"When will we get, the time to be, just friends?"
-Amy Winehouse
from the song "Just Friends"
That's a damn good question Amy. I wish I knew. I was talking to someone not too long ago about gays and friendship, gays having gay friends, gays having with their gay friends, how to differentiate friends from sex partners and friends who used to be sex partners and all of that. Straight people, assuming that all parties involved are 100% straight, don't have as many problems as we do in this area. A straight guy doesn't have to worry about any hanky-panky between his straight wife and her straight female best friends when they are out and alone together. Neither would she about her straight husband and his straight friends. Even though in our case, assuming that all parties were 100% gay, one could argue that we wouldn't have to worry about others of the opposite sex the same way and that our trust burden is equal. Unfortunately though because of the way that our society is structured, it's impossible for the burden to be equal.
Males and females are put in situations where we are separated from the time we are born. There's the mens restroom and the women's restroom, boys gym class, and girls gym class, men's locker room, women's locker room, men's prison, women's prison, NBA, WNBA, etc. When a situation arises that could be seen as sexual, such as the exposure of one's private parts or getting too touchy-feely with one another, men and women are usually separated. The removal of that which one is sexually attracted to in theory is supposed to remove the sexual element altogether. But what happens when one is sexually attracted to the same sex?
You know exactly what happens wit'cha gay self. You walk around gym class praying that your erection will go down after seeing the boys on the basketball team with their shirts off and have all kinds of other traumatic homosexual experiences in your youth. Lord knows, I was uncomfortable as hell around other boys when I was coming up. That's why I failed gym all through high school because I would always find a way to cut the class. Here these dudes are playing basketball, giving daps, talking about pussy (more accurately, lying about pussy they we're not getting) and shit and all I could think about was seeing them naked. For them it was boys are friends, girls are sex objects. They could be comfortable around each other because they didn't see each other in a sexual way. Because of how institutionalized schools are I was forced to have to be with them in locker rooms, undressing and such when I felt much more comfortable around girls because I didn't see them in a sexual way. That's why I never had too many male friends growing up, 'cuz I was so attracted to them. As much as I hate to say this I felt as uncomfortable in the boy's locker room as a girl would have felt there. Does that mean that there should be coed locker rooms in high schools, no, of course not. But I wish that I had someone who I could have gone to to help put the feelings I was feeling in perspective so I didn't feel like such an alien.
So now that were adults, grown, gay and fabulous and hopefully have learned how to deal with our feelings hopefully from someone like an older, more experienced gay person, or like me, through trial and error. How do we learn to separate the boys who are sex objects, or more accurately, or maybe not so much more accurately, objects of our sexual attraction, from the boys who are just our friends? When will we as gay men get the time to be just friends?
So, as always I start with me. I begun to think about my closest friends. My best friend Mike for example, we're like brothers (or sisters depending on what day of the week it is LOL). We have never, and would never do anything sexual with each other, the very thought is just gross. There is nothing wrong with Mike, he's attractive, just not my type, he has no problem snagging a date, but as for me and him, no. And he feels exactly the same way about me. What's funny is that one day Mike was bored and made a racy little video of himself and posted in on X-Tube, just as a gag (oh, don't act like you haven't done it). I saw it and I was like "Oh, that's just Mike." It's actually the first time I had ever seen Mike naked before and it was no big deal. Then I think about my other best friends, Leonard, who's a fellow top, Russell and Kiemie, who are top-ish and Brendan, who's straight. When I first met Leonard and Russell I was attracted to them. We messed around (no penetration), it was just a one time curiosity thing and after that, nothing. And there has never been any sexual interaction between me and Kiemie or me and Brendan.
But looking at them they are a top, top-ish, and straight, and none of them really my type physically. Could I just be platonic friends with a sexy bottom that is my type or is the differentiating factor between a fellow gay male that's my friend and one that's a sex object or an object of my sexual attraction is my sexual attraction or lack thereof toward the person? Damn, that's sad. Can I not be trusted to keep it strictly platonic when it comes to a man that I'm attracted to? Are my friends only just my friends just because they are great people who I don't wanna have sex with or because I've already messed around with them and realized that we couldn't work any other way?
