I dunno if the problems you're describing are really exclusive to gay men, because frankly, what you're describing sounds like relationships in general. The problems you described seem to boil down to the fact that there is not enough compromise, or someone's trying to get something they just can't have from someone else. That's probably simplifying the matter down to a ridiculous (and perhaps even insulting?) degree, but that seems to be the big problem with Western relationships as a whole, and not just gay ones. Rather than talking things out with your partner, or trying to compromise in what you want from them and what they can and will give you, or perhaps even jumping ship because I'm sorry, some people just do not work together, most people try to force ourselves into these relationships that can't or perhaps even shouldn't work. And worse still, people seem to get it in their heads that with a relationship, it's an end all be all source of interaction. That our significant other is our number one source of emotional, mental, and physical stimulation, and that's just unbelievably selfish and unrealistic to put all that strain on one person. To put it frankly, it's my belief that our society's approach to what a relationship is and how it should work is downright dumb, whether they're gay, or straight, or whatever.

Now I'll just climb down from my soapbox over here, excuse me...

totally agreed. i have no personal experience of being in a homosexual relationship (especially penis on penis, for obvious reasons, lollo) and really this was just my own observation with the many gay men i know. but then again, you're right, it really is just all relationships, if you step back and look at it. i guess it just boils down to how mature you are when entering said relationship.

thanks for your input~!

The boyfriend and I are in it to win it. We're exclusively monogamous and moving together in about half a year. Neither of us are butch or femme, though he's teaching himself to sew and I have this rugged, Walt Whitman-style beardy masculine pastiche. Sex is secondarily important for both of us to being funny and challenging. He's collected and stoic as a check to my mercurial emotionality and I help him open up about his feelings. We call out each others' bullshit and expand our moral centers, because being with the other makes us want to be the best person we can. I'm an atheist and he's a (basically unitarian) Christian, and that doesn't matter. We know how to bicker really well. He likes things that I think are terrible, and that's great! He really gets on my nerves and I like that about him and that's how know it's love. Boring, grumpy comfortably unsexy love.

I think you're getting too fixated on assigning gender roles in search of a "balance" that doesn't (and shouldn't!) exist. The great thing about being in a gay relationship is that all of that baggage can be thrown out the window.

I think any relationship is hard in our culture because social conservatives want to bring back the patriarchy and the alternative is this chaotic amoral vacuum that encourages everything that is shallow and destructive and that doesn't contribute to lasting relationships. Many shades of gay culture are stuck in this vortex.

aughhh, hearing how well you and him fit together this makes me happy~ in my own relationship, there's a lot of give and take, and we're faaar from the perfect couple, so i can totally see where you're coming from. we're happy~ and that's because, like what you said, our love comes first before anything else. replacing the gender stereotype with just a normal human being is really what it's all about.

i guess what i'm really wanting to say is that these problems, from the people that i know, only seem to happen to the gay relationships. i have lesbian friends, straight friends, and most of them have very lasting relationships. so in the nitty gritty of it, i'm contemplating the male psyche and how it works in a homosexual relationship.

basically men are pigs, though.

hahahaha, oh u~

I can say this: My boss, is a gay man, who is married, with children. He and his husband have been together "since college", and since he is close to 50 years old, I can only assume that they have been together for nearly over twenty years now. How do they make it work? I'll be damned if I know, but it works. I think the key is that you have to forgo "roles" and do what just works for the two of you.

oh, this isn't about me, haha. i'm straight female. really i'm just thinking about the gay friend's i have and why their relationships never seem to work out.

copy pasta: "i guess what i'm really wanting to say is that these problems, from the people that i know, only seem to happen to the gay relationships. i have lesbian friends, straight friends, and most of them have very lasting relationships. so in the nitty gritty of it, i'm contemplating the male psyche and how it works in a homosexual relationship."