The Elephant in the Room

Edited: 02-28-2018: Grammatically and Readability
Edited: 06-03-2018: Grammatically and Description

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My perspective as an openly gay man living in an uber-conservative, non-metropolitan area is, the LGBTQ community is not really a community. I would describe it more as a group of people who just so happen to share a very small piece of common ground. Friendships and sometimes even relationships are built upon this one piece of information but, I haven't had the luxury often.

At the beginning of 2017, I was crushed by rural isolation.

I reached out for friendship, companionship, just about anything through whatever means the internet offered.

I was attached to Skype for a while. I only found a handful of people to talk to. Some of them I was interested in, even sexually, but it never really went anywhere.

I took a hiatus from Skype because one contact, in particular, was extremely toxic. It was like talking to a four-year-old trapped behind a brick wall. I told him exactly what I thought about our friendship, why I had to end it, and then left Skype all together for some time.

This was about the time I found Reddit. I really enjoyed Reddit when I first joined. It was a great place to find a lot of different interests and people to talk to about various topics. I've always had a very busy mind and I consider myself to be a human sponge for knowledge. Reddit quells the voices in my head well.

When the story about gay men being detained, tortured, and killed in Chechnya first appeared on Reddit, I immediately started to spread the story to LGBTQ-related subreddits. Somewhere along the line, I was banned from two highly popular subreddits for spamming.

I fought as hard as I could against those bans but, to no avail. I haven't had the same respect or admiration for Reddit since.

I finally gained access to a tablet. I immediately downloaded as many dating applications as I could. Only to find out the majority of men in this area, I do not find to be sexually attractive. Most of the others can't be bothered to even have a discussion with someone like myself.

As Pride Month comes to a close, I realize why I don't feel as if I'm a part of a community. It simply doesn't exist in this area like so many people would believe it does. 

It would be nice to have one openly gay person to connect with on a regular basis but, it doesn't seem like it will happen anytime soon.