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David Jackson asks: “What happened to your twenties being about Sambuca slammers, sleeping around and social smoking?”

What is it with gay guys under the age of 30? They’re all getting married. Before you can say ‘Why don’t we delete Grindr?’ millennials are down on one knee, when they should really be down on both knees and having fun.

It appears anyone who’s just that little bit too young to remember He-Man and the miners strikes is now ‘looking for venues’.

What happened to your twenties being about Sambuca, sleeping around and social smoking?

Dave Jackson waited to get married and got the sambuka (mostly) out of the way first…

Younger gay guys now prefer a smoothie to a prosecco and are happier at the gym than the bar. Rates of smoking and drinking have gone down among millennials. So, is getting married another sign of this new conservatism? My mate calls them ‘Bake Off Gays’: clean-cut, looks good in an apron.

Basically, boys who are more about bunting than butt plugs.

Maybe the spike in gay pre-thirties nuptials is to do with the fact that men who are naturally small ‘c’ conservatives now find it easier to come out. 20 years ago they probably would have been in loveless marriages with mad or unassuming women running teashops on the south coast. Now people who are reserved or cautious can be out, dull and proud.

Is marriage, for some, a way of making their homosexuality acceptable? I’ve heard these disturbing phrases of late: “my dad was uncomfortable with me being gay but since meeting Jack and he found out we’re getting married he is more supportive” or “ Uncle Vinnie is a homophobe but he loved the wedding’.

Are the Instagram posts a way of showing all those meatheads you went to school with that you’re happy not the scared kid crying under the stairwell at break time.

Getting married should not be a way of dealing with your own internalized homophobia and certainly shouldn’t be about challenging other people’s prejudices. Save politics for the ballot box.

Marriage is about love, not protest and it’s not about fitting in or feeling more ‘normal’. I got married this year after five years of being with someone and I’m nearly 40.

In my younger years, I was single, in other relationships and in therapy. I processed my demons and saved a bit of cash. So if you’re a ‘Bake Off Gay’ just give yourself time to grow up and enjoy making your own stupid mistakes, because getting married is probably one of them.

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