Being gay and in college can be very intimidating, you have the stress of trying to prove yourself to your community, the stress of whether or not your roommate will be okay with it, and of course, the plethora of men available to you. Below are a few tips to help adjust to the hectic gay lifestyle:
1. Study, study, study
Odds are, you have had a history of people in your life that have told you that you can't do anything strictly because you're gay—well, they couldn't be more wrong. Use this opportunity to focus on your education and future career to prove your homophobic Aunt Carol and Uncle Randy wrong. Take the harder class, study instead of going out every once in awhile, and actually retain the content—it will be worth it in the long run. Aunt Carol and Uncle Randy won't know what hit them.
2. Roommates
I happen to have a personal account to share with this one. Even though we are in 2017, homophobia is still a thing and and straight male masculinity is still threatened by the every so powerful gay disease. You probably were a little stressed about finding your roommate because of the things I mentioned above. However, I did say we are in 2017, right? I recommend one of the most powerful tools in our generation—SOCIAL MEDIA! Yes, you can use this tool to find out anything you want on Chad, Brad, or Thad. In the days of posting our political beliefs through tweets and Facebook statuses, you probably can figure out very quickly if they are a viable candidate for the next few months of living. I just so happened to have hit the jack pot on a roommate. He is very comfortable in his sexuality and doesn't think a thing of it. Living with a straight male is a whole lot easier than you would expect; you get to become friends with their girlfriends, too, and that’s always a plus.
3. Online dating
Tinder. Grindr. Countless names of gay "dating" apps that end in “r” for some unknown reason. Be wise with these apps, fellow gays, cat fishing is a huge problem and not to mention STD’s, but yeah, STD’s. In college, you will literally see more gays in one sitting than you have your entire life; you will have more opportunities placed in front of you than a CEO expecting their sign-on package. Like, I said with the roommates, USE SOCIAL MEDIA!! Go through a rigorous vetting process to make sure you don't end up with a STD, a clingy man, or worse, dead because the guy was a psychotic serial killer. Before you agree to go on a date with them, you need to know the following: social security number, bank account info (you want a sugar daddy, you don't want an artificial sweetener daddy), credit score, birthday, name, address, any aliases, mother and fathers’ name, mother’s maiden name, do they have a job, and the most important, are they already in a relationship. You can't be too cautious in regards to online dating.
Adjusting to college life in general is hard, but adjusting to college while being is harder. Just because you have multiple opportunities to get out and explore they gay culture doesn't mean you should always take them. Fun is equally as important as studying, but you have to lean to balance the two.
Good luck, Gays!
