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Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" |
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Um, I have 4,200 articles and essays to write next week. Probably safest if I finish my will before I start all that. Don't worry, I'm leaving my estate to only my dearest friends... at the Smithsonian.
Anyway -- here's this week's Letters to Louis (called L2L by all the kidz now -- or at least me). Do gay guys appreciate their straight allies? Can guy guys ever really deal with the epidemic that is "basketball"? Let's ask our favorite homo oracle...
Dear Louis,
I am a straight guy who has made a ridiculous number of gay, bisexual, and transgendered friends this year. To be honest, they're great - much more interesting than the Neanderthals I associated with before at UNI's rugby club. But lately, I feel like an outsider among them. Like I'll always just be the lonely little hetero who followed them home. Do you think it's possible for gay and straight guys to forge real friendships? If so, got any advice? - Dan White
Dear DW (Dark. Wing. DUCK?!),
Woah. Is that thoughtfulness up here in L2L? Be still, my dance moves. Maybe I should bring in a professor for this one.
Haha! Of course not. We all know I write, breathe, holler, and scat-sing the stuff of textbooks. Chapter One: My historic ass.
Delicious question, Dan, but a hard one to answer with confidence - because generalizing the actions of people (straight or gay) is patently unfair. And mean and un-journalistic. And so un-Louis! Unless we're talking about homophobes. Generalizing them is different and calming to me. Or women, too. They're fair game. Or gay men. Or straight guys. Or lesbians. Or World of Warcraft players. Or male poli-sci or business majors (uggh on both counts - go on, world, pretend to prove me wrong). Or people who aren't Louis Virtel. Otherwise, I feel uncomfortable generalizing. Anyone who doesn't is stupid.
DW, when your queers convene with you like uppity jackrabbits and snap around their fey repartee, I can see how you'd feel, say, a little resigned to bridesmaid-hood (Er, groomsman-hood? I'm working with your straightness) betwixt the hailstorms of all the queering and quipping. Meanwhile, not to discount your situation's singularity, but I think it's always common for the minority in a group of friends to feel self-consciously separate. Take for instance that token, chain-smokin' homo who's always slumming it at Baskin Robbins after midnight with his straight ladies: While he (or I - let's face it, I'm projecting here) may contribute tart, spot-on witticisms about Amy Winehouse resembling the lovechild of Diana Ross and Slimer from Ghostbusters, he's always going to know he's so not invited to Tupperware parties or other seminal transactions of friendship. Perhaps just knowing you're different from your friends, even if they're your besties, is unsettling. I concur.
Having said that, I think gay guys value their straight males (or "bros," as social scientists like me label them on the petri dishes) with sympathy. Most gays, even if they insist on the ridiculous claim, truly haven't realized all their lives that they're gay. I certainly thought my crush on Winnie Cooper of "The Wonder Years" - or at least her impressive mood swings - was valid. Anyway, at some point, gay guys have almost all considered themselves hetero, and if not, they certainly grew up with hetero male friends. The straight world, by and large, is not an alien one to them, unless they feel exiled thanks to assholes or the popularity of Flo Rida. Maintaining friendships with reasonable, rascal-y straight dudes makes a gay feel at home. A little yin to the glossy yang of their hos and homos.
Of course, I don't know your gay friends, so maybe they don't deserve that credit. But come on, you abandoned your herd of Neanderthal bison-men at UNI for an undefeated specialty dance troupe (formally called the LGBT community). Your new posse must be kind of extraordinary if you jumped ship for them. They're probably good enough to value your honesty. I know it's cliché to say, "Just be honest with them! Talk it out! End with a hug!" but if they can't understand or don't want to acknowledge that you're feeling alienated, well, then they're not quality homos in my little (but comprehensive) black book. No need to be maudlin - just tell 'em you appreciate them and you hope they appreciate you. I don't think the issue needs to expand much from there.
So, to answer your sprawling sociological query in too short a space: Yes! Gays and straights can forge lasting camaraderie. Just the same way anyone with compatible senses of humor or fan-fiction topics can. Like any Margaret Cho stand-up hour can attest, differences between gay and straight cultures will always exist. Sometimes, the borders are hostile. (When Hollister and H&M neighbor each other at malls, I always fear a riot.) But as long as, uh, people aren't all assholes, sounds like we can all get along. All it takes is a Super Nintendo and Street Fighter II. Straights choose Guile, gays go for Chun Li - and at the end of the day, we've both got aggression, improbable upside-down kicks, and sexy war cries to keep us jamming back together like rambunctious brothers in need of loyalty, love, and probably a time-out.
Dig? I do hope you do-do.
A real entry may be on the horizon soon! Get your Hammer pants ready!
Thanks for reading. Xoxo,
Louis
P.S. Obsessed with Fleetwood Mac's Rumours right now, because I'm secretly 52 and a middle school English teacher. "Thunder only happens when it's raiiinin'..." Stevie Nicks is a fucking kickass meteorologist.
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