He's gay and in denial. I'm not. What do I do?

November 6, 2007 11:37 AM

I believe my friend is gay and in denial. I'm openly gay. How can I keep his cognitive dissonance from causing him to drop me?

I recently started a graduate program at a good university in the middle of nowhere. I quickly became friends with two people, and we are getting to be close. One is an openly gay woman. I am an openly gay man. And the third, "Adam," identifies as straight.

Adam set off my gaydar the second I met him. And my friends who have never met him have their gaydar set off just by his facebook picture. He's not terribly effeminate or flamboyant, but he gives off the gay vibe - and strongly. It's not just the way he holds his body, or the way he talks, or the fact that he shrieks a little when he gets drunk, or the care he lavishes on his clothes and hair - it's also that essential, intuition-level quality of gayness, like a chemical thing.

Virtually everyone in our program - hell, virtually everyone we meet at school and around town - thinks he's gay too. Straight people think so. And this isn't something I've suggested to them, it's a conclusion they've come to on their own.

Adam is very religious and comes from a conservative part of the country. He went to a religious college and as far as I know only knew one gay person before grad school. He says he's had a number of long term girlfriends.

Adam goes to the gay bars in town with the gay girl friend and I, but he'll complain about wanting to go where the straight girls are.

The thing is, I think he's starting to freak out about what it means that his newest best friends are both gay, and that people seem a bit skeptical of his straightness. I think things are coming to a head, subconsciously, inside of him. He gets a little upset and gets defensive and ostentatious about his straightness. The "I like girls, I promise!" -type comments come fast and thick, and out of nowhere. And Adam is generally a really happy guy, with a big smile on his face, but the smile is starting to disappear.

I'm worried that Adam will get so worried and so internally tied in knots about this that he'll stop being friends with me. That he'll panic and withdraw. And I don't like him being unhappy. But I feel like there's nothing I can do. I just have to play along, and let him figure this out (or not figure it out) in his own head.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is there anything at all I can do? Posting anonymously since if Adam were to come across this it would obviously not be good.

posted by anonymous to human relations (42 comments total)

"I just have to play along, and let him figure this out (or not figure it out) in his own head."

I think you nailed it.

If he's a friend, continue to be a friend... I think that's about all you can do...
posted by HuronBob at 11:42 AM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

And, frankly, he COULD be straight. Really.
posted by tristeza at 11:45 AM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sounds like this guy could use a friend who will just take him at face value. Nothing worse than having clueless people in your life trying to "help". Maybe he's gay, but you can't push somebody out of the closet; he'll come out when he's good and ready. Don't push the subject; let him come to terms with things on his own.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:47 AM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

But I feel like there's nothing I can do. I just have to play along, and let him figure this out (or not figure it out) in his own head.

And there's your answer. None of the the characteristics you've named make him gay. Sexual attraction to men makes him gay. Be patient and be his friend. You can't control how he feels or who he is.

As someone who is straight, but with a lot of gay friends, gay mannerisms, and frequent accusations of "gayness", nothing would make me want to be your friend less than having you trying to constantly "out" me. If your friend is gay, the truth will come out eventually, but consider the alternative: a nice, sweet guy, who enjoys spending time with you, and is comfortable in your environment, and perhaps has adopted many of the mannerisms of your community, is constantly being accused of being a liar and untrue to himself. In this case, you're your own worst enemy.
posted by ColdChef at 11:52 AM on November 6, 2007 [11 favorites has favorites]

i know straight guys who have set off my gaydar. i know gay men who haven't. and i think my gaydar is pretty darned good.

there's not much you can do but be a friend and let him work it out on his own. split your time between the straight bars and the gay bars as a courtesy. he's your friend, after all, not just your wingman. just make sure he knows you're always there if he wants to talk, and don't denigrate closeted people around him.
posted by thinkingwoman at 11:56 AM on November 6, 2007

It is impossible to force someone to come out. It comes to close forced outing and could seriously endanger your friendship.

Besides, if you believe Kinsey, he may not self-identify as gay because he's not only attracted to men.

Be there. Be non-judgmental. Be a real friend.
posted by OlderThanTOS at 11:56 AM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Put yourself in his shoes. If you had a straight friend who was convinced that you were actually a straight guy who had mistakenly convinced himself that he was gay and to live life as a gay man, how would you want him to treat you in light of his suspicion that you're in denial?
posted by The World Famous at 11:56 AM on November 6, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

I feel like there's nothing I can do. I just have to play along, and let him figure this out (or not figure it out) in his own head.

Mark this as "best answer."

And have a little humility and respect before trying to label somebody's sexual orientation for them. You wouldn't like it if somebody did it to you, no matter how "straight acting" you might be.
posted by ottereroticist at 11:59 AM on November 6, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

He's probably gay. There's nothing you can do, other than accept him at face value, no matter how preposterous it is.

