Black Gay Men at Midlife – Part 8 of a series
It is not uncommon in the gay community for many people to grow up feeling emotional distance, if not in fact alienation and abandonment, from their biological families. In order to establish some kind of support network, they may consciously choose with whom they associate, creating “family” out of friends. However unlike biological families where ages range from grandparents to parents to children, these created families may have a sameness in age or gender that, while supportive, shuts one off from valuable knowledge. Wisdom ordinarily passed down from elders may not happen if there is no interaction across generational lines.
Middle age is the “bridge” period between seniors and young adults, with both learning and teaching opportunities if such relationships exist. If not, history may simply repeat itself from each generation to the next.
In Part 8, the men close out discussion of their lives today.
Discuss the nature and quality of any interaction you may have with gay men either younger or older.
Conrad, 43, Memphis
The nature of my interaction with gay men is almost null and void except for the occasional meeting of a guy on the street or in academia. The ones in academia ranged from just young to older guys who are afraid of their own sexual shadow so I give them a lot of room. The quality of the interactions is usually poor across the board. Young guys either haven’t fully recognized and acknowledged their sexuality and the older ones (around my age) are terrified of somebody knowing they like men—and don’t even mention the married ones. For those young or old who are acknowledging their sexuality, there is a certain cynicism that you find hard to scale to get to know them. And I’m so much less patient with the bullshit of closetness. I just told a guy to leave me alone because his being in the closet (and everybody knows mind you) is about who saw you standing there talking with me etc. etc. I can’t be bothered with that kind of drama anymore. I told him to not speak to me. He felt like speaking was a “common courtesy” since we had to be around each other at work. I don’t. I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to look at him. He can go to…his work station! There’s nothing common about dismissing someone’s humanity because you’re afraid that everybody knows you’re a punk (and it’s a secret to nobody but him). I’m getting too old to be bothered with that kind of drama.
Patrice, 39, Brooklyn
I am more of a mentor to younger gay men and am often not attracted to them. Men older than me are interesting and I feel younger in their presence. Slowly but surely thy have become dateable in my eyes because it seems to make more sense to date men within my age range.
Bernard, 41, Atlanta
Previous answers fall into this category.
John, 41, Jersey City/Chicago
It varies. I do have several younger gay male friends whom I mentor and offer support to. I want to see them succeed in their lives, and I know how hard life is for us. In terms of my peers, I aim very hard to maintain my friendships and be a good friend. With
older friends, I see them less frequently, but I do try to maintain those friendships as well, because I think they’re very important.
George, 51, New York
There are few older gay men I socialize with but those who I do have embraced me as an elder in some respects and a youngster in other ways. As I mentioned earlier, I also tend to mentor many younger gay men about being an activist, living your life publicly and balancing the state of their personal relationships.
Mark, 46, Harlem
Lately my experiences have been rewarding. I feel a sense of responsibility, along with the need to mentor younger men. I’m slowly allowing myself permission to feel attracted to and interact with men older than myself.
David, 46, Harlem
As for young, gay men, I don’t have any interaction, which is a loss for them. For I’m a teacher by nature, and like Countee Cullen’s and James Baldwin’s relationship I would like to become a mentor. But I think the media, hip-hop industry and the unspoken truth and trust surrounding AIDS today, like yesterday has built a huge wall between “us” and “them”.
As for the older, gay men in my life, I occasionally will attend a movie opening with them, but usually I don’t have any contact with them.
Robert, 40, San Francisco
If I encounter other gay men I try to make sure I am comfortable with the individual. Perhaps that happens only with observation.
Cordell, 41, Albany
I now have both younger and older friends who I socialize with. However, I now feel that I am of the age where I can possibly mentor younger men and share with them my experiences and help them along the way (once the attraction diminishes!) Also, I now see older men more as peers than as role models.
James, 43, Oakland
I am an old soul by nature so I have always enjoyed being around older gay men. I love their wisdom and life stories. We do not interact as much these days because of our schedules. They are a bit more stayed than I am. They go to church on Sunday, nice dinners, and quaint little social gatherings. They enjoy their lives and are much more laid back than me. I will often hear from them when they need to find out who is playing where and when because they know I will know.
