Well, Ake, I may not be able to judge accurately only from those within my ken, but that seems to be exactly what you are doing in your 3rd para. I was talking of lifelong relationships, from youth onward. I remember, when Valerie & I told John-Stuart Anderson & his partner Ricky, who used respectively to act his distinguished one-man plays at, and administer, the Eye Theatre Suffolk in the 1980s, that we were approaching our Pearl Wedding [30 years] in 1989, they trumped us by telling us that they had passed their 40th. John-S unhappily died soon after and I have lost touch with Ricky if he survives. But their example certainly runs counter to your generalisation about later-in-life-companionship being the norm for such couples. And, as pointed out above, the statistics regarding promiscuity, STIs &c within the gay community are no higher than those among the single, unpartnered part of the heterosexual community.

~M~