It is convenient for the world to be drawn in straight lines. It is convenient to illustrate reality with rectangles and squares – they can be folded and snapped, measured and categorised, and they fit into neat boxes. It must be inconvenient to find a curve, a bent line in a straight world. I am delightfully inconvenient: I am bent.

Eastern Daily Press: EN In My View columnist Liam Heitman-RiceEN In My View columnist Liam Heitman-Rice (Image: Archant)

To steer away from this line of fanciful metaphor, I shall explain myself a little more clearly: I came out as gay four years ago, at the age of sixteen, and have since been widely allowed to explore my homosexuality. I say 'allowed' because, in my experience, I have not been impeded by any of the stigma often directed at the LGBT community. I have not been ostracised or made to feel lesser for my sexuality, and in recognising this I also recognise my good fortune to be alive in this period of history.

To be gay in this decade is to enjoy the kind of liberation that has not been afforded to other homosexuals throughout the twentieth century. I am free to love who I please and I am free to be different – indeed, I am free to be that anomalous curve in a world of straight lines. In 2017, the fiftieth anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the United Kingdom, I am able to exist purely as I please without fear or disgust.

I am only twenty years old, however, and my experience is limited. I am not saying that everyone everywhere is free of criticism for their sexuality; I merely identify what I perceive to be societal progression towards wider acceptance of those who identify as LGBT.

The curves that once were hidden in their neat boxes, their closets, are now encouraged to blossom and twirl and flourish. No-one I have revealed my sexuality to has ever reacted with anything other than an amused curiosity. And I think it is amusing – I have a lot of fun being gay!

I like my attraction to the same sex, I like being able to choose who I want to be with, I like my freedom from external pressure to conform. I like that I am able to paint my nails, I like being silly and colourful – I like being gay, in all three definitions of that word: brightly coloured, happy and homosexual.

Yet in my experience as a homosexual I must confess I have felt a degree of engendered desperation, a case of 'make do with what you're given'… Many of my interactions with other gay men are facilitated by apps such as Tinder and Grindr.

None of these interactions have led further than the most banal of friendships, which often dissolve in a short period of time. I appreciate that gay bars can be a viable place to meet people, but again, nothing of any emotional depth has ever materialised.

I do not apologise when I say that the stereotype of the gay community, the notoriety of casual sex and short-term gratifications, is sadly accurate. It can be particularly lonely, to see around you the happy, smiling, hand-holding heteronormative tides of boys and girls surrounding you with their intimate chatter, their laughter, the gentle stroke of a finger across their arm.

I am often confronted with this sad reality that I am yet to find a man I can connect with on a level that is not purely physical, to find someone who is not pursuing the convenience of casual sex. I have friends who I share my heart and mind with, but no-one yet with whom I can share any binding intimacy.

It seems that I am not impeded by society, but my own community. The apps and bars afforded to me, the tools I have to meet other gay men, appear to have been bastardised by a no-strings-attached agenda.

I am liberated but, at times, lonely. To be gay in 2017 is to accept this peculiar misbalance.