I enjoy the vibrant energy and creativity of my younger friends. In some cases, they are doing things that I wished that I had done when I was their age. I provide them wisdom and encouragement without being preachy or overbearing.
Jaleel, 42, Decatur
I love my interactions with my gay brothers. I love my interactions because I know that I’m supposed to teach them something and learn something from them. My best friend and I, for example, used to argue all the time. We’ve certainly mellowed with age. We don’t argue any more. This doesn’t mean that we agree on every issue, we just accept each other for who the other is. Although the younger generation is undeniably gorgeous, I’d much rather teach them, than sleep with them. Often times it seems that our worlds are so different as it relates to life-long partnerships, and the use of the “N” word, and the provocative lyrics in today’s rap music and negotiating revealing clothing…but we are all the same on the inside and that’s the side that’s most important to me. I’m interested in healing us from the inside, out.
Reggie, 46, Baltimore
I’m much more comfortable around other older gay men now. Part of that HAS to be just the joy in seeing someone my age, since so many of the people we came up with are no longer with us. I have some interaction with younger people, but for the most part I look at them like a bewildered parent: We went through what we went through so you could act/dress/be like that!?!
Part of me wishes I could impart some ‘wisdom’ to the younger generation…but I honestly am not sure what I would say (Be yourself? Stop trying to imitate someone else vision of you?) I’m also not sure they would listen.
What are some of the best and worst aspects of being gay and the age you are now?
Conrad, 43, Memphis
The loneliness is sometimes almost unbearable. The lack of imagination with so many guys who think gay is a synonym for fuck and the level of fear with so many guys my age who are afraid to say, “Good evening” for fear people will know their “business” is beyond tragic. And I have even less patience for the guys who give you a whole litany of things not to do or say around common acquaintances because those people might find out their business. I mean almost 50 years old and you’re afraid your Mama will have a heart attack if she knows the truth and you move to have some freedom. Hopeless!
Patrice, 39, Brooklyn
I’m smarter, I have more options financially and emotionally to cope with the stressors of aging, health, etc.
Bernard, 41, Atlanta
BEST: Complete disinterest in “looking” for a lover or life partner; lack of concern regarding internecine politics within and among Black gay peoples; taking a more balanced approach to life and my various interests in general.
WORST: Folks are doing the same things now they were 20+ years ago when I “officially” came out. Same script, different cast. In other words, they bore me.
John, 41, Jersey City/Chicago
I don’t see many bad aspects. I’m 41 going on 42, and I feel this is one of the best times of my life. Despite the many horrors out there in our society, I think things are changing, on the social level, for the better as the younger generations age, and I believe full social equality, at least in the legal sense, is on the horizon, for Black and gay people.
George, 51, New York
The best aspects are having a real sense of self. Being comfortable in my skin and not really concerned what most people think or say about me. I’m not sure if it’s the worst but dating and going out is very challenging. There are few places that men over fifty socialize without feeling like we are preying on younger men. Some places the young guys think that you should cater to them just because they are young or they try to make you feel inferior or strange for being in a space that they congregate in.
Mark, 46, Harlem
I sometimes feel invisible, marginalized and neglected at my age. Younger guys tell me I “look good” for my age. After the initial sting, I laugh because I used to say the same thing when I was their age. No matter how often I workout, my body is weary. I feel good, yet know I’m closer to 50 than 40. I’ve never felt the sense of freedom, happiness and joy I have in my life today. I’m used to living with a partner or friend. I’ve lived alone almost 12 years now. I answer to no one. I come and go as I please: what a blessing! I feel I’ve been given an opportunity to re-live my childhood, only now with greater awareness.
David, 46, Harlem
Well now at the age of 46, I’m focused more on my health, housing and retirement, family and extended family interaction. Therefore the best part about it is that I’m here, and that my family and friends did not have to endure watching me succumb to AIDS, but I am also a two time cancer survivor, so I am taking life a little more easier.
I also returned back to graduate school, and may be planning to enter Law School.
