Dee Salmon

And we also heard from quite a few of you who are queer

that this was even exacerbated right like it was even harder for you especially if you felt like there was no one else queer in the place that you lived so i thought it was a really important topic to chat about for a whole episode and chat to some of those yeah some of those issues if you are someone who's discovering your sexuality for the first time and you live in a regional or rural area

and you want some advice around that, or maybe you are someone who doesn't know how to come out and tell your community about your sexuality.

So we're going to unpack that today here with Dr. Chris Teers, who is a psychologist and author of the new rule book.

Chris, thanks so much for coming on The Hookup.

so yeah people i did this at and we put up a poll on our instagram at triple j the hookup and we said if you live really are you struggling to date and 49 of people said yes and then we said did you have to leave town for love and 49 of people said yes and we did get a lot of messages from people who are gay or queer and they said living really makes it really difficult for them um angus he is saying as a gay man i find it really really really hard and jimmy as well saying i had to move to the city

to even come out with my sexuality i lived all of my 20s as a straight male when i actually wasn't so yeah really keen to get your advice today i'd love to hear from you from you know someone who works predominantly with um queer folk what have you heard about some of the pressures and experiences that people go through when they do live in small towns or regional areas

Yeah, I'd love to hear a bit more about your experience.

What was that like for you?

And did you have anyone that you could look to or turn to to kind of figure out your sexuality?

Yeah, I really want to chat about that in a second about, you know, the fact that so many people do have to move to find a community because that might not be possible for a lot of people.

They might, for some reason, have to stay where they live.

What's your advice for someone who is deciding whether or not to come out, especially if, like you said, you don't feel safe or it's a pretty conservative place that you live in?

You mentioned that there's higher rates of depression and even suicidal thoughts.

How can not feeling like you can show up as your authentic self really impact your mental health and well-being?

What about with dating, Chris?

You know, a lot of people's first experiences really shape their sexuality, right?

And discovering who they are and who they want to date and, you know, kind of fumbling around and figuring it out.

What's your advice on how queer folk can navigate dating when it feels like everyone knows each other and you don't really know if anyone else is queer so that you don't even know if there's anyone else you can really date?

How can you develop your confidence in those spaces?