Many gay men – indeed across all queer life – know unrequited love bitterly well. We have it mastered: turning white-hot at a look held too long; a friendship overinterpreted; some ordinary, unavailable person made magnificent at distance – maybe just for their very unavailability.
Long before I knew how to be loved by men, I was excellent at wanting them. And now there seems to be a growing culture, led by forces that seek to benefit from it, encouraging us to covet the delta between us – instead of the actual connection.
Indeed, Tinder declared 2026 the “Year of Yearning” after its research into young singles found Gen Z increasingly craving “anticipation, emotional tension” and “slow-burn connection.”
It’s a mood they stand to profit from, but Tinder isn’t the only one discussing – and cashing in – on the generational trend. Gen Z’s beloved Brittany Broski, whose humour has long orbited impossible desire, recently told Bustle, “I don’t know how to not be in a constant state of yearn”.
Meanwhile, a “Bring Back Men Who Yearn” T-shirt became one of BookCon 2026’s surprise objects of desire; their own, real-world macguffin. It seems, yearning’s in!
This news may strike many of us as tiresome; bewildering in its obvious inferiority to obtainable love; and ultimately, reminiscent of an acute adolescent sting. Indeed, almost ubiquitously featured in every gay music video, from Sivan's Blue Neighbourhood series to the viral hit can't wait by Andy. Yearning is desire that exists for a prolonged period before it can become reciprocal or embodied.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve experienced as ubiquitous among and so deeply known by gay men that I turned to the most uniting experience of all queer people to understand why – our having been in the closet.
A systematic review of 30 studies in Frontiers in Psychology found that lesbian, gay and bi people first experienced queer attraction, on average, at 12.7 years old. Their first queer romantic relationship then came at 20.9.
Eight years is a long time to want, yet not have. By comparison, research cited in the same review places heterosexual first relationships around 16.6 to 18. The researchers caution that queer lives follow enormously varied paths, but suggest coming out, access to other queer people, and internalised stigma may explain the delay.
Suddenly our knack for yearning made sense to me. While learning our own desire, many of us were simultaneously learning its surveillance: policing where the eye would linger, identifying exactly which expressions and affections require concealment, and which gestures might betray us – perhaps even desperately redressing them in service of the heterosexual ideal.
This apprenticeship is likely not exclusive to gay men. Across queer lives, desire often must disclose itself inwardly before it can be expressed outwardly – shaped by the same negotiations of safety and permission.
But beneath it all our desires persist, uninterrupted and so very far from dormant. We yearn.
Indeed, I had learned to code switch for heterosexual conspicuousness long before I knew there existed such a neat little term for it; by 18 – evidently still years away from the average age of the first queer romantic relationship – I grew depressed and exhausted from the merciless pursuit of my own mannerisms that infuriatingly told the world what (or who) I really desired before I felt brave or potent enough to articulate it myself.
Queer people learn to yearn in a world that wrongly finds our love objectionable. So it is part of our resistance to this pressure that we challenge and discard all but the sensitivity and curiosity that had to grow there. That we take those lessons forward and opt instead for love that is abundant, reciprocal; gloriously available to us.
That we refuse to buy into a dating ‘culture’ and instead, find our own unique and personal way to embrace a fulfilling, embodied love – in all its many queer forms.
Get the Queer Gaze in your inbox each week with our free weekly newsletter or pitch to write an edition for us now.
We deserve good news too.
When there is so much hate out there, it's easy to get swept up in the doom.
QueerAF doesn't do that. We sprinkle in the joy that is the lifeblood of why being LGBTQIA+ is so simply wonderful.
And in the newsletter where this was first published, there was actually a bunch of positive news to celebrate. It shows me that despite the headlines knocking us down, we're getting right back up again and using our anger to fuel our fight.
While the rest of the media cashes in on hate about us, we can focus on queer joy - because you drive us. The community. QueerAF readers - not advertisers.
Our members directly fund our content. When you sign up, you get to have your say on how your funds are used. On what content we should commission.
But we turn down advertising and sponsorships in this newsletter so we can focus on delivering on content for you, not just clicks. That's why we need you to sign up to become a QueerAF member.
You'll join hundreds of awesome queer as f**k members who ensure we can keep our unique approach to queer content happen. If you want to see the media cover more stories about the joy in our lives - please, consider a membership. We can't run our outlet without you.
