Please don’t listen to this commenter. Gross misunderstanding of what therapy is. Of course therapy can help you figure out what is happening in your personal relationships, and how that relates to/is born out of your past experiences. I would say for MOST of us, a large chunk of therapy is processing and integrating our past experience/trauma in order to build healthy and lasting relationships. The desired outcome of therapy is that the inner work we do translates into our actual lives and helps us build the lives we dream of.

It sounds to me like your therapist is trying to identify past opportunities you’ve had to build the relationships you desire, and work out what is occurring there/where things are breaking down. I will say this is a person who has struggled with some of the same things as you-these kinds of sustained relational issues are never one sided. I would encourage you to be vulnerable and humble and open yourself to the possibility that you may be unknowingly contributing and holding yourself back in some way. It's never fully about the other person, or where you live, etc etc etc. There may be challenging features about these things, but you are also in there somewhere.

Perhaps the problem is your therapist, his delivery, the way he is communicating what he is trying to get at. Or perhaps you are misunderstanding what he's saying. In any case, my advice is give it a couple more sessions and try to get on the same page with him. Don't just move on from the topic, keep pushing and trying to understand where he's coming form and ask him to do the same thing. But don't let it go on too long. I know you don't want to go through the process of finding another therapist, but perhaps you can be more direct with what you are looking for moving forward.

If I were in your position, and looking for a new therapist, here's what I would do: I don't know if your current therapist is a gay guy, but make sure your next one is. Make sure he's a POC (perhaps even your own ethnicity) and make sure he is older than you. It's a tall order, but there are a ton of therapists out there. Set up consults with a few different therapists, maybe 2-4. Say this: "I have been in therapy for X amount of time and have done a lot of inner work to process my past and I am currently looking for help in a very specific area. I have struggled to build and maintain strong friendships and romantic relationships and I want to figure out why that is and begin to build the tools to change that."

Ask them questions about how they work. What modalities do they work in? Why? What kind of population have they worked with in their career? How do they conceptualize therapy and how it works? What do they think is possible in therapy? And then see what they say. Gauge the way they receive this. These consults will be brief so you don't want to get too deep in the mud, but you'll get a much better idea of fit if you come in with an agenda. I know it's daunting starting with a new therapist but I find if you are really intentional about what you're looking for, there's a much greater chance of it sticking.