No one wants to feel that everyone can see something about oneself that one can't. It makes one's exploration a public commodity, when every bit of the work involved in coming to terms with it is private. So not only try to shift your focus away from it, but defend him to other people. "As long as Adam says he's straight, he's straight."
posted by hermitosis at 12:04 PM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Channel your inner Mr. Roger's here and remind yourself that you like him just the way he is. Gay, not gay, whatever. And then butt out. If he's gay, he's obviously really uncomfortable with it, and the only way that he'll ever feel that he can talk to you is if he feels like you don't have any expectations about how he should live his life. I mean, think about it, don't you get annoyed with someone who says, "Oh no, you're wrong! You *clearly* feel _____." Don't be that guy. And if he's a gay-acting straight man? Do you like him any less because of that? Then don't put pressure on your friendship by trying to make him to conform to a category.
posted by MsMolly at 12:07 PM on November 6, 2007

2nding huronbob
posted by kowboy at 12:15 PM on November 6, 2007

do you have a crush on him at all? That could influence your judgment a bit...

I had a friend who I simply assumed without thinking was gay when I saw him after years at a high school reunion. He hadn't been out in high school, but that was late 80s/early 90s when it was a much bigger thing, so I just figured he'd hidden it, but it was so obvious now. He was working in fashion, he had all the mannerisms and voice inflections, he was interested in all the stereotypical gossip, even knew the bars in NY that confirmed it, though he didn't say anything explicit (and the reunion was in massachussetts, so I thought it was like a secret code to me that he mentioned those bars).

Anyway, long story short, he's not gay, not even a little, unless he's just deeply closeted for no reason and really good at faking being hot for blonde chicks. After a number of years I can't even really remember how I could have thought he was gay because he's so focused on the ladies, and his mannerisms etc just seem kinda secondary. But he's very into his sex life, and he lives in NYC and hangs out with all different orientations, so he'd have had a chance to experiment if he'd wanted... WHich is not to say your friend is not gay - he probably is, you're probably right - but just that there is really no way to know, and it doesn't do anyone any good to try to tell him before he tells you.

So just be cool. Support whatever he's into, allow him to think about fuzzy edges (bisexuality or experimentation or whatever) and don't try to suggest you know him better than he knows himself. Even if everything turns out the way you predicted, it won't feel that way to him, at least not for a while. You can think he's just another stereotypical guy who's obviously X, but from his POV it's an entirely individual, unique situation, unlike anything else that's ever happened before. Try to respect his experience of it, as a friend, whether he turns out to be gay or not.
posted by mdn at 12:20 PM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I had a good friend in college who seems very similar to your friend, although mine made the sloppy mistake of being unaware what a "browser history" was, especially when it came to computers that weren't his. He was the only son in a religious family. Everything about him, barring the obviousness of dickcity.com, including the eventually-retracted admission that he'd "slept with nine girls," screamed homosexual. Everyone suspected it, and weren't subtle about it. My best friend and roommate (she's straight, I'm not) were his closest friends at school; others in our theater-based faghag community said they couldn't "deal" with his denial.

One night my best friend and I had a heart-to-heart to heart with him, where we all shared secrets, and that night he admitted he was "bisexual." That was September 10, 2001. We didn't broach the subject again after that.

We connected not too long ago over Myspace. He has a girlfriend, who we'd met once, who lives in Australia, and is also highly religious. While he probably is gay, I can't say that maybe he'd be happier being out of the closet. It's been over six years. Obviously there's much more at work here than anything I could ever change.

Just support him. He's dealing with his own stuff.
posted by atayah at 12:22 PM on November 6, 2007

When Adam talks with you about this issue, take his comments at face value. Assure him that you believe him, and tell him that people who may be making comments to him or giving him funny looks or whatever just being stupid gossips. Because they are.

Stop talking about him behind his back, with your friends, with us, with anyone. When your other friends talk about him behind his back, at the very least, don't participate, and at best, tell them to cut it out. The people who are talking about Adam behind his back are not looking out for his best interests; they're looking for entertainment. Don't join in, and don't let them pretend that they're gossiping about him for his own good.

If he's gay, if he's straight, it doesn't matter for your purposes right now. His sexuality should be irrelevant to you. The problem is that his friends and acquaintances are talking about him behind his back, and you can help stop that. That alone will lower his stress level quite a bit.
posted by decathecting at 12:23 PM on November 6, 2007 [5 favorites has favorites]

When I went to a new town, I wound up in a situation where all of my friends were gay, and a lot of them would make a big deal about me being the token straight or not just having found my true calling. Given the people I ran with, the fact that I'm not a girly girl, and various other stuff, a LOT of people just assumed I was gay. Including my mother, in fact, who confronted me with a "I love you, I'm open minded, why don't you just come out to me." I am not gay, unless 11 years and one husband later I am still in denial. (Hint: I'm not.)

