Schope (2005) contends that there are two competing theories on gay male aging – accelerated aging and crisis competence. The theory of accelerated aging contends that gay men view themselves as older at a time when heterosexual men do not. This echoes the commonly accepted statement that a gay man is old when he turns 30. Gay men who come out in their late twenties or in their thirties may even feel like they have jumped right from adolescence to middle or old age. Gay men may interpret aging inappropriately because they lack the markers such as the birth or graduation of a child that guide perceptions of age for heterosexuals (Kooden & Flowers, 2000, cited in Schope, 2005). Crisis competence theory argues that gay men are actually better
