I may be harsh, SAFF, but your brother needs to get over himself. There are other places besides bars and on-line. He should try meetup.com and gay activity centers if there are some in his town. Like anyone trying to meet people, he needs to get out and MEET people. All kinds of people, straight people, gay people, married people (straight and gay) and sooner or later, you meet someone you click with. The less whining will result in the more attention paid to him. Tell him to grow up.

And tell him also that LOTS of straight women his age (or maybe those already out of college at least) say the exact same thing.

Ah Safe, what a kind sibling you are.. In your shoes, I'd just suggest to your brother to be patient. Trust this friend/ lover/ partner,
won't turn up, if he's not in his life.. So just relax, do your living and be patient.

We all have whiny moments borne out of frustration and a lack of perspective. Your brother's in one now. While this is understandable, it is not to be endlessly indulged. The next time he gets touchy about your attempts to help, you might remind him that finding someone special ain't a guarantee foranybody. You might also remind him that, as a gay man, having a family that not only accepts you but wants to help is hardly a given either.

Of course, knowing where you are would help.

If there's a major metropolitan city nearby, chances are they have gay political clubs, gay athletic groups, gay theater companies. Some cities have speed dating, mixers and socials, and events for youth and young adults (usually for under 25s). Gay clubs for all sorts of hobbies. I was once in a gay men's science fiction and fantasy book club. If he's in college, there are probably tons of other options.

As for "not being into the bar scene" ... well, what does he mean by that? Is he thinking of bars as a meat market, where guys are only there to hook up and not date? They are what you make of them, and I've known plenty of guys who met boyfriends in bars and even in bathhouses, for that matter. If he's not much of a drinker, he could still check local gay bar listings to see which ones are having drag shows or male strippers or whatever his thing is, so that there's more to do than drink. Most gay bars have different charity fundraisers that can be a lot of fun for non-drinkers, and not so much a meat market as they are a meet market. Try learning how to play pool. Even if you don't drink (and aren't an ex-drinker that needs to avoid the temptation), bars can be a social outlet and a way to meet guys socially without immediately hooking up.

And if you're in a smaller town with fewer options ... online doesn't work for everyone, but it does work for some. My mother met her husband of now 25 years through an ad in a print newspaper. If the online sites you're using are more hookup oriented, and that's not what you want, keep trying others. When I worked for Gay.com, it was interesting how it would be used very differently in different parts of the country. Some cities would have a disproportionate amount of one ethnicity or another -- disproportionate to that city, even. Some cities would have very social groups that would have meet-ups in coffee shops and do other social, non-sexual things together. And others were very quickie-sex oriented. Try online sites that aren't strictly match-making sites -- sites that are discussions for whatever your hobbies or interests are, especially if it's a gay site for those interests, or has an LGBT chat room or discussion board.

And even if you don't meet Mr. Right in any of these places, you may make other LGBT friends who may invite you to parties, etc., where you can meet more of their LGBT friends. The more you socialize with other LGBT people, the more likely you'll meet someone to date.

My romantic life changed the day I read a Savage Love post where Dan said that bars are full of people hoping to meet that special someone so they never have to go to a bar again.

It doesn't matter whether you're in the bar scene. Most people in the bars aren't into the bar scene, but are willing to go because the idea of a relationship makes the bars worth it.

The peaches only fall when you don't shake the tree.

Regardless of whether the gay brother is the life of the party or Agnes Gooch, he's going to have to learn to be self-sufficient in his emotional needs or he's going to be in for a lot of emotional frustration. People can instantly sense when someone is emotionally needy, and take evasive action.

But then again, this kid is only 21. I went through the exact same thing when I was his age. It will pass.

Also, I'd suggest to your brother, to listen to some music. Some great music has come out of heartbreak/ longing. The new record/ CD
From The Black Keys, great heartbreak/ repair music. Tell him to rock it!

He's 21, and probably has some unreasonable fantasies going about what a real relationship would be like. And some unreasonable expectations about how other men should treat him.

This is a good time to be single and looking, no matter what you are looking for. The thawing of society and the ease of finding similar men via the internet have made it much easier for your brother than for his predecessors.

But he has to be open to men and experiences that he's not expecting, since his own background is so limited - he doesn't yet know what's possible.

And he needs to be willing to say what he wants in social and in sexual situations - too many young men have desires and tastes they never mention, and then get upset when the men they meet turn out to have different desires and tastes. Men are not mind readers! They can't give you what you want unless you tell them what you want.

Get out there, join a club (running, tennis, rugby, soccer, board games, whatever the activity there's a gay club for it in any town of any size.

Make some gay friends you don't want to date and go to bars and clubs with them. Or go wherever they go and hang out.

