There is an incredible amount of reckless behaviour in the gay community. There is a very large number of men dealing with the severe pain of being bullied relentlessly when young, rejection from peers and family, physical harm, emotional harm, stigma, questioning who they are, the sometimes terror of coming out (or being outed) and as adults still experiencing some of the above. With mental health being treatment prohibitively expensive or having huge waiting lists, and people being less disposed to talk this stuff out than you think, it is absolutely no wonder that people turn to substances and reckless sex. One of the few bonuses of being gay, is the ease of casual sex (if you are in to that). The straight world is only now catching up.
Add to that, especially in the British Isles, a general frigidity in physical contact, hesitancy to express yourself emotionally and opening up, and again, substances and reckless sex is a fairly understandable way to get the things you are craving for (human contact, release and validation).
In Spain I had very little problem having nice meaningful hookups, long term partners, wonderful relationships and an ease at developing them. Since I’ve moved to Scotland, I have had on average 1 awful date a year with cold, frigid, tepid, insecure, indecisive locals. Only nice experiences I have are with foreigners. H&H, requests for “knock on door, fuck, thanks, bye” is the norm, getting dick pics instead of “hello”, and guys either not interested in grabbing a drink before anything and most certainly not disposed to spending the night cuddling afterwards is the norm. Keep in mind, Scotland 40 years ago was poor, miserable and full of disfunction and drugs (train spotting) and rabidly homophobic. The scars are still clearly visible even if it is now insanely progressive and inclusive.
Pride isn’t there to make LGTBQ+ people functioning people. It is to
1) Stop society from stigmatising, bullying, excluding and discriminating against us (which still happens one way or another every day)
2) Support one another
I would say, so far, job well done everything considered.
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