Anyone else find the gay community to be too small?

LegacyUser

I wouldn't consider myself big into the gay scene and I would only have a couple of gay friends, but recently I've found that the gay community is so small in Ireland, particularly Dublin.

I've been on dates with guys where I admittedly Facebook stalked them afterwards out of curiosity. I then realised they are friends with my gay mates, and in plenty of his photos you see the same regular faces that I see on Grindr or Tinder.

This occurs all the time, and every gay guy seems to be friends (or have slept with) every other gay guy.

The reason I bring this up is that I could be dating a guy, then it doesn't work out but by chance start dating a friend of his. It's pretty likely and has happened to me before! It makes for very awkward situations!

Does anyone else feel this way, or is this just my own isolated experience?

baby and crumble

In all honesty, OP, what do you expect? Ireland is a small country- trust me, what you're describing happens ALL the time even in the straight community. The population of Ireland is 4.6 million, with Dublin at 1.3 million- London alone is 8.7 million!

Add to that if we take the whole "10% of the population is gay" thing, that leaves say 130,000 gay people in Dublin. Say half that is guys. That's 65,000. Take out the guys in couples, and those who are not out, who don't frequent the scene... that brings the number way, way down.

ongarboy

OP, if you say you only have a couple of gay mates yet many of the random dates you've been on are also friends with those "couple of mates" then your couple of mates must be very popular!!

If you rarely participate in the scene, I'm also surprised that you find it so small and familiar. Surely you'd have to be going out a lot before it would be a case of the same old faces? I'm not doubting your experience but it just seems unusual if you have a small group of friends and rarely go out on the scene but still find it so small and familiar. I've been going out in Dublin on the scene almost weekly for 10 or more years and I can still walk into Pantibar, the Front Lounge or the George and hardly recognise a face sometimes... which I don't mind as the degree of anonymity is nice sometimes...but yes there are other times where I see lots of familiar faces. If I was an infrequent visitor, I doubt that would happen. If anything the scene has become far more diverse and vibrant in the last 5 years with many more non nationals (particularly gay Brazilians) arriving, passing through etc. I think Dublin has a great scene, but perhaps not as many choices of bars as other similar sized cities. The choice of club nights has much improved in recent years though but I acknowledge clubbing isn't everyone's cup of tea.

If you are on Grindr or Tinder a lot, then yes you are going to see the same old faces. However I imagine that would happen on straight dating apps as well despite there being a much larger straight pool of choices as the range of available men or women won't change as often as you use the app.

Almond87

arcosanti wrote: »

I wouldn't consider myself big into the gay scene and I would only have a couple of gay friends, but recently I've found that the gay community is so small in Ireland, particularly Dublin.

I've been on dates with guys where I admittedly Facebook stalked them afterwards out of curiosity. I then realised they are friends with my gay mates, and in plenty of his photos you see the same regular faces that I see on Grindr or Tinder.

This occurs all the time, and every gay guy seems to be friends (or have slept with) every other gay guy.

The reason I bring this up is that I could be dating a guy, then it doesn't work out but by chance start dating a friend of his. It's pretty likely and has happened to me before! It makes for very awkward situations!

Does anyone else feel this way, or is this just my own isolated experience?

I was thinking about the exact thing a few days ago, when I realized two of my friends knew a few lads I dated a while ago and then it was even more surprising to see they all knew each other. And I'm not much into the gay scene myself, otherwise I would've discovered more coincidences.

It may seem awkward but I wouldn't worry too much about it, especially about what could others say/believe etc.

And I personally do not think the gay community is as small as it looks like. There are loads of gay people out there. And there will always be people who know everyone in the scene or at least a very high percentage, which is perfectly fine and common everywhere. Just my $ 0.02.

Jentle Grenade

As a gay woman it feels like there is at most two degrees of separation between each gay lady on this island TBH.

imme

Is it the gay community or the gay social scene that is too small OP.

If someone goes to the same night out every week e.g. go to the George every Friday you can tend to see some of us same regular people who also go every Friday.

But as someone else said they can go to another bar etc sometime and hardly recognise a face among the entire clientele.

wakka12

baby and crumble wrote: »

In all honesty, OP, what do you expect? Ireland is a small country- trust me, what you're describing happens ALL the time even in the straight community. The population of Ireland is 4.6 million, with Dublin at 1.3 million- London alone is 8.7 million!

Add to that if we take the whole "10% of the population is gay" thing, that leaves say 130,000 gay people in Dublin. Say half that is guys. That's 65,000. Take out the guys in couples, and those who are not out, who don't frequent the scene... that brings the number way, way down.

In addition to that I really doubt its as high as 10 percent in the first place, its kind of an obsolete statistic really. The vast majority of sexuality surveys put the lgbt figure at about 3-7%
Also you forgot to consider age, think about all the population who are under 17. Thats about 25% of the population. Then all the older people who are much less likely to be on the scene(say over 60) ,who make up about 15% of the population. Thats probably another 40% of the population who are either too young or too old to be 'on the scene'

So that brings it way way down again
The number of guys on the scene in dublin is probably only a few thousand I would say.
I live in Dublin south not that far from the centre and when I used to use grindr it would always be the same 400-500 guys on it, rarely any new faces

JupiterKid

wakka12 wrote: »

In addition to that I really doubt its as high as 10 percent in the first place, its kind of an obsolete statistic really. The vast majority of sexuality surveys put the lgbt figure at about 3-7%
Also you forgot to consider age, think about all the population who are under 17. Thats about 25% of the population. Then all the older people who are much less likely to be on the scene(say over 60) ,who make up about 15% of the population. Thats probably another 40% of the population who are either too young or too old to be 'on the scene'

So that brings it way way down again
The number of guys on the scene in dublin is probably only a few thousand I would say.
I live in Dublin south not that far from the centre and when I used to use grindr it would always be the same 400-500 guys on it, rarely any new faces

The scene seems small because most LGBT people do not frequent the "scene." Also, I think surveys underestimate the amount of LGBT people because of a reluctance of many to disclose their true sexuality given longstanding societal homophobia. I'd say about 10% of the global population is LGBT but less than half of that figure is "out."