To the straight men of Boyah

[Hippopo]

What are your feelings on being close friends with a gay guy?  Would you feel uncomfortable around them?  Would they threaten your masculinity?!?!!?

LEMME EXPLAIN MY PROBLEM!

So I've been hanging around my town's parkour group recently.  It's essentially a group of super talented and awesome guys who like to jump off things.  Since I'm not afraid to take flight and break my body, I fit in well and they've been helping me get much better with my skillz.  I've been meeting up with them for about a month of so, and I'm starting to make some cool friendships.

HOWEVER,

Since I've been out of the closet, I've lost basically all my straight guy friends.  They just kind of evaporated.  I mean I have straight guy friends, but none that I'm especially close to anymore.

I don't flaunt the fact that I'm gay and wave my rainbow flag with me everywhere.  But I also hate hiding it.  I just feel like it's bound to come up in conversation, and I'm just worried about losing some friends/the parkour group.

AM I BEING SILLY? Tell me.

[Mando Pandango]

Some people who aren't necessarily homophobes will feel weirded out by gay people. There's really nothing you can do about it. But if you hide your sexuality from people, you'll never know if you make any real friends. I don't think it's necessary to come out to them of your own volition, but I wouldn't deny it if it came up.

[snoorkel]

I would think that any real person wouldn't care. Isn't that the world we live in?

[Cookie]

I only have two gay guy "friends". One is so proud of his gayness and his sexuality seems to be the only thing he likes to talk about. I don't care if your straight or gay if you talk about your sexuality all the time I'm not going to want to hang out with you. The other gay guy I never know if he's hitting on me or if that's just how he is.


Don't be like them.

[Hiro]

As long as they aren't giving signs that they "like" me or something, I'm perfectly fine with it.

[Hippopo]

I would think that any real person wouldn't care. Isn't that the world we live in?

I would think the same thing, but it hasn't worked that way in the past. 

Some people who aren't necessarily homophobes will feel weirded out by gay people. There's really nothing you can do about it. But if you hide your sexuality from people, you'll never know if you make any real friends. I don't think it's necessary to come out to them of your own volition, but I wouldn't deny it if it came up.

This is probably what I will do.  I don't really come out to people unless they ask me specifically about my romantic life.  I don't feel like being gay is a huge thing for me.  I'm like 50x more gay in Boyah than I am in real life.

*sigh*

There's also a lot of touching involved with learning new moves.  Like a spotter has to hold onto your body while you flip to make sure you don't injure yourself.  I just feel like that wouldn't happen if they knew :'(

[Socks]

I would think that any real person wouldn't care. Isn't that the world we live in?

It's the cause that I champion, and the world I strive to create, when it comes to human to human relations, and individual to individual understanding.

[The Hand That Fisted Everyone]

A friend of mine told me he was gay. It was no big deal, didn't change what I thought about him. But then he started flirting with me, and that's a no go. Friendship is friendship, but no flirtatious comments, not from men or women.

Maybe I'm just weird to have that boundary, whatever. Don't turn this shit on me,goddamnit.

The point being that your sexual orientation shouldn't matter with your friends, if they do then they aren't you're friends to begin with, so fuck em.

[applesauce]

Of my (openly) gay friends, I really prefer the ones that don't talk about it all day long. It's not that I conciously seek to not become close to them or anything, I guess I'm just put off by flamboyant gays? The one very close friend of mine who's gay talks about it occasionally, and it comes up in conversation sometimes, but it's not a defining feature of who he is. Ahh! I think that is it-- I think what I have trouble with are the people who make being gay one of their defining features to other people. Except maybe that's not it... Because there's this other guy that I really like who is SO GAY. He might be the gayest person I know, but in some settings he is super serious about things and it never comes up. For both of these guys, say we're just hanging out-- it comes up in conversation often enough, but say we're out exploring-- we could be out 6+ hours doing awesome shit, and no one says anything about sexuality. These are both awesome people.

TL;dr:

I like gay guys who are pretty gay in some settings, but don't use it to define themselves, and naturally become serious ass-kickers when it's time.

[YPrrrr]

I don't have much experience with gay guys, but my roommate works with a bunch of them and we've hung out sometimes... From what I can tell they have good straight friends as long as they don't hit on them (drunk people sometimes have a problem restraining themselves idk)

[??????]

My friend said he would never tell anyone about his homosexuality because it was "part of his personal life", and that friends should never violate that boundary.


Do people make friends without sharing personal things? What do they talk about then, jokes?

[Andria]

I have no problem with gay friends as a straight male. There is pretty much nothing that could be done to make me uncomfortable about it. My one gay friend goes as far as telling me of his sexual exploits the same way a couple of guys would talk about girls they have had sex with.

A friend of mine told me he was gay. It was no big deal, didn't change what I thought about him. But then he started flirting with me, and that's a no go. Friendship is friendship, but no flirtatious comments, not from men or women.

Maybe I'm just weird to have that boundary, whatever. Don't turn this shit on me,goddamnit.

I think flirting between male friends is completely harmless, in the same way saying something kinda flirty to a female friend but not really meaning or wanting to do anything besides make said comment is harmless.

[YPrrrr]

I think flirting between male friends is completely harmless, in the same way saying something kinda flirty to a female friend but not really meaning or wanting to do anything besides make said comment is harmless.

I dunno if that's the same because in that instance the girl and guy share the same sexuality

[Andria]

I dunno if that's the same because in that instance the girl and guy share the same sexuality

Not necessarily. The girl doesn't necessarily have to be straight or vice versa. It's still harmless in the end though.

[YPrrrr]

Not necessarily. The girl doesn't necessarily have to be straight or vice versa. It's still harmless in the end though.

Well I've never met a lesbian, so I can't really say for sure

But my friend's friend got really upset when their gay friend started putting his head on his shoulder and flirting. It was really uncomfortable looking