Another factor in this whole friendship thing among gays is, do we trust that others are just friends with their friends? If given the scenario I described at the beginning of this post with the straight husband and wife to a group of gay males, two in a relationship, both of them having gay male friends independently of each other, more than likely the parties in the relationship wouldn't exhibit the kind of of strong trust that the straight couple has in their partner and in their partner's friends. In fact I know they wouldn't, at least in my case.
I have a new-ish friend, we've grown pretty close, pretty quickly. We've known of each other for a while but it wasn't until recently that our paths crossed. We met officially and realized that we have so much in common, we work in the same industry and have experienced a lot of the same things. He's a really cool guy. Our friendship is new so we still communicate quite often. You know how that is when you have a new friend. New friendships are fragile, you're trying to get to know each other, picking up on little things here and there every time you talk, you're subconsciously building a foundation of trust in the person.
For example, Me and Kiemie, my oldest gay friend. Kiemie and I met in the seventh grade, when we first met we used to kee-cackle all the time, on the phone night and day, all day every day, always together, every time you saw me you saw him and vice versa, you couldn't keep us apart. Even in the summertime when we weren't in school and didn't see each other everyday, it didn't effect our bond 'cuz as soon as the first day of school rolled around we were right back where we left off. The world around us saw us back then before our gay awakening and before we became adults innocently as just two little boys who are best friends. Back in the day, talking as much as we did, we we're building our foundation of trust. Eventually we lost touch for like six or seven years after junior high school but when we reconnected, like before it was like nothing ever changed. We clicked right into the way we used to be, never missing a beat because we already had that foundation. The same thing happened with Leonard except that we talked online everyday for a year before we actually met. Leonard lives hundreds of miles away from here and I may seem him only maybe twice a year, but I still know that that's my best friend and that I can trust him from hundreds of miles away, seeing him twice a year far more than people from down the street I see everyday. The good thing about old friends is that no matter how long you are apart you have that foundation so you can never really lose touch. A new friendship though, doesn't have that yet, so the constant communication, the foundation building between two men that was looked at as so innocent between me and Kiemie as boys doesn't get looked on as favorably now among adults, especially among two adult gay males. You know know good and well that if you saw two gays suddenly get all chummy, platonic friendship would not be the first thing that enters your mind. I know it wouldn't be the first conclusion I came to. We're all tainted.
Recently, My New-ish Friend got into a relationship, since we met, and as of late our communication, kee-cackling and foundation building has come into question. Why do you talk to Adam so much as opposed to your older friends? What are y'all talking about? The funniest thing about it is that I see My New-ish Friend much like I see Mike or Brendan or Kiemie. Let's start here, I have no attraction to My New-ish Friend whatsoever, none. He's a nice looking guy, not ugly at all. I have friends whose panties get all wet over him, but I personally don't see him like that. Number two, physically, he's just not my type, that is what it is. Number three, he's a fellow top and y'all know how I feel about that. Maybe if I were attracted to him, back in the day we would have messed around, sans-penetration, once, you know, for curiosity's sake, like how I did with Leonard. Hmph, now I don't even give tops the time of day. I don't even respond to their messages online. I know that dick is not my friend, at all. I'm so not into being penetrated, sucking dick or any of those dick-centric activities. And frankly I'm not even curious. And number four, I'm workin on tryna get me a shawty of my own. I don't need nobody else's man. I don't need that bad karma. I'm looking for somebody to love my crazy ass fully and completely, flaws and all. I don't have time to be tryna steal nobody's man. Y'all know I've been through enough drama this past year.
I know it's not my place but I just wanna get My New-ish Friend's man in the corner give her a hug, look her in her eyes, shake her and say:
"GIRL... NO! NO GIRL! No..."
If anything, given my messy past, My New-ish Friend should have been questioning whether I as a fellow top would try to push up on his man, but even he knows me better than that.
At the end of the day it's just like damn, I don't know if I'm strong enough to be just friends with a man I'm sexually attracted to and when I am genuinely just friends with a man I'm not attracted to others won't believe it. It's a vicious cycle. I know I'm not the only one going through this. Gay men, when, if ever, will we get the time to be just friends? Or rather, will we ever give each other the time to be just friends?
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Playing In The Background...
"Just Friends"
by Amy Winehouse
from the album "Back To Black"
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