BESHBETOH, Navajo Nation — In New York's West Village neighborhood, gay men can find hookups and occasionally romance just a few feet away, at bustling gay bars or on social networking smartphone apps like Grindr. The same holds true in countless gay-friendly districts across urban America, from San Francisco and Atlanta to Houston.

But when a smartphone successfully picks up a signal and connects to gay apps in much of the heavily rural Navajo Nation, the nearest user can be more than 100 miles away. The same distance factor is true for gay bars — none of which exist on the sprawling desert territory that is home to some 170,000 people, covering a land area larger than several Eastern U.S. states.

What can be cornerstones of gay life for some people in other parts of America are still foreign to Navajo gay people, some of whom may never have lived off the reservation. In fact, some gay people in the Navajo Nation say they are more able to find long-lasting romantic partnerships by the more old-fashioned method of being introduced via family and friends, as their parents and grandparents did.

“It's obviously easier to meet someone on Grindr. (But) it's disgusting, because there, people just show photos. But that's not that appealing to me,” said Jimmy, a Navajo professional in his late 20s who wanted to use a false name because he's still grappling with his family’s acceptance of his sexuality.

Jimmy went to school off the reservation, in a city where gay apps are more prevalent. But the concept of meeting a prospective partner online was not for him. "I would like that human connection,” he said.

It is not just the lack of high-tech access that shapes gay life among the Navajo. For gay people in Beshbetoh, the sparsely populated rural childhood home of 27-year-old Navajo gay marriage advocate Alray Nelson, the nearest gay bar is in Albuquerque, N.M., about a four-hour drive away.

Nelson met his partner of three years, Brennan Yonnie, through friends, for lack of a better option at the largest Native American nation in the United States, he said. “Brennan and I met each other through friends. I asked him after he said hello if he wanted to go to dinner,” Nelson said, at the site of their first date, home-style food chain Cracker Barrel. “It's home-cooked food, and I wanted it to be somewhere a little dim,” Nelson said.

Nelson and his boyfriend remember, rather vividly, their first physical interaction. Yonnie rested his head on Nelson's shoulder at the carnival in the Window Rock Navajo Tribal Fair, a large annual to-do.

“Oh my God, such a cliche,” Yonnie said. A month later, the two young men kissed.