Adventures in Dating Ranger Alli, Entry No. 1

Over the past six months I have found myself entangled with two young men, both 22 years old, both from the social network, Grindr,  both on the “DL”, publicly hiding their attraction to men. These young men came from polar opposite backgrounds but yet shared common fears around coming out. Both expressed wanting to have a primary guy they shared a monogamous physical relationship with, while dating women and warning me about “catching

feelings” for them. The similarities, while eerie, were fascinating. 

The first time I told someone I was gay I was 11 years old and talking to a complete stranger on AOL instant messenger that I had met on an online message board. Was he probably an online predator? I don’t know, he said he was 13, but, in retrospect, the internet was a really weird place back then. Do I still remember how great it felt to finally tell people in real life that I was gay? Yes. I was 13 when I first started telling my friends and 15 when a therapist outed me to my parents. By the time I was in undergrad, Barack Obama was running for president and it was almost a fad for straight bros to have a gay best friend. Straight people still asked stupid questions like, “are you the boy or the girl?” and “Don’t Say Gay” wasn’t a hate driven bill in Florida, but an anti-bullying campaign to end the stigma around the word. (I still don't think the gay community ever thanked Hillary Duff enough for that.)

While my coming out was definitely a journey and in many moments terrifying, I thought I saw it becoming easier and easier for the folks younger than me and had assumed that trend had continued, that “coming out” was, for most young people, the easiest it has ever been.  When Bradley Kim made national news in 2018 for being the first football player at the Air Force Academy to come out, I assumed even the bros of America had accepted “hey some people are gay, and that’s fine”. 

In October, I met an athlete studying economics at Colby College. He is a person of color, a progressive democrat, and has lived his whole life in New England. He identifies (privately) as bisexual, but lives a heterosexual lifestyle. He remains in the closet because of fear of how his teammates will respond if they find out he also likes dudes.

In December, I met a dude from Somerset County, Maine. He grew up in Skowhegan and has never lived more than 30ish miles from there. A registered Republican who voted for Donald Trump, he identifies as straight and has more than one child to more than one baby-mama.  He has clearly had a lot of practice defending his political views and was astonished that I would still talk to him after I learned he was a Trumplican. He stays closeted, afraid of how it may impact his career, working in a blue collar trade. 

These two are vastly different humans, both intelligent and able to discuss politics, global affairs, and socio-economics, both holding wildly different views stemming from equally different upbringings. Both had stories about being clocked by family members as being at least a little gay, and being told they would be loved and accepted if they were. Both remain in the closet not because of the fear of family or church, but the fear of not being accepted by their friends and peers. 

While it would be easy to blame the culture of Colby College or of a rural community like Skowhegan, I think what I find troubling is that these guys are both normal cool dudes who are fearful of opening their closet doors because of the textbook stereotypes around college athletics and the blue collar industry. I thought those stigmas and cultures were being busted and dying. Is the current political climate refueling them back to life?  In talking to these guys, the way they describe the cultures they live in, why does it sound almost harder than it was for me nearly two decades ago? 

Meeting both of these guys, who I still chat and hang out with (though I do have a firm “No hooking up with Trump Voters” policy, so that will never happen again), has been eye opening. It has shattered preconceived notions on the experience of being young and closeted in 2025. Growing up in Pennsylvania, I have always seen New England as this beacon of liberal idealism, just a little more folksy, but that too, has been shattered. 

I hate to present a problem and not some type of a solution. But I simply don’t know. What I do know is that both of those guys are cool and funny and deserving of happiness and the safety and freedom to live as their most authentic selves, and it sucks that in 2025 they can’t because of fear. We, as a society, should just be better than that.

Ranger Alli