Gay writer heartbroken after boyfriend dumps him

Even then, I realized I was too old for this nonsense. I was in my thirties, had a successful career, had my own house, you know, I was an adult, but I had fallen in love like a teenager and was going through a very dramatic teenage period now that I had been dumped. No disrespect to teenagers and their very real feelings, it's just that, well, you expect that to happen with age.

When I met him at a bar, I wasn't even sure I liked him. He made no secret of his desire and my friends all told me he was gorgeous and that I should go, but by the morning (don't judge me!), I was overwhelmed.

I'm losing confidence in myself

In fact, I don’t like myself very much when I’m in love. What I consider my strengths—confidence, independence, humor—fizzle out until I become an idiot, a yes man, and a bore. And maybe that’s what happened. I wasn’t the man he’d seen partying in that bar anymore. After six months of waiting for calls, of painstakingly analyzing messages, of interpreting everything he said, did, and wore, he finally decided to end it all. Gently.

“How are you feeling?” he asked me after a big night out. And I knew exactly what was coming. No Doubt’s “Don’t talk, I know what you’re thinking, I don’t need your reasons, don’t tell me because it hurts” came straight to my mind. Teenager or what? But I took it like a man, said I understood, and left with dignity. Then I did something I’ve never done after a breakup: I cut him out of my life.

Ignore his calls

For some reason, I think gay men seem particularly good at turning their lovers into friends. In fact, most of my best friends are exes… but that wasn't going to happen in this case. I wouldn't answer calls, I wouldn't respond to texts, and I told people at work that if he called me—and he did—I'd be fired. Forever.

All the while, I was boring anyone who would sit still long enough with every detail of the relationship, the breakup, what he said, what he didn't say, what I could have done differently that would continue long after the veil had settled over their eyes.

And then there was the drinking. Excessive and angry. We would argue with anyone about anything, throw drinks in people's faces, slam the door at the slightest excuse. Until a brave friend who was with me when I was in the middle of my anger simply said, “Go get help.”

An unexpected friendship

I'm glad I didn't get carried away by him and took his advice and found a therapist (that's how serious it was) – and it worked! It also meant I was paying someone to listen to the outpourings my friends couldn't handle.

One of the things we discussed was my shame at feeling so adolescent because of a simple breakup with a boyfriend – we never even said the word “boyfriend” – of only six months.

My therapist told me that for gay men my age growing up in the 1970s, the first 20 years of our lives were spent in hiding. While our straight school friends spent their teenage years flirting, making out after school, cheating, being cheated on, breaking up, rebuilding, we were isolated, waiting for real life to begin—if we were lucky—when we left school, maybe even home.

You can't skip the learning process, even if you start it very late. It made perfect sense and I started to get through it.

I've been very good friends with my ex for years now. As the adult in the relationship, he didn't give up and wrote me a long letter at work saying – firmly, but not unfairly – that even though it didn't work out romantically, he still wanted me in his life. Even though I was the oldest teenager in town.

Read more: All Yahoo UK stories about how I got dumped.