My friends are probably 70% straight guys, 20% straight girls, and 10% anyone LGBT. And I live in NYC, so there isn't a shortage of LGBT people. It's not intentional, I just hang out with who I vibe with and most of these friends were from high school or college. I don't care about the sexuality of my friends so long as I enjoy time spent with them.

I've never been in a relationship or really experimented sexually or romantically. Something about other gay men just makes me really anxious. Like my appearance and behavior are being judged more (which, I mean, I do that to other gay guys but not in a negative way, more like a subconscious 'wow this guy's attractive' thought). And then I start to overthink and get self-conscious. I've interacted with other gay guys before, and in casual settings sometimes it just ends up being like something I can't tell is flirting or just playing around, and that just makes me more anxious for not figuring out what is what.

And not to pigeonhole or generalize or stereotype, but a lot of gay men also have a different type of banter and idea of rapport that I'm not familiar with and that makes it more awkward. I've found that when I've tried to like engage with that, I'd just get slowly ignored or the conversation gets duller because they get bored of me or something. I tried going to a meetup of a few gay men, just like 3 or 4, in my city and it felt like they had personalities and interests that meshed better with each other while I was just boring, not to mention it's not like I could talk about anything gay since I'm a baby gay while they're talking about their relationships or what bars they enjoyed and stuff like that. Most of the gay guys I've met seem a lot more confident and outspoken than I am.

Idk, in the end I just feel super self-conscious. Like I'm not attractive enough (which is a stupid thing to worry about because even in platonic situations I have this dumb thought) or I'm not interesting enough or I'm not fun enough. But it's like particularly around other gay men. I don't feel similarly around straight men.