A confession.
When I was younger, I used to make fun of old gay men.
Not constantly. Not cruelly. But enough that I remember it.
My friends and I would joke about how older gay men became trolls. We’d laugh about who was attractive and who wasn’t. Who still “had it” and who didn’t.
Then I’d laugh and say, “I wonder how we’re going to feel when we’re older.”
Well.
Now I know.
The strange thing is that I wasn’t even particularly secure back then.
I was thin. I was younger. I fit the mold better than I do now.
But I still worried about wearing the right clothes.
Looking the right way.
Being attractive enough.
Being desirable enough.
Fitting in.
Looking back, I realize I wasn’t actually confident.
I was just closer to the target.
Those are not the same thing.
Growing older as a gay man can be a strange experience.
For a community that talks a lot about acceptance and belonging, it can also make you feel incredibly alone while you’re trying to fit in. There’s this assumption that once you come out, you’ve found your people. That you’ve arrived.
But sharing an identity and feeling like you belong aren’t always the same thing.
Even when I was younger and thinner, I often felt like I was trying to keep up with some unwritten standard. The right look. The right body. The right level of confidence. The right social circle.
I don’t have the confidence of a drag queen, but sometimes I wish I did.
What I’ve always admired isn’t the makeup or the performance.
It’s the audacity.
The refusal to apologize for taking up space.
The willingness to be seen.
Life had other plans for me.
Over time, I gained more than 200 pounds.
It didn’t happen overnight. Most major life changes don’t. It happened gradually, until one day I found myself in a category I never imagined I’d be in.
I wasn’t just aware of the standards anymore.
I was on the wrong side of them.
Years later, after gaining all that weight, I became the kind of person younger me would have pitied.
That’s not easy to admit.
The worst part wasn’t realizing that other people judged me.
The worst part was realizing I already knew how.
I’d learned the rules years earlier.
I knew exactly how the game was played because I’d spent years playing it myself.
Eventually, I had bariatric surgery and lost more than 200 pounds.
And if I’m being honest, I didn’t do it for just one reason.
My health was deteriorating, and I wanted a healthier future. I wanted to reduce health risks and improve my quality of life.
But I also wanted to feel better in my body.
I wanted more mobility. Less pain. More confidence.
I wanted to recognize myself again.
The decision wasn’t purely medical, and it wasn’t purely cosmetic.
It was personal.
Complicated.
Human.
The weight loss helped a lot of things.
But it didn’t magically erase every insecurity or every fear about aging, attractiveness, or belonging.
Because those questions were never just about my body.
The truth is, I still feel some of those pressures today.
I’m older now.
My body is different.
The mirror is different.
The dating pool is different.
I used to think getting older would make me care less about what other people thought. In some ways it has. In other ways, the pressure just changed shape.
And sometimes gay culture still feels obsessed with youth, appearance, and desirability.
But maybe that’s because our culture is obsessed with those things too.
Age comes.
Weight changes.
Bodies change.
Hair disappears.
The standards keep moving.
For a long time, I thought happiness was waiting on the other side of meeting those standards.
I thought if I could just be thinner, younger, more attractive, more confident, more whatever, I’d finally feel like I belonged.
But the target never stops moving.
And eventually, you get tired of chasing it.
You stop auditioning.
You stop asking for permission.
You stop measuring your worth against somebody else’s checklist.
And maybe that’s what fabulous really is.
Not being everyone’s type.
Not winning everyone’s approval.
Not looking exactly the way you wish you did.
Just being yourself without apologizing for taking up space.
Maybe that’s what fabulous feels like.
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