They will introduce you to people you DO want to date. Don't fucking wallow and don't be so self-absorbed that you won't let other people help you.

Oh and fuck people you like or think are hot (Growlr, Grindr, Jackd, Scruff, depending on your body type and body type preferences). Half of my friends are people I tricked with at some point in the past (often the long ago past).

Mr Lolorhone - Ah, but it is in its own way a most fortuitous circumstance. Who would not relish the prospect of playing Puck to one's Oberon? The wise knave may indeed indulge himself in the pursuit of puckish insouciance (simply to abrogate the necessity to take stock of one's own culpability) while fulfilling the higher aims of Eros.

It is, after all, the Goodfellow who attains the Bottom he may be searching for.

He can go online, picking that 20% that seems like a theoretical match and strike up an email conversation. And one in every 10 people he connects with online might be worth a second date, once they meet IRL.

Or he can meet gay people in the real world (bars, sports, work), and 90% or higher will be discarded by glancing across the room. Then he's got to have a real-world conversation to weed out 3/4 of the ones who struck his fancy.

It's a sorting process. Only 1-2% of the gay guys out there are possible, compatible matches for him (true for any orientation). He can do his primary sorting online (and follow up in person) or he can do it in person (and followup on the first date or two). In person goes a LOT faster. You can discard people with a glance. But, yeah, that means the bar scene, or meet&greets of some sort.

[But if you're single and want to meet people—gay or straight—you need to be moving on all fronts: online dating, hitting bars and clubs, volunteering, and just generally getting out of the fucking house.]

No. It helps the odds (some fronts a great deal), but "need" is a drastic overstatement.

Mr Rhone, your conclusion almost sounds as if you're recommending a thinly veiled threat, which I don't think you mean to do.

LW: I think much depends on the accuracy of your beginning. You say you and your brother are close. Is he genuinely "not a bar person" as he claims? Possibly he's having a temper tantrum as people suggest. Possibly he genuinely isn't a bar person and someone close to him might reasonably have been expected to know that. I shall try to address things that don't change much in proportion to that answer, or a similar question about whether he sees himself as pursuer or pursued.

It rarely hurts to take an inventory of how much one is someone worth meeting. The brother could be meeting dozens of people who just aren't that interested, and so he never knows.

My thanks to people who recommended same-sexer specific activities that don't all boil down to instant sex and alcohol. I'll go one farther and advise LW to be a bit more proactive, assuming availability. Find an activity he'll like in a same-sexer context and drag him there. Most things suitable for the newly out are probably welcoming to people in your position, and at the very least you'll be doing more than making sympathetic noises.

I'll close now before I say something about postgay assimilation and erasure.

I'd think that Miss Manners' old advice to get out and meet people, even if those people are not in the subset of humanity that you're looking for, is as good for gay as for straight. Because those married couples, old ladies, and other non-eligibles that you meet when building a varied social life will have brothers and nephews and friends who they will introduce you to.

Yeah no one wanted to date me (hetero, female) when I was 21, or 22, or 23. Welcome to the world kid.

While Dan is right, that with only a small portion of the population being gay that still means that there millions of gay people to choose from.

What he misses, however, is that not all those gay people are equally spread out across the world, or country. It's not like there is an nice 100 gays per square mile distribution. If Dan's 2.5 million number in the US, although certainly low, was correct I wouldn't be surprised if a good million of those were in NYC alone.

So while there are millions of gay people, if you are not in a major city with a large gay population you are facing slim pickings. If you live in a tiny town with only 20 other gay people, and you eliminate the few who already coupled, and the few who are still in the closet, and the few who flee as soon as the get out of high school for someplace with more gay people, you have a very unlikely chance of finding someone.

So this boy may have options out there, but he needs to go to where they are, and that may mean moving away.

That said, even if there are only a handful of possible options for a person where they are and they have a very small chance of finding someone, their chance of finding someone sitting at home and feeling sorry for themselves is 0.

If you can't get to where there are more boys then you play the best hand you can with the cards you are dealt.

One other thing that Dan's advice overlooks is that a twenty-one-year-old who has just come out can be in a lot of pain, even if everyone seems OK with the revelation. Gay men are at a higher risk of depression because of the stress growing up in the closet can cause, for instance, so be on the look-out for red flags if things go way south. In all likelihood that won't happen, but be aware.

When you just come out, your coming-out matters the world to you, but it matters very little to other people, even helpful and well-meaning brothers. So try to remember that when he's talking about his sexuality and coming out, he's talking about something way more important to him than you can imagine. Over time that will change, but for now that's where he's at. It's OK that he's there. He needs to go through the whole process, and it's just begun.

I think that your gay brother biting your head off isn't just about frustration with slim pickings (which I have to agree with Fortunate may well be the case, depending on where you live). It's also about pain and upheaval and adjustment. It's a lot to handle.

