Friendships with gay men vs Friendships with women

I would not say thus is true for most of the gay men I know, although it probably was true for most before they came out. Most of the gay men I know have other gay men as the lion's share of their friend group. The gay guys who only run with straight women definitely exist--we actually have a term (somewhat derisive) for them. Although you don't really sound like a hagfag partly because you seem to mainly run with guys (just they're straight) and also because I can't really imagine you performing for your female friends.

 

It's hard to have gay friends in person for me, or trust any of the ones that do show up. I know it sounds bitter, but all the ones I've found are really flaky and unreliable. They lose interest in hanging out quickly too if it doesn't become a friends with benefits thing.

Straight women seem more enthusiastic about being friends which makes it easier to start the friendship. Although they seem to only want a very narrow and stereotypical friendship. I feel like their pet gay they want to bring to a boujee bar and sassily gossip with about how terrible other women are while sipping cucumber martinis, or go shopping with just to have me sit and compliment them on anything they try on.

Straight male friendships are the only ones that seem to work out in an authentic way for me.

 

I have a good mix of gay male, straight male, and straight female friendships. There have been a few women who have wanted what I call a "pet gay" and i find that irritating af, but when they realize i hate clubbing and have a finite tolerance for shopping, they'd realize they should look elsewhere anyway. My interests lean somewhat more masculine so if my gay friends want to talk about drag or Beyonce I won't have much to say. I'm just authentically me. I like what I like and am easy enough to get along with, which means I can have friends of all genders and sexual orientations. And as for the gay men wanting to be more than friends, I'm in a long term relationship, so anyone who might have other interests (though I doubt there is anyone who finds me attractive enough lol) knows they'd be wasting their time.

 

Perhaps it has something to do with there being more straight women out there than (openly) gay men? I figure its easier to be around the sex you're not attracted to, and if they're struggling with internal homophobia, that's another reason to have less gay friends.

It definitely makes for a weird dynamic when you combine stereotypical male competition with attraction. A lot of gay men can be quite mean, judgemental, towards each other.

 

Funny enough, I mostly struggle with making friends with straight men. Partly because a lot of straight men don't have the emotional intelligence that I require for a friend and partly it has to be due to trauma. I usually won't feel comfortable with a straight men until they prove themselves to not be sacred of anything feminine. Being around straight men who haven't learned to talk about their feelings or still fear looking feminine is so painful.

One of my closest friends is straight, but he has put in the work and he is an amazing human being.

I tend to hit it off way more with queer people. That's my sweet spot. There are a lot of gay men out there that haven't dealt with their own trauma. Queer people in the other hand usually have dealt at least some of their own trauma to be able to call themselves queer and not care what other people think.

Funny enough, I know probably 4 gay guys into the metal and rock scene. I mean, rock is campy as fuck. There are so many gay guys into it. Gotta find them.

I will say the way you describe club music reads as a defensive mechanism. It reads as not only do you not like the music, but you can't believe there are people who listen to "such crap". Maybe I'm reading it way wrong, but something to consider.

 

Yeah, I seem to get more upset when I see a gay boy I like who spends a lot of time with women. Maybe because in the case of straight men, they mostly do this when they're in a relationship, but even then... not many couples are literally BFF. I don't see straight men as competition (which is silly, since its not like straight women and gay men are dating, though I believe some friendships run as deep, minus the sex part).

Anyway, people can and should be friends with whomever they please, but if they're constantly brushing you off for their girlfriends... I'm not sure if there's an equivalent in the gay male world, but there's "whipped" with straight men. If they start making their relationship their life, it sometimes means loss of respect and jokes. Maybe these men you meet don't want to feel tied down?

Its a little ironic when you think that this is something straight men deal with (a friend spending more time with a woman), too.

 

This is how I feel a lot of times

 

Yeah, this is where this shit gets hard because the mainstream lgbt events will cater to the music that sells. No way to change that.

That being said, you seem to have found bars that you do like to hang out at, right? Would you consider them gay friendly? If so, why not talk to the manager and see if they can host an lgbt night? Invite all the lgbt who like rock for a night during pride month.

A group of us have been doing that lately. We hosted one lgbt night at an arcade bar and then another gamer night at a gay bar. Both were fun events. Not hugely popular, but the people who showed up were the people who we wanted to meet so it reached the goal.

I know its not fair that we have to create all of our own spaces, but honestly creating spaces is one of the most rewarding shit ever. You will finally find the people who you will get along with and you will be creating a space for other lgbt people who think they are alone.

Just a thought. Won't solve anything, but might get you a great friend.

 

Interesting seeing all of these personal experiences!

For me, personally, it seems to be divided roughly as follows:

Most of my close friends are straight men. But (probably not coincidentially) they're also the ones I already had before I came out. We met when we were in our late teens, and have been through a lot of shit together. And we're really very open and vulnerable to one another. They're comfortable with my gay issues, but in return, I am also comfortable with their non-gay issues. Being gay seems less of a dividing factor, if you've also heard of their drug addictions or the time one of them nearly got raped.

