Gay romance comedy

Our editors handpick the products that we feature. We may earn commission from the links on this page. Welcome to my life. For as long as I can remember, rom-coms have been a source of comfort. I even tried my romance at writing one. But for all the love I have for the genre, I'm still waiting for a love story that speaks to my own experience as a gay man.

Yup—still waiting, in Hollywood is long overdue for a big-budget, splashy gay romantic comedy. My obsession with the romance genre started with an early fairy tale fixation. Every trip to the video store RIP Blockbuster resulted in me renting another one of the theater company's live-action story adaptations of classic tales.

By the time I reached the age when most kids outgrow fairy tales truth time: I never really didI moved onto 's trifecta of high school rom-coms. It wasn't until I was 16 that I finally discovered two rom-coms that helped me realize my own gay comedy. Both involve teens coming to terms with their same-sex attraction in ways that I found relatable.

Get Real plays off of every queer high school fantasy or maybe even every high school fantasy where a boy who feels like an outsider suddenly gets attention from one of the gay kids.

Romantic Comedy Lgbt

That desire to be seen weighed heavily on me at the time when I was starting to figure out who I was. Cheerleader is about a girl who initially tries to resist her homosexual urges after falling for a girl at conversion camp. Although I thankfully eventually came out to an accepting family and social circle, I knew the feeling of wanting to be "normal" all too well.

I stumbled across both of these comedies after spending most of gay Friday night perusing the aisles of the video store. These gems were hidden way in the back, somewhere among all those National Lampoon's comedies and other direct-to-video releases. Fast forward two decades, and most LGBTQ romantic comedies are still hidden—except instead of being relegated to the back of a video shelf, they're buried deep in the archives of digital streaming services—without homepage promos or major marketing efforts behind them.

I'm constantly perplexed. With all of the progress the gay community has finally! As a man who's spent years navigating the queer dating scene in New York City, it's very easy to lose hope that true love is in the cards—or that it exists at all. It's hard to find that spark in a seemingly endless cycle of swipe matches and casual coffee or cocktail dates.

That's why romantic comedies are more important than ever, because they keep romance alive. They inspire you to hold out hope for someone worthy of a grand romantic gesture though slightly less creepy than standing outside their window with a boombox. Seeing those scenarios play out romance in heterosexual relationships can make a gay person question whether they're worthy of that kind of earth-shattering Say Anything -style love.

Where's our John Hughes movie?