot of people in the community just aren't relationship material.

Hopefully, the younger (ie your son's) generation won't have as much of the latter though.
And 'more difficult' is a long way off 'not possible'. A lot of gay men do want more than a hook up, too.🙂

Yes, it's harder. The population of gay people is much smaller than straight.I think covid and the increase of WFH has made it harder to meet people.

My DS, mid 20's has had one serious relationship. He's been on various dating apps, and had a few hookups, but not met anyone special yet.

I think with the prevalence of hookup culture among gay men it's probably hard to find a LTR at that age with someone of his own age. The younger gay men I know in long-term relationships tend to have an age difference - because the younger men who want to settle down are few and far between, so they find someone older. Not all men, but I think if hetrosexual men were able to hookup almost at will in their 20s, I'm not sure as many would get in a committed relationship either. Plus add in the smaller dating pool, and yes sadly I think it's much harder. It's also more difficult to just meet partners organically, through work or hobbies the way young straight people do. So to meet someome a gay man usually has to do it through grindr or the gay scene, but the gay scene is geared towards hookups....