She told me that, after two divorces and several bad relationships, she was thrilled to be single and I should be to. She was effing Mary Tyler Moore again!

The next time I spoke to her, she had a new boyfriend. They remained together until her death 10 years later, and were the darlings of her assisted-living home. Most of us have witnessed, or are witnessing, the natural progression of parents, and know our number will soon be called.

And every time a friend finds a partner the tug-o-war game gets another teammate for the other side. I took him to my apartment and agreed to his one non-debatable request that I kiss him.

I think he wanted that more than any other physical contact. Afterward, I got dressed and made light of things and watched him sit up, motionless. Perhaps it was something he did on a regular basis and it gave him a sense of freedom. Perhaps he forgot about it as soon as I did.

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Perhaps it spiraled him into deeper loneliness. I do know that that someday I might find out for myself. Follow David Toussaint on Twitter and Facebook.

The beautifully rendered gay love story just happens to feature a seven-year age gap, and portrays the ideal of a relationship with a significant age difference. How do gay culture and society at large feel about the boys, teens and men who pine for older lovers? Some studies suggest that gay and straight men have similar age preferences when it comes to partners.

With one important distinction: More masculine gay guys seem to prefer younger men, and those who identify as more femme desire older partners.

A more recent study by Facebook, however, found that partners in both gay and lesbian couples tend to have much higher age gaps than their heterosexual counterparts. Different motivations propel younger gay men into these relationships as well. Isolated from peers and family who may not understand their sexuality, gay teens sometimes gravitate toward older men who have traveled the road before them and who could end up exploiting the vulnerability of their situation. Not only do you face stereotypes about why you should have been able to fight it off, or how you probably loved it, but you also have to deal with how your own trauma connects to noxious gay-specific myths, like the one about a gay pro-pedophile organization called NAMBLA or North American Man Boy Love Association infiltrating everything from Disney programming to Antifa.

But the myth of gay men as predators persists. Case in point: James identifies as gay, but his first proper relationship was with a man who did not. This is the thing about coming out: A relationship with a straight guy can, in a way, reverse that, dragging you back into the closet.

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Although the gay guy in the relationship will try their best to be sympathetic — they know this struggle better than most, after all — it's understandable that their patience will wear thin. The ability to go public about their relationships is very important to many gay men — even if it attracts negativity.

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As a fresher at university, Robin, then 18, fell into a relationship with Dom, Says Robin: He absolutely had per cent control over things; the code of conduct imposed on us was coming from him, not me. Robin decided he would come out, in the hope it would show Dom that it didn't have to be a nightmare.

Simon was 17 when his hitherto straight best friend made a move on him. He would always tell me he wasn't like me, and couldn't be, because he 'had his whole future ahead of him'. The idea that my future was irrelevant and that admitting he was with me would ruin his made me feel worthless and I ended up battling depression for years.

Gay men aren't toys to be practised on. Bisexuality was often the only concession to less binary labels, but is and was often a source of derision among straight and gay people alike, characterised by accusations of greed or indecision. The closest anyone got for many years was the advent of metrosexuals — basically straight men who used moisturiser and took longer than five minutes to get ready in the morning — and drunk straight women getting off with each other for a dare.