Hey, hope you’re doing well. I am a gay man in my late 20s and living in the Middle East. Over the past few years, I have been working a lot on myself in different aspects of my life and have achieved great progress that I am happy and proud of. As I grow older and especially within this past year, I have been thinking a lot about my love life. That is the only major aspect that is lacking currently in my life and it is impacting me negatively over time. My love life is nonexistent where I live in my country. Being gay is not accepted, so I just don’t bother with meeting guys here and it’s difficult with having family and friends around here too.

My family means a lot to me and I love them dearly, but I don’t feel happy where I live. I want to be happy in the long term and have the freedom of being my genuine self without having an automatic guard up like I currently do and start dating with the possibility of finding a life partner too if the right opportunity comes up. I know for sure the longer I stay in my home country the greater the chance is that I will be sad or depressed.

Asylum is not something I will go for. I am looking into work visa options. I looked into what places I would be interested in moving to and came up with two options. The first is moving to a western country (western European or the US). Moving to a western country is difficult visa wise and being gay is legal. The second is Dubai. Moving to Dubai is very easy in my case and being gay is illegal (gay dating is possible under certain circumstances that I am open to personally).

The first option is best but difficult. The second option is easier and is a middle ground and an upgrade to what I currently have. What should I focus on? I would greatly appreciate some words of encouragement as I am trying to navigate the next stage of my life. Thank you so much!