I also somehow seem to get along instinctively with straight men. If I make a new friend, it'll mostly be one of those. Maybe it's because the ones I know are already fairly diverse, giving me an "in" to most kinds of straight men I run into. Or maybe just because I was in the closet for nearly 30 years and just developed axcellent "blending" mechanics. Or maybe I am just lucky for meeting straight people with similar interests to mine.


I'm... pretty okay with women. I tend to get on like a house on fire with bi, queer, and lesbian women. And I tend to default to a friendly acquaintanceship with straight women. For some reason, I never really seem to end up as close friends with any. It's just not what I tend to pour a lot of effort into, I suppose. Though I would be amiss if I didn't give a shoutout to one of my best friends in the world who is straight, and a woman. Though we originally bonded over her trying to support a gay friend of hers who just came out. So I suppose that friendship started out with a "gay" angle.


I'm actually shockingly bad with gay people. They intimidate me, in a way. There's few things that make me feel more unsafe than a gay space. For some reason, ANY comment or act towards me that can be conceived as even slightly negative, immediately makes me panic and overanalyse, and feel like I don't fit in and am not accepted, and that from gay people, that means something. (Ironically, I am completely thick-skinned around straight people. Yes, seeking professional help has already been suggested).
Then again, my absolutely best friend in the world is gay, as is my boyfriend (shocker, I know ). So I know it can be absolutely wonderful to have gay friends. It's just hard to get comfortable with situations where I could meet more. It's worth noting that Imet both my boyfriend and best friend talking about gaming. Also, they're both Americans. Maybe those are somehow less intimidating than Belgian gays xD


Still, it seems like the friends one makes is, in a large part, due to highly personal factors.
My past has molded me a certain way, and provided me with a certain set of people. If I had taken up other hobbies, got sorted into a class with more women or gay guys, got rejected by my striaight friends after coming out, or chose another city to live in, I'd have been different.

And whether I interact well with a group says more about me than about the group I'm trying to interact with. Are the gays here inhospitable? I doubt it. I just don't seem to "feel" them. But I can't really blame anyone else for that.


One final note, though. I do think friendship also requires some faith. There's one of my friends I haven't seen for a year now. He's blown me off, and I have blown him off more times than I care to count (or admit). Yet... I don't really think that is a death sentence for the friendship. Sometimes the stars align, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you don't see each other for a year, then spend a year joined at the hip. It's happened before, it'll happen again. So I tend to just never end a friendship over things like this and keep taking every opportunity as it presents itself.

 

I sort of wonder if there's some regional variation at play here as well. A couple people have mentioned the whole female friend guarding the men folk. I don't think I've ever encountered that here. But the average gay club here is probably at least 20:1 men to women and probably at least half of those women are gay. There will always be a couple guys who have brought straight women with them, but it's hardly a force to be reckoned with...

 

I tend to get along better with girls than guys in general. Most of the people I interact with on a semi-regular basis are either straight or bi girls.

I feel like I'm not "gay enough" to befriend gays and not straight enough to chill with the straight guys. Even the gay guys that aren't super stereotypical, all the ones I've met seem fairly hypersexual, which puts me in a awkward spot. Could just be small town problems lol. With staright guys, I'll admit it's a fault of mine - but all the extremely homophobic people I've met are guys, and most of the homophobic horror stories I've heard of are about guys. It's a dumb and overly anxious of me, but I can't help but feel a bit intimidated by straight guys.

 

That's the thing I wonder, though. Do they, really?
I mean, sure, any of the myriad scenes and microscenes have a certain culture, and in-jokes, and references. And yes, they all have some assholes who will not give you the time of day if you aren't playing the perfect extra in the show of their lives.

But, on the other hand, they're not that different from traditionally straight spaces. And in those, I get by just fine by flaunting the rules. Pretty blatantly, often.
I've gone to football matches with friends and flabbergasted them by not knowing what offside is. I've gone out for bar crawls and drank nothing but water. I've discussed religious attitudes towards homosexuality with a muslim colleague over lunch. I've had frank discussions about sex with friends and gotten extremely trivial things about how straight sex works hilariously wrong.

And each of those times, I don't care overmuch about pleasing everyone. I'll be respectful and interested to learn more. I'll try to learn some lingo and references. But when I make a faux pass, or someone decides I'm not worth their time, I just shrug it off. I'll remain convinced that as an outsider, I can offer some differing perspective that can add to the situation.
Plenty nice people around, and if all else fails, I can just tell myself "well, they're straight. Their lives are different. I don't NEED to fit in all the time!"


So in this case, I DO wonder what makes me unable to adapt that line of reasoning to a group of gay people.
I have learned to overcome all of these uncertainties and need to fit in around straights, so this should be a cakewalk! I haven't talked to a single gay person in this entire country in 8 full years, so why do I worry about burning bridges I haven't even tried to build yet?

Yet, it's not easy for some reason. Like you describe, I feel back in middle school all over again. And I do suppose I can only try to break out of it by getting over myself, not by insisting the other gays change.

 

it's not true for me, i'm more comfortable with men than with woman to be open with