Ask the Thomas husbands, Reginald, 27, and Kelvin, 47, about when the idea for Gay Couples Collective was born, and you might get the same story but told quite differently.

Together for six years and married for two, the pair has created a group specifically for gay male couples who are intentionally building lasting connections, cultivating experiences, and empowering other married or engaged same-sex male couples.

It's just after 11 am on a Friday when Gregory "Gee" Smalls walks into Virgil's Gullah Kitchen & Bar – West Midtown.

As members of the staff mull around prepping for the day, he stops at a table to talk to a familiar face. They strike up a quick conversation.

Eventually, he stands and greets us – me and Johnnie "Jay Ray" Kornegay III, creative director of the Counter Narrative Project. We are there to capture a few images of Smalls and his husband of 13 years, Juan. It's 12 days after their anniversary.

Smalls hugs us and says, "Juan is up the street. He's on his way." But actually, Juan is already here. He appears at the top of the establishment's stairs. As we take notice, he slowly saunters down the stairs – making an entrance – and pulls his shades from his face.

They are dressed in seemingly coordinated outfits—Gee in a long sleeve, black sweatshirt, camouflage pants, yellow, high-top sneakers, and a Black beanie. Juan is wearing blue jeans, sneakers, and a black asymmetrical button-down, long-sleeved shirt. If their wardrobe choices indicate their relationship dynamic, it shows how their unique personalities and styles complement each other.

Until recently, Alec Tomlin, 30, never allowed himself to dream of living the life he now leads with his husband, Brian Mazelin, 34. The Orlando-based couple wed in an intimate ceremony at Paradise Cove on July 8, 2022, in front of family and friends, and days later, to an audience of over 34,000 people who watched their wedding video on their increasingly popular YouTube channel “Meet The Mazelins.”

Tomlin, a native of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and Mazelin, a Miami, FL native, walked down the aisle, hand-in-hand in what can only be described as an out-of-body experience.

“I literally burst into tears the minute we turned the corner,” Tomlin said. “Knowing this wasn't just me as a viewer, but me as a participant in a wedding, to this day, it’s something that I don't think has hit me, like, how big it is.”

The newlywed's journey to the altar was not without its share of obstacles; from navigating a long-distance relationship in 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, to Tomlin’s exhaustive immigration process, to the rescheduling of their wedding day—their persistence and unwavering commitment proved that a delay is not a denial.

Walking down the aisle at his grand 2015 wedding, Nathaniel Holley had plenty of reason to feel proud: The Morehouse College graduate had secured both a successful career as a Washington DC-area paralegal, and the love of his life. Holley and his partner marked the occasion with a splashy $50,000 ceremony, complete with 125 guests to witness it all.

Their split, finalized just four years later, was a much quieter affair.

Finances had become a sore spot. The men argued, often. Soon, Holley felt forced to choose between the relationship and his sanity. He moved out on New Year’s Day 2019.

“I didn’t have any more fight left in me,” says Holley, 35. “I just realized that wasn’t the life I wanted anymore.”

For years, legal marriage has been exalted in the LGBTQ+ community, held up as an ultimate mark of social acceptance and stability. Yet while many consider same-sex marriage the ultimate fairy tale ending for LGBTQ+ couples, reality has proven otherwise: Less than a decade after the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling secured marriage equality for millions of LGBTQ+ men and women across the nation, their divorce rates have neared those of heterosexual couples. Among lesbians, in particular, some studies suggest rates may be even higher.

Spring is known as the season for love for good reason. Everything around us is thawing out and firing up, including our moods thanks to a springtime burst of dopamine scientists say often sets the stage for romance. But for every couple that begins a five-alarm love affair in the spring, experts say there are many more that find themselves in dry dock.

Call it libido gap, a dead bedroom, or the more clinical term “sexual desire discrepancy.” By any name, the shortfall between how much physical intimacy two partners want is one of the biggest sources of tension in relationships.

“It’s a lot more common than most people will discuss,” says Machel Hunt, an Atlanta psychosexual therapist and one of two experts who spoke to The Reckoning about getting back that lovin’ feelin’.

The cause of a libido gap can be physical, such as hormone imbalances or other conditions that lower desire. Other times the cause is mental, including stress and a history of subtle sexual trauma experts say can be particularly common among gay men.

Author Doug Cooper Spencer, 67, almost let the opportunity to fall in love again pass him by. In 1998, sitting in Fountain Square, a busy plaza in downtown Cincinnati, as he continued to work on his first novel, he noticed someone walking by.

“I saw these nice legs walk past, and I glanced at them, like, ‘Oh, he’s got nice legs.’ That's it—because I'm an introvert,” he said.

Doug had dissolved a relationship a year and a half prior and wanted to focus on writing. While glancing up from the legs that caused his temporary distraction, he caught the eye of the person to whom those legs were attached.

“He catches me [looking up] and he stops and I'm like, oh God, here we go. No, I do not want to be bothered,” Doug recalls thinking to himself.