Dan's advice is correct overall, but people who came out ages ago and straight people often trivialize the emotional upheaval that is very real and very stressful to the out-comer. Again, over time that will get better, but for now it's real and it hurts.

Love him, support him, but mostly what he needs now is someone to LISTEN. He needs to complain and vent and get it out. Acknowledge aloud that it sucks. And let him vent a little with you. If you feel like you want to take on the role of being a safe person he can vent to, that's terrific, because he likely needs that.

Gay bars are fine for what they are, but you can meet gay people (in Seattle) volunteering for Dunshee House or Pride Foundation or working with the Q Center at UW (or equivalent on other campuses). There are queer studies classes to take at any college. You can volunteer to usher at Seattle Men's Chorus performances or, frankly, at any theater. There are gay sports leagues. It goes on. Definitely not just bars. But maybe also remind your brother not just to be looking for a potential boyfriend but also for *friends* who are LGBTQ, and volunteering and getting involved in orgs like I just mentioned are good ways of making friends. Boyfriends usually arise from circles of friends over time, too.

Good luck, and congratulations for being a great brother.

Agree with @16. If he's in bugfuck backwoods Hicksville USA, there may be like one bar out there, if at all. So, if you're in a city where the nearest gay bar is 120mi away, then, yeah, it's a little insensitive.

I've been through cities where there's like 6 gay people on hookup apps with a 20mi radius. Hardly enough to support a bar nevertheless a meetup group.

If he's not where there are a lot of people, nevertheless a lot of gay people, then...yeah. @4's advice is nice too.

That said, @14 made me giggle.

Mr. Ven @12: No threat was intended. Sometimes one simply needs an assertion of the fundamentals to adjust their perspective. That is not to discount any pain the brother might be going through, or any difficulty he may be having at finding someone to connect with. It sounds like he's throwing up his hands, which is where things can get dangerous; my suggestion was meant to be a prod towards hope and (hopefully) action, not just an admonition.

I had this neighbour in Vancouver who was an obese middle-aged homo living in Vancouver's gay district. He blamed the entire gay community for his not getting laid in well over a decade. He was kind of a shut-in and I don't think he ever left the house except to buy icecream. The source of his anger was the the entire gay community only liked supermodel types and there was no love for the morbidly obese. I pointed out to him that there was a bar that specifically catered to fat, middle-aged homos just a few blocks away. He responded that he doesn't like fat guys. I wonder if he's still wallowing in a bottomless pit of self-pity.

Mr Rhone - I think we all could tell you didn't intend a threat. If LW is wrong about the two being close, though, it's the sort of thing he's likely to make sound like a hint at withdrawal of support typical of the sort of ally who doesn't like being rebuffed.
***
M? Agony - A charming thought, but I suspect that, if we're ever sufficiently assimilated that it will be reasonable to expect that the general public will be likely to respond the right way as potential matchmakers, we'll be so barely visible that most straight people won't know enough same-sexers to make the approach a strategic use of time. Not that being open about single and looking to people one does meet isn't a good idea.
***
I don't think I ever expected Mr Savage to remind me of Mr Florek's character from L.A. Law - Dave Meyer, the king of direct marketing. My father goes in for that sort of thing as well.

@10. I am your spaniel.

@ 20 - A bottomless pit of self-pity... and ice cream, undoubtedly,

Mr. Ven,
Now admittedly, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I understand that life here may be a bit different than it is elsewhere, but when my daughter was in the 8th grade (age 13) she prided herself on fixing up all her friends, finding the person whom she thought was "perfect" for another person. She "successfully" fixed up a bunch of couples, about 20% of which were gay. I was impressed with how these kids were out so young and with so little-seeming drama (although of course who knows what their interior life is like); their parents were fine with it, and it was a non-starter at school and amongst their peers. (Interestingly, these were all boys. No out lesbians in the peer group in middle school.)

I have a lot of gay friends, men and women, and I've never tried to fix them up with other people I already know because they are virtually all in relationships, the men especially. But I've been one gay friend's wingman (as much as a straight woman can for a gay man), and I've been two of my lesbian friends' wingman (as much as a straight woman can for a lesbian) when they were out looking.

Meanwhile I ask them to fix me up with anyone they can think of and get the same answer from everyone, gay or straight: no one knows a single straight, single man. Huh.

