The Struggle to Find or Sustain a Relationship: Why It Feels So Hard (LGBTQ+ Edition)

Dating can feel like an endless loop. You match, talk, hope, and then start over. For many LGBTQ+ people, that cycle carries an extra weight. It is not only about finding the right person. It is also about unlearning the fear and shame that often accompany wanting love in a world that was not built for us.

This is not a story of failure. It is a story about context, about how history, culture, and psychology shape what connection feels like for queer people today.

The myth that queer people are bad at relationships

Research shows that same-sex couples are just as capable of love, satisfaction, and stability as heterosexual couples. Holmes and colleagues (2014) found no significant differences in affection or commitment between same-sex and straight partners. In John Gottman’s twelve-year study of gay and lesbian couples, partners were more likely to use humor and affection to ease tension and less likely to become defensive or hostile (Gottman & Levenson, 2003).

Queer people are not inherently worse at love. We are simply trying to build relationships in environments that test safety before vulnerability.

Minority stress and emotional vigilance

Ilan Meyer’s Minority Stress Theory (2003) explains how discrimination, stigma, and internalized negativity create chronic stress that affects both mental health and relationships. Feinstein et al. (2018) found that both individual and partner experiences of minority stress predicted lower satisfaction among male same-sex couples.

When your body has learned that visibility can be dangerous, intimacy becomes a balancing act. Safety becomes the priority, even when what you want is closeness.

Loneliness beneath connection

Loneliness is one of the most consistent findings in LGBTQ+ mental health research. Studies show that sexual minority men experience higher levels of loneliness linked to concealment and self-stigma (Liszewski et al., 2022). Mark Hatzenbuehler (2012) found that chronic stigma exposure disrupts emotion regulation, which makes it harder to express needs and build closeness.

You might be dating or socializing and still feel distant. That distance is not indifference. It is self-protection. The nervous system is still on alert, trying to predict rejection before it happens.

Scarcity and survival-mode dating

Scarcity shapes much of queer dating culture. Pew Research Center (2023) found that fifty-seven percent of gay and bisexual men have used dating apps compared with forty-six percent of lesbian or bisexual women. A smaller dating pool makes every rejection feel louder and every match more important.

Scarcity narrows focus and shortens decision-making horizons (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013). In dating, that often means rushing intimacy, ignoring incompatibility, or clinging to uncertain situations out of fear that another opportunity may not come.

Apps intensify this effect. Heavy dating-app use among gay men has been linked with higher depressive symptoms and feelings of objectification (Griffiths et al., 2020). Platforms built for instant attention are not designed for long-term attachment.

Desirability politics inside the community

External prejudice is only part of the story. Inside queer spaces, hierarchies often form around race, body type, masculinity, and age. Pachankis et al. (2020) describe this as intra-minority stress, the pressure that comes from within the community itself.

When desirability becomes a kind of currency, dating turns competitive. People curate instead of connect. The result is comparison, fear of exclusion, and relationships that revolve around validation rather than intimacy.

Shame and the cost of visibility

Shame teaches the body to hide. It whispers that love is conditional. Schwartz et al. (2016) found that internalized shame among gay men predicted avoidant attachment and emotional distance.

For those who grew up associating affection with risk, even genuine closeness can feel unsafe. Many of us have learned to protect our hearts by staying slightly out of reach. What looks like detachment is often defense.

Late starts and relational learning curves

Because many queer people begin dating later or in secret, we often enter adulthood with less practice in setting boundaries, managing conflict, and building interdependence. Frost (2017) found that coming out earlier in life is linked with higher relational competence and lower anxiety.

This means some of us are learning the basics of intimacy while already navigating adult life. It is not immaturity. It is delayed opportunity.

Reframing the struggle

When you layer all of this together, the result makes sense. Minority stress, loneliness, scarcity, community pressure, shame, and late relational learning all affect how we approach love. We are trying to connect with nervous systems trained for caution.

The goal is not to erase those defenses but to understand them. Every protective strategy once served a purpose. The work now is to notice when they stop serving connection.

Moving forward

If love feels complicated, that is not proof that you are unlovable. It is proof that you have adapted to survive. Recognizing that context is the first step toward choosing differently.

This episode is the beginning of a three-part series. Part 1 explores why connection feels so hard. Part 2 will focus on how to relate differently, and Part 3 will look at what a healthy relationship actually is.

Listen to the full episode below:

References and Studies Used in this Blog Post:

Feinstein, B. A., Goldfried, M. R., & Davila, J. (2018). The relationship between experiences of minority stress and relationship satisfaction among same-sex couples. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 5(4), 523–531.
Frost, D. M. (2017). The benefits and challenges of coming out early: Associations with relationship competence. Journal of Homosexuality, 64(2), 186–205.
Gottman, J. M., & Levenson, R. W. (2003). Gottman 12-year study of same-sex relationships. Journal of Homosexuality, 45(1), 23–43.
Griffiths, S., Murray, S. B., Krug, I., & McLean, S. A. (2020). The role of social media and dating apps in body image and mental health among gay men. Current Opinion in Psychology, 36, 138–143.
Hatzenbuehler, M. L. (2012). How does sexual minority stigma “get under the skin”? American Journal of Public Health, 102(1), 56–63.
Holmes, B. M., et al. (2014). Comparing relationship satisfaction across same-sex and heterosexual couples. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 31(6), 781–798.
Liszewski, W., Haga, S. M., & Ystrom, E. (2022). Loneliness and minority stress in sexual minority men. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 919236.
Meyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations. Psychological Bulletin, 129(5), 674–697.
Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. Times Books.
Pachankis, J. E., Clark, K. A., Burton, C. L., Hughto, J. M. W., Bränström, R., & Keene, D. E. (2020). Sexuality-specific minority stress and community stress among gay and bisexual men. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(2), 376–398.
Schwartz, R. C., et al. (2016). Internalized shame and avoidant attachment among gay men. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 17(4), 446–456.*