Following this thread, and getting to know a man I'd never met, caused me to consider the predicament many readers now confront or aware that they will as they age. Increasing isolation, medical maladies, declining income and--if you live in many parts of the globe--discrimination in all its various forms are among the more pervasive issues.
I spent a few hours, scanning the web for articles that spoke to these concerns. There were too many to take in but they many seem to have a common denominator: growing old, and gay, frequently has a bleak outlook.
Of the expats I've met, some came here to work but most came to for the chance to live a life of greater acceptance and opportunity to express their sexuality. They generally did so with a sound understanding of the pros and cons, but time has its own way of coloring those factors. Richard, by all that I read, was a friend to many and well-remembered by the Pattaya community. He struggled, perhaps more than others, but managed to make a meaningful life. But to learn how alone he was in the end, with no familial ties or, it seems, significant other, I keep coming back to what I think is our greatest fear: being progressively more isolated as our days dwindle.
I know that his forum helps keep guys in this situation involved to some degree, enabling even the less mobile to feel connected. But it can't substitute for the need for face-to-face experiences. I know some here have BF's who look after them but, from what I gather, most do not. They accept their fate as they confront their mortality. I don't sense that they regret life's choices, or necessarily believe they would have fared better at home. It simply seems to come with the territory.
One article from the NY Times, written by a gay doctor, gives voice to the medial implications of the graying gay community:
Excerpts from NY Times article
My patient was gay, and as a gay geriatrician I had felt a connection with him unlike any I’d had with my other patients. We never directly discussed his sexuality; initially, I only knew that he was a lifelong bachelor and a retired history professor who had taught for many years at Emory University in Atlanta.
In time, as he let his guard down, I learned that what he considered his life’s work and true love was the restoration of the historic farmhouse he owned in rural Georgia, where he had an enormous garden that was his pride and joy. Eventually, this World War II veteran told me about his postwar years as a graduate student in Chicago, where he formed close relationships with a few other men.
He never had a long-term relationship, though, and lived alone for years. In the few months that he lived at our facility, the only family member I talked with was a niece who lived out of state.
What bothered me most was that this kind, erudite and generous man had died alone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/healt ... cases.html
