Playing the numbers

I discovered recently that I am only 19*. Well, it came as something of a pleasant surprise I must admit, to find my misspent youth had been fully refunded.

One of the blogs I link to (on the grounds it’s better than mine) is Gay Banker; and in a comment on one of his posts a fellow reader described a formula for determining age by gay years. And the formula is this:

Gay years = 16 + (3 x number of years since coming out).

For me, being just over a year [only a year!] since it all happened, it’s 16 + (3 x 1); or 19. Hurrah!

Now if, gentle reader, you came out a while ago your gay age might come out as more than your real age. Fear not! For the formula only works until you ‘catch up’ as it were, (the theory being us gayers have a steeper learning curve then those heterosexualists). Then, it seems, you switch over to real years and mature gracefully into the homo nobody phobes…

All a bit of hokum really, but useful in some ways; not least because the formula implies it is too early to settle down – or seek to settle down - so soon after coming out. The author suggests being at least 30 in gay years. And I concur.

Now, I’m (if you insist on viewing things through dull-o-vision Realityrama) 31. But I won’t be 30 in gay years for nearly four years; and I shan’t catch up with myself till I’m actually 37. Double-plus hurrah indeed. But what does this rather elegant theorem tell us?

Firstly, I still have a lot of learning to do. I suppose that much was obvious. But in all seriousness this exercise has helped me realise there is no need to rush! This leads to point two: I really should be enjoying myself more and allowing myself the opportunity to catch up properly. And thirdly, the search for Mr Right might just be a bit premature. Would you advise a 19/20/21 year old to settle down? Well, then.

I didn’t really enjoy being 19 the first time round. At university I’d been severed from my very occasional, and admittedly self-destructive, ventures into gay sex ‘back home’ and so I was beginning a very dry spell indeed, broken only occasionally by… something for another post. Well, now I can do it properly, fading basal metabolism notwithstanding, and really put my back [and the rest] into being the little gay engine that could.