I'm 26 years old, living in Amsterdam, busy with my career and professional sports. I have a good body and face, but I am bald. What bugs me a lot is that people (other gays) are so quick to pigeonhole me into this category of muscular leather boys who get fisted at Berghain, or, based off the things I have heard with regard to me, that I look like a fucking bouncer, and that I am definitely not 26 but 34...

I just feel so insecure about myself, so sad that I sometimes get such comments from guys. I know we can't be everyone's type, and I know there are so many guys who like my look, but I just get so pissed off when people make such assumptions about me and my private life. And the tone and commentary I have heard a few times even makes me feel plain ugly and unworthy.

It is just the weird symbolic attribution of bald gay men with the more underground, older, techno, fetish scene that I struggle with and find hard to relate and respond to. Do I respond, or not? I am so confused.

Boy's Annoyed Looks Determinative

Humans—gays and other varieties—tend to make assumptions and classifications and group things by type. We shouldn't do it, it can do real harm (especially when assumptions are made based on race, religion, class, body type, sexual orientation, etc.), but we can't seem to help ourselves. Even people who know better have to remind themselves not to make assumptions all goddamn day.

And there must be something about ingesting semen that kicks assumption- and classification-making into high gear, BALD, because gay men are obsessed with typing each other. We've developed a zoo's worth of new nicknames/classifications over the last two decades—bears, otters, wolfs, cubs, pups, dolphins, manatees—that we endlessly cross tabulate with the old nicknames/classifications, e.g. twinks, twunks, daddies, leather daddies, queens, clones, etc.

As someone who has never felt like I fit neatly into one category of homosexual, BALD, I feel your pain. But you need to keep your pain in perspective. There are worse things than being young, gay, muscular, handsome, bald, and living in Amsterdam. And while a guy with your looks & body—and thank you for the pictures [insert drooling emoji here]—do look amazing in leather, that's not who you are or what you want. Being typed into a category you don't identify with—being lumped in with the fisted-at-Berghain crowd—can certainly be annoying, BALD, but it's not annoying like cancer or third degree burns or "president-elect Donald Trump." Unlike cancer, burns, and Trump, you can fix this—you can correct someone's faulty assumption—just by using your words. ("Yeah, no. Leather and fisting and Berghain aren't my scene. I'm not into any of that.")

What I was waiting for in your letter—and didn't get—was what you are into, BALD. You say don't identify with the "older, techno, fetish scene," which is fine. Not everything has to be for everybody. And while you can't control looking like someone who might wanna get fisted at Berghain (in the opinions of some), BALD, you can control the guys you choose to hang out with, the parties you choose to go to, and the sorts of men you choose to date/fuck/marry. Be yourself—be aggressively you—and the people you know and like and hang out with and date and fuck and marry will know you for who and what you really are. (And, when relevant, what you're into sexually.) As for the rest, BALD, who cares if some stranger in a bar or on the street or on a dating app takes one look at you and guesses wrong? (And I'll bet most aren't guessing you're into leather/SM/fetish to judge you, BALD. They're putting that out there because they're hoping you're into kink and that you'll get all kinky on their asses.)

All that said, BALD, if you've never hung out with that underground/fetish scene, you might want to check it out before writing it off. Rest assured: Not every guy at Berghain is there to be fisted, BALD, and some guys wear leather because they look great in it, not because it speaks to their kinky souls. (Not that there's anything wrong with getting fisted or being seriously into leather.) And contrary to popular belief: you can meet good, decent, stable guys who are open to commitment (an evening's or a lifetime's) at places like Berghain... and you can meet shitty, indecent, messy guys who should be committed at an ice skating club for teetotaling vanilla twinks with full heads of hair.

TL;DR: Use your words, BALD, shrug it off.