We’ve all been sold the same story…

Find your person. Lock it down. Build a life. Post a couple of photos. Get the dog. Done. Happy ending.

I’m not here to trash romantic love. If you’ve found it, amazing! I love love! I love others in love, I love me in love. Love love love!

But I do want to talk about what happens to those of us who have made “finding The One” the entire plot of our story, and how that search can rob us of the life we are already living… or could be living.

Because for a lot of gay men, the pursuit of a relationship has become less about love and more about validation. Less about connection and more about proof. Proof that we’re lovable, normal, that we’ve made it or good enough.

And when it doesn’t happen, or when it happens and falls apart, we’re left wondering what’s wrong with us.

The Story We Inherited

Most of us grew up absorbing a love story that was never written for us. The fairytale ending, the rom-com arc, the idea that life truly begins when you find your other half. And for queer people, that narrative carries extra weight. Because for so long, we were told we couldn’t have it. That our love didn’t count.

So when the doors finally opened, many of us ran through. We were hungry for the relationship, the wedding and the Instagram life because we’d been told for so long that we couldn’t have it.

Now the apps are full of men looking for The One while swiping past hundreds of perfectly good humans because nobody quite matches the fantasy. We’ve traded one form of loneliness for another.

What If You’re Already The One?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. What if the great love story of your life isn’t about finding someone else? What if it’s about becoming the person you’ve been searching for?

That probably sounds like a greeting card quote. Cheesy! But stay with me.

Think about what you actually want from a relationship. Presence. Attention. Warmth. Someone who really sees you. Someone who prioritises you. Someone who makes you feel like you matter.

Now ask yourself this… do you give any of that to yourself? Huh?

Most of the gay men I know, myself included, are far better at showing up for other people than we are at showing up for ourselves. We’ll rearrange our whole week for a date with a stranger from Hinge, but we won’t carve out an evening to do something alone that genuinely nourishes us…

The relationship with yourself isn’t a consolation prize for not having a partner. It’s the foundation on which everything else is built. Your friendships, your love life, your work, your sex, self-pleasure, your creativity, your sense of peace. All of it flows from how you relate to yourself.

The Love That’s Already There

One thing I’ve noticed through running Pleasure Medicine, my connection workshop and ecstatic dance for gay men in East London, is that the men who walk through the door looking for romantic or sexual connection often leave having found something they didn’t expect. Brotherhood. Friendship. A room full of men who they feel safe to be around. Real community.

And for a lot of gay guys, that goes deeper than most dates ever have…

We’ve been so fixated on romantic love as the ultimate prize that we’ve neglected the other forms of love that are right in front of us. The friend who checks in on you every week. The group chat that makes you laugh when everything feels heavy. The stranger at an event who asks you a real question and actually listens.

Community is love. Friendship is love. Belonging is love. Self-recognition is love.

Pleasure medicine is a gay dance social.

Rewriting the Story

I’m not suggesting we all give up on romance. I’m suggesting we stop making it the only chapter that matters.

What if you stopped waiting to be chosen and started choosing yourself?

That might look like finally investing in that friendship you’ve been taking for granted. Or making new ones. It might look like walking into a room full of strangers and being open to whatever happens. It might look like dancing sober in a room full of gay men who are doing the same thing, and realising that this, right here, is what belonging actually feels like.

That’s what happens at Pleasure Medicine. And it changes people. When you put gay men in a room together with music, kindness and an invitation to drop the act, something real emerges. Something that a lot of us have been hungry for without knowing it.