This article was published on April 26th, 2017

Ah, the gay dating cycle, AKA the gayting cycle. In the fall, guys get together for romantic relationships throughout the winter. We hunker down and cuddle, keeping each other warm through the coldest months. But with spring in the air, couples start to break up in anticipation of summer flings, Pride events, circuit parties, and more. Why does it happen? Will you be a victim of a spring break-up or will you and your partner make it through the summer together?

Face the facts: men were designed to breed. Snicker all you want, but men were biologically designed to have sex and continue the human race through intercourse. Our sperm is virtually potent until the day we die, enabling us to impregnate and sustain our species. Keeping these things in mind, remember that gay men are still men: no matter how queer we appear. While gay men cannot get pregnant, gay men often have an instinctual desire to spread their seed and have sex often. Call it animalistic or not, sex is often a deal breaker if it isn’t consistent and satisfying.

There is also something inherent about finding a mate in the fall. It is literally harvesting season and there is often a desire to pair up to brace through some of the cold winter months–like Christmas and the holidays. We have a second half to share the new year with, Thanksgiving, perhaps some Halloween parties, and might even last until February for Valentine’s. Mating during the fall is as animal as it gets: we’re naturally preparing for a harsh winter.

So, what is it about Spring that turns all of this topsy turvy? There is some odd reality in the gay community where guys start to dissolve these relationships and begin wandering out into single land. Surely it has to have a scientific reason behind it: gays certainly don’t go from settling down with someone for the latter part of the year only to have all the couples fall about come summer time. Is it 9-month curse, like pregnancy, but without the end responsibility of offspring and parenting at the end? Or are we so shallow that we just want to play the summer solo?

Pool parties, beach days, pride washboard abs, and circuit events can’t be the only reasons gays go astray. What is it about the 7-9 month curse that results in singledom? Spring is planting season, so is it some subconscious factor in our brains making us want to branch out and plant some more?

There are a lot of answers to these questions. Unfortunately, not all of them apply to everyone and each relationship. Different advice could be given to varying circumstances. As your fall relationship enters in the final months of spring, interpersonal reflection needs to happen.

Your relationship will make it through the gayting cycle, if you both want it to. Dating another man will never be easy. Constantly flip flopping the roll of alpha personality in the relationship means a lot of compromise, patience, and understanding needs to take place in order for a gay paring to last. If your relationship wasn’t mean to be, then it wasn’t meant to be. But don’t give up on someone for vanity. Events will always be there, whether you’re single or not. The love of your life may not. You might be ok with it now, but you might regret a breakup in the end. Summer loving is even better if is something lasting…even if carried over from the winter.