the day my sneaky link made me gag (and not in the fun way)

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the day my sneaky link made me gag (and not in the fun way)<br>a 29 year old’s take on internalized gender hierarchy and the copy-n-paste men it conditioned him to chase

romel, by forty<br>Jun 09, 2026

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disclaimer: sorta safe for work. Kik is mentioned so use your own discretion lol<br>well guys, i made it. i reached the point in my gayhood that i’m not boy crazy anymore. i know, i know. me? romel? like, romel alvalon simmons? not salivating over a dude like he’s a piece of grade-a meat sizzling on a slab? impossible. well think again, buddy. cause finally, it happened. may have taken a decade but fuck it- we’re here now. and i don’t have therapy to thank for it contrary to what you may be thinking- it actually spurred the moment a sneaky link did something so on-brand awful my entire track record with dudes flashed before my eyes. and a little less epiphanic, i did that thing where some vomit comes up your throat but it’s just a little so you quickly swallow it back down. yeah. that burning that follows? yeah.<br>and i know some reading could be thinking, “yeah, what a surprise!? falling for the same emotionally unavailable closet case and it going nowhere, who’d have thought that wouldn’t work?” listen. there’s layers to this shit. i can tell you that firsthand. and i’m about to. it starts with me admitting an uncomfortable truth. i’m far past this now but a few years ago when it came to my romantic/sexual attraction, i’d say i wasn’t attracted to any guy who appeared more feminine than me. saying it now just feels bonkers. but it wasn’t my preference at all- it was my conditioning.<br>ok, keep up with me here.<br>i grew up gay in the early 2000’s when being gay wasn’t edgy or cool. when making fun of gay people was trending online and irl. so naturally, i fell into what i dub “the masculinity matrix”. the masculinity matrix is a certain mindset that penetrates a society. this mindset worships masculinity, mocks femininity, punishes softness and rewards “straight-passing” behaviors.

queer theorists call this internalized gender hierarchy—basically, we absorb the same gender biases straight culture pushes, even if we don’t want to. studies have even shown that many gay men grow up believing masculine men are “safer” to desire.<br>leaving feminine men deemed to be “less desirable” (remember masc4masc plaguing our grids on grindr?) so all that led to an impressionable young gay such as i to carry this belief that being attracted to masculinity will make me more legitimate.

that internalized homophobic ideal created a boy-crazy monster with an obtuse taste in men. and let me tell you, i was on a roll, brother.<br>the first one

𝕴t was middle school and i was on x-games mode. kik was downloaded on everyone’s ipod touch and mine was chock-full of exactly what you’re thinking. well, “boy” and i had been exchanging salacious messages, kissing before musical rehearsals and even a secret hookup behind the masonry shed that creatively involved a fudge round. “boy” also had a strange interest in best gore dot com, i vividly remember begging him to quit showing me stuff like that but still i tolerated it… for the attention? mistaken for affection. this is where i began to confuse chaos with chemistry. “boy” however was playing an entirely different game. little did i know, “boy” had been showing everyone our messages displaying how much of a fag i truly am. making the already easy target don a new stain on his rep. the Kik message leaks. Kikgate. thus sprung the moment my questionable taste in men was born.<br>the second one

𝕯river’s ed, the third time around. and gratefully so because it was in that cold cafeteria (where we held driver’s ed class after school) where i met david. by this point, i could sniff out any bi-curious boy. to some, a superpower- to me? a curse. anyways, as david and i became close friends just cutting up in class, he started confiding in me about problems in his relationship with his girlfriend at the time. that’s when we started crushing on each other. here’s where we get a little motion. david doesn’t resist his feelings for me. he embraces them. we start dating (post-girlfriend), spending every day together, he even tells his family about me. i met them, they supported us. it was something new for me but it felt so natural. and i loved david a lot.

David & I (2013)<br>𝕭ut fatefully, the honeymoon faded. while his bio dad and step mom supported us, his bio mom and other siblings not in his immediate home were disapproving and somewhat shocked at it all. leaving david to feel an even bigger alienation from them than the distance had already caused. i could see he began sliding back into the closet, acting colder towards me… i eventually moved high schools and that separation was just the last nail in the coffin on david and romel. he set the template for what i’ve kept chasing. the bi-curious boy that chose me. the warmth of...