The worst part is that I do enjoy dancing, and going out, but times have changed across the board, and I prefer small gatherings at home.
Robert, 40, San Francisco
The best aspect I can think of is, I can look back and know what I want and what I don’t need in my life.
Cordell, 41, Albany
The best aspect is no longer needing to hide your sexuality to others. The worst is HIV/AIDS still has a very definitive role in sexual interactions.
James, 43, Oakland
I love being the age I am right now. I am awestruck by the goals I have accomplished and the fact that there is so much more I want to do. I get lonely at times but I know in time I will have someone special in my life that is local. My lonely is different in that it is the desire to share the special moments in my life with someone who can appreciate them just as much as I do. The physical loneliness is much easier to fill than the emotional.
A challenge that I found is that once you have been typecast in the gay life, it sticks, and people do not acknowledge that you have grown. My nature is very maternal and nurturing so I was called mama or Mama Knox when I was in my 30’s. It was cute for a time but eventually it got old and I found it very hard for people to stop addressing me in that manner. It is not like I am trying to be big, bad, and butch but I am a man and want to be treated that way. Being able to make a good cake is a great skill but it does not always get you many dates.
Jaleel, 42, Decatur
I can’t say that there is anything about being gay that is bad for me right now in my life. I love and embrace all aspects of this lifestyle. I love the fact that I can visualize living with my partner and getting married. I love that I am able to forgive in a way that was completely foreign to me at one point in my life. I love my ability to discern genuine friendships. And “yes” I even love the fact that 20 year olds still try to hit on me…LOL!
Here’s the deal: I only recognize and feed LOVE. When we feed things, they grow…positive or not so positive. If I want love to grow in the community then I can’t criticize. I must be love and love will surely grow.
Reggie, 46, Baltimore
Best: Deeper, closer, ‘real’ friendships. A certain calmness that comes from having ‘made it through’ and/or ’seen it all before.’
Worse: The body slowly betrays you, doesn’t it? :-)
BTW: It doesn’t bother me that I’m ‘not on the market’ in the sense of being/looking like the slim hairless young things everyone is supposed to lust after. I recognize that as fantasy/advertising, and it doesn’t phase me or change my notions/acceptance of who I am.
Tomorrow, Part 9: Preparing for Old Age
3 comments ↓
I have been reading your series daily now and even linked to your “Search for Community” Q&A under my best posts ever section on my blog. But this is the first time in reading the series that I’ve felt angry, frustrated, disappointed, defensive, etc, as a young person who is also not out…particularly with the first question you asked and those responses. The circle of alienation never stops, does it?
And I think it’s incredibly sad–yet quite to the point of a big problem I see in the “gay community”–what several of these guys have to say about maintaining a distance from and not serving as mentors to the younger generation. It’s a very broad stereotype that keeps those of us who really need these older people from getting that which we need most, whether some of us act like we want it or not. And then people *still* wonder why some of us are not out or, worse yet, assume they know why…
Of course, no one is required to help. But from thinking back on some of their other responses, I’d think some of them would be much, much more understanding and able to relate. I don’t know what it is about gays that seems to make them completely forget about the gravity of coming out once they’ve been out for sometime and to just completely lose patience for and a level of relating to people who have not come out. Yes, a lot of 20-somethings and younger are ridiculous…*I* don’t even relate to them. But being black and gay immediately raises issues that are somewhat universal for us all, or, at least, opens the door for a comparison and contrast between issues for gay blacks then and now…much like some of your series has done. So they could talk to us, but several are just too busy alienating us for various reasons.
