In a city where your coffee order is more complicated than your last situationship, gay dating feels like a full-time job with no benefits and frequent layoffs.
As a therapist, I’ve noticed a pattern. Not just among clients, but floating around in the air of this city like secondhand ambition: the belief that if you swipe long enough, attend enough queer events, or show up to just the right rooftop, you’ll meet the person who makes it all make sense.
He’ll be funny but not too much, emotionally available but with just enough edge, and ideally, make you forget that you ever doubted your own worth.
But what if we’re not really dating?
What if we’re casting for someone to play the role of emotional savior, with a 9% body fat and perfect texting etiquette? Of course, the process of dating is complex and many factors are at play. In here, I am specifically referring to a type of dating experience where we almost compulsively find something in others that turn us off.
From a psychoanalytic lens, this isn’t just picky dating behavior. It’s a search for someone who can patch the cracks we try to ignore. In technical terms, it’s called ego ideal projection—when we unconsciously look for a partner who reflects the version of ourselves we wish we could be: effortlessly confident, deeply lovable, enviably secure.
It’s not just about attraction. It’s about validation. “If someone like him wants me, maybe I’ll finally feel okay.”
This dynamic isn’t random. For many gay men, especially those who grew up without models of queer love, or who experienced shame around their desires in a heteronormative society, romantic relationships can carry more than the usual emotional weight. They aren’t just about companionship; they become arenas for proving worth, rewriting early rejection, or achieving the belonging that was once denied. The partner isn’t just a person. They’re a symbol of arrival. And when love is loaded with that kind of meaning, it becomes harder to tolerate anything short of ideal.
But the catch with fantasy is, it collapses under reality.
The moment the person across from us stops being a mirror and starts being a real, complicated human—with needs, quirks, availability, and that one TikTok voice they use too often—something happens. The fantasy slips. And for many, so does the desire.
Suddenly, they’re too much. Or not enough. Or just not it.
Cue: polite fade-out. Ambiguous text. Quiet exit. And just like that, we’re back on the apps.
But this isn’t just fear of commitment. Often, it’s fear of disillusionment. Real intimacy demands that we take the risk of being seen without the mask. It means letting go of the idea that love will fix us, and sitting in the discomfort of being enough as we are—flaws, vulnerability, and all.
In my sessions, I often see people who are doing all the right things, going to therapy, meditating, “working on themselves”, but who still find themselves chasing unavailability and running from closeness. The pattern isn’t logical. It’s emotional. It’s unconscious. And it usually has very little to do with the person they’re dating, and everything to do with the story they’re still trying to rewrite about themselves.
So, if dating has started to feel like one long casting call, where no one gets the part, you might consider this:
Maybe it’s not that no one is good enough. Maybe it’s that no one can play the role you've written for them.
Here’s an exercise I often use in sessions, not to diagnose, but to illuminate. Try finishing these prompts:
“If I find the right person, then I will finally feel __________.”
“The part of myself I secretly hope a partner will fix or heal is __________.”
“I know I’m idealizing someone when I start thinking __________.”
“The kind of partner I avoid, even if they treat me well, usually makes me feel __________.”
“I worry that if I settle for someone good enough, I might __________.”
This isn’t about judgment. It’s about clarity. When we become aware of the hidden scripts driving our dating life, we’re better equipped to stop reenacting them—and start writing new ones.
Because love isn’t a performance. It’s not a fantasy to chase or a problem to solve. It’s a relationship between two flawed people, learning how to stay in the room together—even when the lighting is bad and the magic fades.
And that kind of love? It might not be perfect. But it’s the only kind that’s real.
