The Second Closet with Juan Galan

Most of us don't walk around thinking we're grieving. We think we're tired. We call it burnout, or a bit of depression, or we decide we're just someone who runs a little low, while the job's fine, the friends are there, and there's still a weight we can't explain to anyone who asks.

In this episode, I walk through the grief so many gay men carry that nobody ever told us was grief, and why it doesn't go away on its own.

In this episode:

• Why a coming out video, a cousin's wedding or a film about two teenage boys can hit so much harder than it should
• Why the losses where nobody died never got a funeral, and what happens to grief nobody sees
• The four losses men name again and again: the life you were supposed to have, the adolescence you never got, the place you were told you belonged, and the man you would have been
• The dream I keep having about being back at school, and the teenage boy I finally let go of
• The Christian community in Bali where I belonged for the first time, and why leaving it still felt like a loss

• Why a lot of what we call shame is grief that never got to finish
• A small practice to try this week

Nothing is wrong with you for still carrying this. It just never got the chance to be seen.

If one of these four landed in your chest, we're going to grieve them together, live:

🕯️ The Four Things Gay Men Grieve, live grief workshop on Tuesday, October 27 ($33 until October 20, then $67): https://www.juangalan.co/grief

🎧 Free Private Podcast Experience: https://juangalan.co/private-podcast-experience/

🏠 5 Days to Come Home Challenge ($33): https://juangalan.co/coming-home-challenge/

🤝 Apply for 1:1 coaching with me: https://juangalan.co/coming-home/

📸 Come say hi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingwithjuan/

The Second Closet is a podcast for gay men on sex, dating, God, and the patterns we can't stop repeating, hosted by Juan Galán. If this episode meant something to you, leave a rating and share it with your gay friends :)

Dating as a gay man really is harder, and I want you to hear me say that before anything else. The pool is small, the apps have trained us to reject, racism and ageism are all over the scene, and a whole generation of men who could have shown us what a long relationship looks like aren't here.

And still, inside all of that, you keep picking the same man in a different body. In this episode, I tell you about mine.

In this episode:

• The research on the apps: the rejection mindset study by Pronk and Denissen, why more choice leaves people more anxious about ending up alone, and how loneliness and app burnout feed each other
• My type, described with way too much precision, and the exact moment around week three when I fall for him
• Why the kind, consistent guy never gives you the spark, and why sometimes what we call chemistry is just recognition
• Why the idea that the universe is sending you these men to teach you a lesson is actually kind of cruel
• Where to start: finding the moment your interest turns into need

The conditions are real, and none of them are your fault. The pattern is yours to work with, and it starts with being present at the moment you choose.

If you're tired of meeting the same man in a different body and you want to work on the part of you that keeps choosing him, here's where to go next:

🎧 Free Private Podcast Experience: https://juangalan.co/private-podcast-experience/

🏠 5 Days to Come Home Challenge ($33): https://juangalan.co/coming-home-challenge/

🤝 Apply for 1:1 coaching with me: https://juangalan.co/coming-home/

📸 Come say hi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingwithjuan/

The Second Closet is a podcast for gay men on sex, dating, God, and the patterns we can't stop repeating, hosted by Juan Galán. If this episode meant something to you, leave a rating and share it with your gay friends :)

It's late, you're in bed, there's nothing left in the day that needs you, and your hand goes to your phone. Most of the time you're not even horny. You open Grindr anyway, scroll past the same men you saw last night, and you already know you won't close the app at one in the morning feeling fulfilled.

In this episode, I talk about what's really happening in that moment, and why I've stopped believing the app is the problem.

In this episode:

• The research that changed how I see Grindr: men who use the apps mainly for sex reported higher self-esteem and less loneliness than men looking for love or friendship, and why the mismatch is what really hurts
• Why I think of Grindr as a mirror that gives you back whatever state you open it in
• What happened when I downloaded it again in Sicily this summer to find dates, the guy who ghosted and then blocked me, and the night I ended up somewhere I didn't want to be
• Why deleting the app never worked for me, and what finally broke the compulsion
• The question I ask myself now, before I open any app or send that text: is it the man or the boy holding the phone?

You don't have to delete anything or swear off hooking up. Just start noticing who's holding the phone.

If you keep opening the app looking for something it was never built to give you, and you want help finding where that need really comes from, here's where to start:

🎧 Free Private Podcast Experience: https://juangalan.co/private-podcast-experience/

🏠 5 Days to Come Home Challenge ($33): https://juangalan.co/coming-home-challenge/

🤝 Apply for 1:1 coaching with me: https://juangalan.co/coming-home/

📸 Come say hi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingwithjuan/

The Second Closet is a podcast for gay men on sex, dating, God, and the patterns we can't stop repeating, hosted by Juan Galán. If this episode meant something to you, leave a rating and share it with your gay friends :)

When I came out, I thought the hard part was over. I'd finally said the true sentence, I could love who I wanted, and for a while that felt like freedom. It took me fifteen years to see that I'd walked out of one closet and straight into another, still performing, still hiding, still doing everything little Juan did to feel safe and to be chosen.

In this first episode I tell you why I started The Second Closet, and I open up mine so you can see what's inside.

In this episode:

• The email I sent my mom at 20, crying over a man I'd known for four weeks, and why it took me until my mid thirties to understand what it was really about
• Coming out to my family, my dad's first reaction, and how different things looked three years later
• The three things in my second closet: being addicted to being chosen by masculine men, my complicated relationship with God, and a compulsion that shows up with food, drugs and sex that I still don't fully understand
• Why Grindr was never really about sex for me
• What's coming on the show: the apps, dating, fathers, shame, sex and God

I'm not talking to you from the other side of any of this. I'm still in it, and I'd love for you to be in it with me.

If you heard yourself in this and you want to start looking at what's in your own second closet, here's where to go next:

🎧 Free Private Podcast Experience: https://juangalan.co/private-podcast-experience/

🏠 5 Days to Come Home Challenge ($33): https://juangalan.co/coming-home-challenge/

🤝 Apply for 1:1 coaching with me: https://juangalan.co/coming-home/

📸 Come say hi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingwithjuan/

The Second Closet is a podcast for gay men on sex, dating, God and the patterns we can't stop repeating, hosted by Juan Galán. If this episode meant something to you, leave a rating and share it with your gay friends :)