E.It started shortly before my 34th birthday – a vague feeling. Even two years later, I still can’t quite believe it, but it’s still there: my age suddenly played a role for me. Before that, I was always the person who waved it off: What does this number mean? But when I had to make friends in my mid-30s, everything changed. So I’m getting older in a community where youth seems to be everything. Or? Aging can be a long and complicated process, especially for queer men. There are many studies that show: loneliness, depression and anxiety are more common. Aging often plays a major role in this. There is this physicality, which is important for identity. The aesthetic that demands and represents youth and defined bodies. There is also the dating culture in which older men no longer have much importance outside of well-defined roles.
So this feeling of getting older has accompanied me for a good two years. It’s not a bad feeling. It’s not a good feeling. Actually, it’s nothing. Still, sometimes it doesn’t let me sleep. And it makes me shudder: Am I already too old? But for what? Are there any gaps in my life that need to be filled? Does aging mean that: find and fill its gaps? Then again the feeling makes me nostalgic, makes me think about a time when I still had so many opportunities that seem so remote to me today. Nevertheless, the feeling is not becoming more tangible for me. Rather, the more I try to grasp it, the more diffuse it becomes. According to which models can we queer men actually age? How to find a way that makes us happy, far from heteronormative ideas?
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