Gage spent three years in a relationship with his male neighbor — hiding it from everyone for most of that time. The secrecy felt exciting at first. Then it became corrosive. He finally came out at a Little Mermaid audition, mid-tears.
Where this was said
At 43:15 · chapter starts 38:00
Gage's coming-out story resists the 'always knew' template. His first sexual experiences were shaped by abuse, and for years he used that fact as a psychological escape hatch to explain away any same-sex attraction: 'Well, I was molested — that's why.' He genuinely loved the girlfriends he had. His first male relationship was with his neighbour, lasting three years largely in secret — thrilling at first, then corrosive. He finally came out publicly in tears at a Little Mermaid audition. In parallel, industry advisors explicitly warned him that being openly gay would pigeonhole him into only gay roles — advice that still carries some truth, he admits, though figures like Jonathan Bailey are shifting the landscape. The queerbaiting allegations that arrived online were painful and absurd: accused of stealing gay roles while being gay. His accidental clap-back tweet — 'you don't know my alphabet' — became unexpectedly beloved. Gage also reflects on the particular cruelty of secret relationships within military-inflected San Diego, where hypermasculinity and shame compound the toxicity of hiding.
Gage didn't always know he was gay. Early sexual abuse gave him a ready excuse to explain away curiosity. For years, any same-sex feeling got attributed to trauma rather than identity. Coming out at a Little Mermaid audition — in tears — was the moment the performance finally cracked.
Lukas Gage spent years closeted in Hollywood because industry advice warned that being out would confine him to only gay roles. Online accusers attacked him for queerbaiting. His response — 'you don't know my alphabet' — became an accidental viral moment.
Most people confuse things they value instrumentally (because they get them other things) with things they value intrinsically (for their own sake). Greenberg's friend stayed in a miserable relationship for years because she was living by her parents' values, not her own — the values map made the mismatch instantly visible.
Jungian analyst James Hollis distills a good life to four things: shut up (have gratitude, stop whining), suit up (prepare yourself to fulfill a role), show up (do the actual work in service of others), and daily get out of stimulus-response to ask what your deeper wish actually is. The whole landscape of self-help slots into just these four bins.
Toward the end of their 20s, many men discover that all the strategies that earned them recognition and success have stopped working. It's a second adolescence — more important than the first — where the question shifts from 'how do I play the game?' to 'who do I actually want to become?' Most people going through it look fragile from the outside. They're actually building a foundation.
Boys are told from childhood not to cry, not to feel, not to be weak — but anger gets a pass. The result: a generation of men who reroute every emotion, including sadness and fear, through the only acceptable channel. Emotional avoidance isn't toughness, it's misdirected sensitivity.
Men need a 'bank account' of masculine status — muscle, money, success — before society grants them permission to express vulnerability. Chris Bumstead can cry at the Olympia and get celebrated. A struggling nobody doing the same thing gets contempt. This creates a tragic paradox where the men who most need emotional support get the least of it.
Emotional sensitivity isn't a defect — it's a high-resolution scanner for human experience. Highly sensitive people pick up body language, tone, and unspoken tension that others miss entirely. In the right environment, that's not a liability. It's a superpower.
Her supervisor told her she was too emotional for the pediatric ICU. So she asked herself: 'What area of medicine can I cry in?' That question led her to psychiatry. Finding the environment that holds your emotional sensitivity isn't retreat — it's strategy.
For someone with RSD, ghosting isn't ambiguity — it's a self-verdict. Their brain doesn't read 'this relationship ended,' it reads 'I am the reason this failed.' No closure means the brain fills the gap with evidence of personal insufficiency, and it keeps filling indefinitely.
More freedom doesn't produce more happiness — it produces more anxiety. Kierkegaard identified this 180 years ago: the more options you have, the more you feel the 'dizziness of freedom,' a paralytic unease at having to choose any single one. The freest generation in history is, by his prediction, exactly the most anxious.
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