THIRTY, SOMEWHAT FLIRTY AND TIRED Connor

Mills

Slowing down in any form has never really been my style and as I inch ever closer to the looming big 3, pause for dramatic effect, 0, I still don’t feel the want or need. It’s that idea of how a large majority us spend so long closeted from our true selves that we can run circles trying to recapture the time and experiences we lost, not to suggest that we all suffer from a Peter Pan syndrome but there’s a large subset of the queer community that compares being young with being desirable.

In my late teens and 20’s I’ve always been quite slim, and no matter how hard I wanted it to whiskey has never put hair’s on my chest, so if I were to fall into a queer archetype, it would have been a twink, a definition I had always shied away from as it didn’t embody any of the features I would have found attractive in others, and so, didn’t find certain qualities about myself attractive being given this label, It’s difficult to pinpoint when someone might lose their twink credentials— is it turning 26? Gaining weight or muscle? Growing a beard? Yet now I’ve passed the threshold into being more a “twas” it’s something I subconsciously miss just for the simple connotation of youthfulness.

It’s this too that goes in hand with the pressures imposed by a heteronormative society. It’s ridiculous to claim that society places greater expectations on aging gay men like myself than other groups, the way for example women are judged if they’re still “single and childless” in their thirties. Yet even those within my friendship circle ask, “so when’s the wedding” or “would it not be better to save for a house”, questions loaded with a need to explain yourself for not meeting what’s on the traditional timeline of achievements, and sometimes you just don’t want to have to explain why you’d prefer to wake up to a new Sage coffee machine rather than a new baby.

While of course the fact I’m writing a column about this shows I have an opinion about aging into this milestone truth be told I don’t think I would feel any certain way towards it unless I wasn’t nudged into the fact that I should. Not only from friends or society but from what I’ve noticed in our own community, people halfjokingly saying online “I’m now ancient in gay years” or being offended by the term “Daddy” (which in my opinion has more to do with a mindset than a greying beard). The half-laboured jokes when getting a box skin fade and announcing that you were told you look ten years younger. When in reality it’s a thinly vailed ploy to get others to say the same, what is the exact shame in looking your age even after a moment of selfcare.

To be very clear I am team do what makes you feel good, and I think whichever shape that takes as long as its creating a space of happiness within yourself should be the thing that matters, but doing something solely for the purpose of others validation couldn’t lead to what exactly it is were actually look for and that’s selfvalidation, being ok with the fact that even though you wore your under eye mask an extra five minutes you may not have taken years from your personal appearance, but you can still look fresh and feel good in yourself and that fact is nothing to do with your age but your self-worth, something not exclusive to under 25’s.

Yet as I said it’s hard and something I do daily myself, I have always had an unfortunate hairline, compounded by the fact that I would only wear those big heavy beanies as a teen (I was a non-conforming, conforming emo child of my time) and I’m certain did all the things that would make a hair doctor’s eyes turn into dollar signs, but either way I would hate how I perceived it to age me in pictures. I’ve entangled this very natural human feature I have into something to be ashamed off just for the simple reason it might make me look older than I am, it’s silly, and yet I’m still going to go to the barbers and mention for the millionth time to leave length and weight on the sides so I can hide it. Yet I have to ask myself what is that actual shame response, I still feel like I’m 19 in my head, yet I make more informed and experienced choices, I still look like me, but I have a confidence I’ve gained over the years to express it more authentically and freely, all things I wouldn’t have gained without experience and while no, that isn’t the sexiest or most obvious thing to instantly come across in a crowded room and no, I don’t think anyone’s using “experienced” in quite that way on a Grindr profile I don’t think it makes that emotion any less valid.

Yes youth-centric attitudes within our community and society might always be prevalent but I think it’s our ability to avoid this then defining our lifestyles and our choices that’s important, there’s comfort in aging as it’s accepting your wants and needs as they are not portraying them as others might expect. Yet either way all I know for certain is when that fateful day comes in August this year, I will hopefully be at some rooftop pool in Barcelona rum drunk and tanned celebrating the things that got me to this point and all the amazing things yet to come.