So you’ve slept with every attractive person in town who will have you, you’ve tried every mind-altering substance on the market, you’ve been to all the parties, you’ve got the car, the clothes, the flash and the cash… and it’s not enough. Now what?

Elton John and Melissa Etheridge say we can sing! Ian McKellen and Lily Tomlin say we can act! Billy Bean and Martina Navratilova say we can play sports! But who says we can be in a relationship?

Let’s face it, everyone keeps talking about gay role models these days — how much we need them and how important they are to the next generation of GLBT youth. And there is no doubt that they are important. We see them on TV in all shapes, sizes and colors. This summer was the perfect example — we had everything from the grand divas of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and the reality show dating variety of “Boy Meets Boy” to gay jocks Chip and Reichen, who outraced everyone on “The Amazing Race” to win a million dollars. There were sissies, jocks and everything in between.

But who are our role models as couples? The ones that tell us that we can be in a healthy, intimate, even monogamous relationship like… dare we say it, good old mom and dad (or Rob and Laura Petrie — take your pick)?

For just a moment, let’s entertain the thought of Chip and Reichen. We all sighed whenever they showed that little caption on “The Amazing Race” that said they were a married couple, as opposed to the other couples on the show (and yes we snickered at Millie and Chuck, who were labeled as “Virgins/Dating 12 Years” but that is an entirely different editorial … or is it?). Even The Advocate put the boys on the cover, albeit naked and wrapped in an American flag with the headline “America’s Sweethearts” emblazoned across the page. It wasn’t until you looked inside and started to read the story that you realized that Chip and Reichen weren’t even a couple anymore.

Are we so starved for a happy couple that we can point to as an example that we have to put “used to be couples” on the cover of the leading gay news magazine?

As for lesbian power couples, let’s look at probably the most famous one we’ve seen in the press in recent years, Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres. Yep, that one worked out really well too.

Where are the models for happiness for us? Is there a happy ending for gay couples?

It would be nice to argue that we don’t need role models, that we can invent our own from scratch, but that would require us all to be mature, self-actualized individuals — which we are not.

We seem to have a problem forming healthy relationships, as we move frenetically from hookup to hookup, poach other people’s partners, screw up, screw around, and generally make a steaming mess of our emotional lives.

There is certainly nothing wrong with sexual freedom and exploration, but at some point you have to agree with Janis Joplin that freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. And maybe that explains a lot about our community. It certainly seems as though we’re searching for something. We try compulsively to connect to something satisfying, racing through encounter after encounter, relationship after relationship, trying drugs that promise a temporary feeling of connection with something larger, seeking sensation where we can’t seem to find true feeling.

Obviously something important is missing in our lives — and while it’s encouraging that we’re trying to do something about it, too often what we’re doing only makes the situation worse. Sex isn’t filling that empty space, partying isn’t making it go away, and status, cars, fabulous clothes and an ongoing social whirl only distract us temporarily.

It looks like we need intimacy just like everyone else.

Sure it’s an “old-fashioned” concept, but old-fashioned doesn’t necessarily mean bad. We don’t have to spend our entire lives rebelling as if we were permanently stuck in our teen years. Traditionally, we’re expected to “sow our wild oats” then grow into more mature relationships. Yes, mature — it’s not a dirty word.

The whirlwind of brief encounters can be a lot of fun — and a great learning experience — but if you’re honest you realize that eventually it gets old, exhausting, even boring. That’s when it’s time to seek out a truly intimate connection with another person. And that’s where we seem to keep getting stuck.

We’ve spent so much time and energy fighting for the right to be different that we may be forgetting the point. To put it very simplistically, aren’t we fighting for the right to love and be loved?

It’s time for us to grow up enough to admit that everything traditional is not bad. The ideal of forming a deep and permanent bond with someone we love, who loves us, knows us intimately and wants to grow old with us (many years down the road, of course) is worth wanting — no matter how bad the hets have made it look.