So we’ve all heard that tired old line:
“You’ve got to love yourself first before you can love someone else”,
and gay guys seem to quote it just as much as anyone else.
Everyone has the right to say I love you!
Well I don’t buy it!
I’m sure that anyone who says you must love yourself before you can love someone else says so with the best of intentions. If nothing else they are emphasising that it is important that we have a healthy love for ourselves.
Fair enough. I’ll come back to this.
What I don’t buy however is that if you don’t love yourself then it should follow you can’t love someone else! Why not?
Is love some kind of special privilege that guys with low self esteem can’t have? Are we incapable of loving just because there may be things about ourselves we don’t like? Do guys with low self worth have their judgment impaired to such a degree that who, or how they love becomes devalued?
Or, looking at it from another angle, if our boyfriend or partner has low self esteem does that mean their love for us is worthless?
Love doesn’t work like that! In my opinion the beauty of love is that it is something we all have the capacity for, and we can share it and give it to whoever we like. As gay men, often without a traditional family structure, it is arguably even more important that we feel free to share our love, and value it, and receive it without reservations, with whoever we choose.
Undermining this by saying that love is not possible unless the guys doing the loving love themselves first is misconceived, and destructive.
As for actually loving ourselves, well that’s often easier said than done. It may be easy to say that we love ourselves, and even to think we mean it, but deep down that may not be the case. Low self-worth, self-esteem and self-image issues affect a huge number of people, and often gay men can have negative image issues going right back to homophobia during childhood. Also, the male gay world can be very narcissistic, which leads to self image issues for many gay men.
Shaking off such deep rooted self-worth issues can be a long haul, and take years. To glibly state you’ve got to love yourself first before you have the right or ability to love another is not helpful even if it were possible in the wave of the magic wand that seems to be implied. Plus, its rubbish anyway!
Finding love can be complicated enough for gay guys!
So, no matter what you think about yourself, get loving! Love your boyfriend, family, friends and fuck buddies. Love, love, love - no one can take that away from you, and if you can grow to love yourself better too then even better!
By David Abrehart
© Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
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What do you think? Do you have to love yourself before you can love another man? Have your say below:
May 17th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
This is the sort of advice found in many self-help books; we are told we must forgive ourselves, or accept ourselves first before we can forgive, accept, or love others.
However, someone who is depressed and has low self-esteem may love an individual even more because he lifts their spirits.
Like the cartoon animation of the young man finding romance after confusing trials ,it would be truer to say we all have to suffer and make mistakes on the road to recognizing love.
May 17th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
I think you’re quite right. I don’t especially love myself and yet I’m more than capable of falling in love with other men (a bit too quickly maybe).
I’m all for sharing the love even though I don’t love myself lol.