Speaking as one of “these older people”, I thought it necesary to respond to the previous post. I was reading my responses and “spoke” to Bernie about just how “cynical” I must sound on here, but then I thought about it later, it’s genuine. It’s where I am and at the same time I had to really think about what I’m passing on and stopped to think about my son I’m in the process of adopting who I’m presently working with on his sexism and homophobia and trying to spoon feed him as he goes because he’s been handled by some extremely homophobic and crazy folks in the system up to this point. I’m working with him at the same time that I don’t want to overwhelm him. As an older person I had to realize that having started a black gay group here in Memphis almost twelve years ago and putting my whole heart into it, being there for young and old, fighting black churches and prechers and their stuff here in the Bible Belt of Memphis, taking phone calls in the middle of the night from guys who’d been molested because they were gay from family members, guys whose lovers had died and I sat up all night with them. I worked with guys who weren’t out while I was, guiding them to not so much be out but just be comfortable with themselves. What I found was that so much was so deep that what I was doing was huge communal work; how courageous my effort was when I didn’t even realize it at the time. I helped guys deal with being HIV positive, going to get tested and supporting them in the aftercare whether they came back positive or negative. I protected young guys from abusive older guys and from themselves, covered them all under my wing like Isis and loved them and loved them hard. I fed guys, listened to them and even got my mother who could talk about “sissies” to embrace many of these guys, fed them from her pots and amazingly really took to one of them who was transgender; she really liked the girl and enjoyed her presence. I did this and really without trying. It was just a matter of compassion because I think it is the work of the Spirit. I pulled together retreats in the state park system of Tennessee for guys to come from across the country and stood by and heard some under their breath claim that people couldn’t change and that my effort was wasted. I got some to deal with their father issues walking through labyrinths although one had to snatch his dad across a table and it was the greatest relief for him before he died but he never got to see the larger healing process from letting go of his anger; this same guy died of complications from AIDs that really altered my rather simple way of seeing life and the world as I had to sit there and watch him suffer with ignorant family members in denial. I lost all of this group to apathy, fear and finally treachery to destroy it and me. I realized the work was too large for me especially when I realized that so many of the guys, young and old, had bought so deeply into their own destruction that they saw my light, as dim as it was, as an intrusion. I began to pull away due to burnout, suicidal ideations and just neglect of my own personal needs. I helped them and failed myself. Looking back I sometimes feel that I failed miserably and that the darkness won and other times I feel like if I died tomorrow then at least I tried to make light in the midst of an incredible darkness that Memphis can be with an incredibly large, and belabored populace of black folks who are oppressed and believe that this is the will of the Lord at the same time that they love hating black gay folks;I can’t speak for another town. Realizing this when I come across young people more often than not they can’t hear me because they’ve so readily bought into “gay”. I’m beyond that and have reached a place in my life where I’m open to them but I’ve got to work on me too. I’m the priority now to get myself in a space to live my life for me first. Anybody else is certainly privy to the fruit of my labor and I am bountiful. I’m at a stage of growth as a middle aged black man who loves men that I’m more clear about who I must become, getting a grip on my fears so they don’t run me while I’m at a stage where I also realize a lot of guys aren’t at the place that I am. I have to realize from many of the guy’s postings on here that we’re at a very unique and special place without maps or mentors to show us how to deal with the unique pieces of personal experience and history we’ve had to go through from experiencing some major shifts in our culture at the same time that we were neither wanted nor appreciated. We’ve got our scars, but we’ve got our glory too and it’s a beautiful thing. It’s easy to state what you’re not getting in the face of these guys being honest publicly, but it’s a whole other ball game to meet us where we’re at as we’ve not only been “out” but way out there doing very private and public work that won’t make it on the Oprah show any time soon, but Spirit and everybody reading this is our witness. Whatever any young person reading this may feel, I hope at the least they see a bunch of black men who get up and tried, didn’t surrender and are still looking and evolving cause we ain’t dead yet! Blessings upon you all for your lives lived and to an abundance of more love than you know what to do with.
In Spirit and Love,
Conrad
And one more thing I forgot to say. Reading my posts and those of the others really pushed me from a sense of isolation when I heard guys saying things I’d felt and written in their own way. I had to recognize that I am healing and am glad to say that I’m healing. What a young person might take from this is that sometimes us “older” guys need to do some inventory that doesn’t necessariy include folks who might need us at a particular time because we need ourselves if only for a little while. A younger person can learn from that healing process that although it’s not a pretty process, it certainly gives you a better sense of yourself and we “older” guys have an even better thing to share with you younger guys when it’s all done and said.