Barren, dark, and sedentary, the winter months can be emotionally challenging in general, and worse for LGBTQ+ people coping with the loss of a partner. One less table setting, one less gift under the tree,—the season can be filled with stark reminders of absence, at times made worse by a community that may accept but not necessarily embrace same-sex marriage. Surviving spouses can face invisibility among friends and even family that deny the nature of their relationship with the deceased—the “roommate” or “special friend” syndrome—or may find themselves feeling uncomfortable in hetero-centric grief counseling settings.

And yet the winter months, with their emphasis on togetherness and intimacy, can be exactly when LGBTQ+ people coping with grief need the most support. The Reckoning sat down with two community members navigating the loss of a longtime spouse. From rediscovering romance to awakening the author within, each man has used their own set of unique tools to navigate through the darkness, offering words of hope for others on the path out of their own personal winter.

As this year draws to a close, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on the stories that helped make The Reckoning a must-visit site for unique and thoughtful stories about Black gay men and Atlanta’s Black LGBTQ+ community in 2021. We’d also like to thank you for supporting the work we do with over 200,000 page views, countless shares and retweets on social media, award recognition, and, for some, your willingness to share your personal life experiences in the stories we tell. At CNP and The Reckoning, we believe great storytelling can shift the narrative about how society views us as Black LGBTQ+ people and how we view ourselves.

In 2021, our top ten stories more than lived up to our promise of publishing well-written content that reflects the authenticity and diversity of Atlanta’s Black LGBTQ+ community and beyond. Because of you, these stories soared. Let’s look back on the top ten stories on The Reckoning for 2021.

When he was 16 years old, Jahnesta Watson found himself in the middle of a familial drama that unexpectedly shifted the trajectory of his life.

Prior to this moment, Watson, now 28, had been the golden child. Beloved by most within the family, he was incapable of doing any wrong in their eyes. But he admits he made a terrible mistake by confiding in a family member.

“I had this uncle, the cool uncle; the kind of uncle who would slip you a beer on the side when no one was looking,” Watson told The Reckoning. “We were close; really close.”

So close that Watson decided this uncle would be the sole person he would confide in about his sexuality.

“Big mistake,” he said.

After an ugly altercation with the family matriarch, Watson’s grandmother, the uncle, shared Watson’s secret.

Depending on whom you ask, Atlanta can be a place of refuge for Black gay men or the embodiment of all that’s wrong with Black gay culture. In a city overflowing with eligible gay bachelors, the prospect of finding love can often look bleak, with many growing tired of the dating scene altogether, instead choosing to find joy in the freedom of being single while working to advance professionally. But both can exist simultaneously. Black gay men in Atlanta and beyond can find loving relationships with each other while maintaining successful careers. It’s happening every day.

Throughout his life, Dr. N.J. Akbar has become something of an expert in overcoming personal challenges.

Labeled “dumb” by an elementary school teacher, the 37-year-old eventually earned a doctorate, a high-ranking administrative position at one of the largest universities in Ohio, and a seat as the president of Akron Public Schools’ Board of Education.

But it was in a very private area of his life where this very public figure faced one of his most unique challenges and earned one of his most fulfilling rewards.

Just before the pandemic, Akbar, who is fully mobile, met and fell in love with his partner Alex Mayweather, 30, who uses a wheelchair.

A lot has changed since Deontez Wimbley first walked into the Chilli’s restaurant in the Lindbergh section of Buckhead in April 2016. Today, the restaurant is permanently closed, but nearly six years later, the connection he made with Jerald Nuness, then a server, and now his husband, proved to be worth the risk of being rejected. Like customers who frequently tipped less than the standard 20% or not at all, Nuness says he was accustomed to being hit on at work, and Wimbley, who also worked in the restaurant industry for a period, knew the odds of the conversation moving beyond a two for $20 were slim to none, or so he thought.

During a time when social media and digital apps have made it easier for people to connect, many of its users report never feeling more alone. It’s a complicated dichotomy that has forced many Black gay men to make tough decisions about their future and whether it will include a romantic life partner.

Juan Smalls says he simply wanted to be liberated. As one half of the highly visible married couple known by many as Juan & Gee and the owners of Virgil’s Gullah Kitchen and Bar in College Park, along with the non-profit The Gentlemen's Foundation—this Atlanta Black, gay power couple raised more than a few eyebrows after revealing that they’re in a non-monogamous marriage in the pages of Gee Smalls’ memoir “Black Enough Man Enough.” The spiritual and emotional capacity for the life partners of over a decade to define their relationship on their terms required both men to release themselves from the expectations projected onto their relationship from those within the Black LGBTQ+ community who often refer to their union on social media as #couplegoals. For Juan Smalls, the process was not overnight, and the lightbulb went off when he least expected it—during a six-hour flight delay at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport en route back home to Atlanta.

Queer couple Ja’Mel Ware, 32, and Alphonso Mills, 29, avoided each other for months after they first met at The Vision Cathedral of Atlanta in 2018. The avoidance—a result of excitement, fear, and an internal knowing that the journey they were about to embark upon would be different than any relationship they’d ever experienced—was cemented during a recent Thanksgiving trip to Disney World. It would prove to be a full-circle moment for Ware, who until recently associated the “most magical place on earth” with one of his most painful childhood memories.

Black gay relationship counselor and psychosexual therapist Machel Hunt tells The Reckoning that he is “on a mission to have every Black gay man in Atlanta in therapy.”