Getting out of the fucking house really is the most important piece of advice here. Even if you don't find someone, you can find friends, and incredibly meaningful and rewarding connections, even if they are not romantic ones. Also, say you take up an activity. You might not meet someone through that activity but you may get really into that activity....and have a really great icebreaker for when you are out of the fucking house someplace else. For example: I started taking Krav Maga classes and got really into it. One night, I was out at a bar for Oktoberfest and was wearing my Krav Maga sweatshirt. I ended up meeting a guy who saw my shirt and said, "Do you really do Krav Maga?" And since Krav Maga is something I'm very interested in and like to talk about, my sweatshirt served as a great icebreaker. TL;DR The LW and Dan are both giving excellent advice. If little bro doesn't take said advice, then he better get used to sitting at home and whining into his Easy Mac.

Ms Cute - That creates a fascinating image of Emma Woodhouse at a gender-mixed school, not quite as terrifying as the thought of Miss Bates armed with a telephone.

I am tempted to Mauve Knight for Mr Ophian and ask why you haven't tried a bi man, but I won't.

Come to think of it, I don't think I know any single straight men, unless you count widowers. In San Francisco, there ought to be a group for people in your situation, preferably taking one of the great names in US fiction - Mary Ann Singleton.

Craigs'sList is a wonderful recourse, you get partners, some of which wind up just friends (you know what that sometimes means: an important person who you love and is fun to be with), sometimes you get a wife (or a husband, those are out there too.).
I love to brag that I found her on CL. So there.

Mr. Ven: Yes, there's a lot of Emma in many teenaged girls, I think!

Regarding "trying" a bi man, I have no objections. None of my male friends identify as bi, though several of my female friends do. If a friend were to try and fix me up with someone who is bi, that would be fine. I'm in the world of online dating, and have met very few bi men. I occasionally have seen a profile of one who has caught my eye, but apparently I haven't been alluring to any of them, and occasionally I've been contacted by one, but again, those go as so many initial introductions via online dating go, i.e. no interest. Not, however, because of bi status.

Let me rephrase: a good single man who is interested in women is hard to find.

Ms Cute - Thank you for not objecting to my gentle reprimand about the S word (I hope it's in a class with Lady Middleton and her gentle reprimand to Sir John about his invitation to the Miss Steeles; I promise not to deliver mine five or six times every day).

You are almost old enough for a lawn bowling group, which you might try now if your taste in men ran to that type. Maybe in a few years' time it will.

If they don't have a dating group in San Francisco named after Mary Ann Singleton, you should start one.

My friends, a gay couple who had been partnered for 54 years, surprised me when I asked them where they met. They just blurted it out - GLORY HOLE!

Then we joked and devised this rule of thumb about dating: If guys aren't living up to your standard - lower your standards!!

I wonder where gaybro lives. I was living with two gay guys; renting a room from them because I **wansn't** attracted to them. And one day, Mr. Wonderful come over to visit them. It's now 31 years later and Mr. Wonderful is sitting at the dining table reading every single square inch of the newspaper. He's 91 years old and I'm his second time around (he's my first) because his first partner OF 32 YEARS was older than him and konked in his mid-70s.

I've know couple who met at truck stops, rest stops, bars, parties, work, in jail, at the VD clinic, walking their dog, while sitting in the barber's chair, at the grocery store, at a bus stop, at church, on a business trip, at drag shows, at Kmart. Little Bro - we are everywhere. Come find us. No matter what you are interested in doing, you're going to meet a gay guy who like to do that too. At sporting events, rodeos, stock car racing, even in the emergency room at the hospital. Go sell real estate. It's full of gay guys. Hang out at the garden center at Home Depot if you're into gardening. Pretty soon someone will walk by and give you a long look. And, of course, you'll own lots of plants from doing this.

@16 exactly. I read somewhere that 10% of the men in greater NY metro are gay or bi, or at least have sex with other men -- way over the 2% nationally. 20 million humans in the greater metro area, 10 million men, equals 1 million guys who like guys. That's as many people as America's 10th biggest city -- imagine, the 10th biggest city, 100% wall to wall gay. AKA Manhattan and the trendier parts of Brooklyn :-)

This leads to a shortage of gay people in rural areas, also a shortage of atheists and democrats. But not everyone can move to a big city and not everyone likes to. It's easy to mix up the fact that there's always someone cuter/younger/hotter/richer in the city for the fiction that there's someone better. The slim pickings in rural areas may make people a bit more willing to settle for when they're ready to settle down.

@30 "Hang out at the garden center at Home Depot if you're into gardening. Pretty soon someone will walk by and give you a long look." -- a long look, as in, what the heck is that young guy doing spending all day hanging out amidst the pansies? so to speak. :-)

Great answer, Mr. Savage! I'm Jewish, but it's not important in terms of who I go out with, unlike, say, kindness and brains. Anyway, I'd say about half the women I've gone out with have been Jewish--pure chance--despite the fact that we're a such a small percentage of the US population.

Of course, we're probably a considerably higher percentage in the places I've lived, but still...