You know how it sucks to live in a completely heterosexist and heteropresumptive world, where everyone assumes you are straight, everyone around you is straight, and some people have a hard time accepting that you are really gay even after you tell them? Well it also really fucking sucks for your best friends and everyone around you not to believe you're straight, especially when you allegedly have some kind of privilege associated with this straightness but it doesn't manifest in any tangible way in your life, because you're never around straight people of the opposite sex, and those you do meet assume you're not interested in their gender anyways.

So ... maybe he's gay, maybe he's straight, maybe he's bi, maybe he's asexual. Maybe he has it all figured out and maybe he doesn't. But it's not up to you, and it's DEFINITELY and ESPECIALLY not up to you to push him toward the identity that you think he should have. If there's specific behavior that's bugging you, call him on it. But also consider that it may be a reaction to specific behavior that's bugging him. And please, just accept him for who says he is in this matter and don't try to force him to "realize" something that may or may not be true.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 12:25 PM on November 6, 2007 [6 favorites has favorites]

Being a friend means letting him just be how he is. That doesn't mean "how he would be if he would just be honest with himself." If he's confused, be a person that he can be confused around. Be the one he doesn't have to explain himself to. You can mention that he hasn't been smiling as much lately, and see what he says. Whatever it is, don't try to fix it; just be supportive. If he doesn't want to go to bars, then get together with him somewhere else.

If what you suspect about him is true, then he's probably at a transitional point, and that's extremely stressful. Add to it that he feels he has nobody to confide in. He's probably very sensitive to the "you're not living/acting/feeling the way you're supposed to" vibe, so do your best to actually believe that he's going to figure out what's best for himself.

He might distance himself from you. Leave him be, tell him you're available, and accept it. That way, he'll know he's welcome to come back if he wants to.
posted by wryly at 12:26 PM on November 6, 2007

I once had a boyfriend who sounds just like Adam. He seemed so obviously gay, I had no idea that our first date was a date till some point halfway through, I just assumed it was a friendly dinner because I also assumed he was gay. My family thought he was gay, my coworkers thought he was gay, his coworkers through he was gay, etc. Also, his best friends were a gay man and a gay woman. He was in his late 20s and exes were all women, no men in his past. When asked, he adamantly denied being gay, but didn't make a whole identity crushing issue of it, possibly he did early on but by the time I met him he seemed to have accepted that people assumed he was gay. We were together for a few years and then, a few years down the line, he got a boyfriend and was with him for a year or so. What he ended up determining was that he was attracted to men and women equally, doesn't feel like he's missing out on one when he's with the other, and he prefers to pick a person rather than a gender.

Was he bisexual all the time? Did he know it all time and took years to act on it? Who knows and who cares? The point of the story is that everyone has their own path and you just have to hang out to see which path he finds. It is probably best if you find a way to believe he isn't gay till you are told otherwise because people deserve to be taken at their word about their sexuality. If he is gay and in denial, it isn't your business and shouldn't be fodder for gossip with others. Don't get into conversations with others about his potential sexual preference and when people talk about his denials or ask you whether or not he is gay, back him up. Whether he is present or if you and the other parties are in private, tell them he isn't gay. To do otherwise would be disloyal to your friend. Even if he is struggling with his sexuality, if he can't count on his friends to believe him, who can he count on?

Ultimately, if he finds it too uncomfortable to be friends with you for one reason or another, unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. You seem like a good, caring friend. I'll bet your friendship is important to him, even if does mean being uncomfortable with people's assumptions every now and then.
posted by necessitas at 12:28 PM on November 6, 2007

Adam goes to the gay bars in town with the gay girl friend and I, but he'll complain about wanting to go where the straight girls are.

Is there a reason you can't go to generic bars with him? You're friends with him. He's frustrated with everyone assuming he's gay, to the point where his smile is "starting to disappear." So what if he's in denial? Hang out with him in an environment he's comfortable in. It may be easier for him to be the guy who has gay friends than the guy who has gay friends and hangs out in gay bars. Quit putting him on the defense.
posted by heatherann at 12:39 PM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

My general logic on the topic is "A person's sexuality is none of my business unless I am trying to get in her pants." I arrived at this conclusion after watching some really unpleasant nastiness in my local (lesbian) community about a woman in the community who had publicly mentioned she was bisexual. A lot of people took it as a personal affront - just as it seems like a lot of queer and queer-friendly people take it personally when their gaydar says one thing but the person in question says another.

Do you wanna fuck him? No? Then let it go. (If you DO wanna fuck him, you have an entirely different set of issues.)
posted by restless_nomad at 12:40 PM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

My gut says to lead by example. By which I mean: show him that you are comfortable with yourself just as you are (gay, out, all the other things you are) and you are comfortable with him just as he is (seems gay, identifies as straight, worried others might think he's gay). If he sees that his friends love him, themselves, and each other just as you all are, then maybe he'll be slightly more likely to be honest and comfortable with himself, gradually. Of course, it's always possible that the conservative stuff just runs too deep, or that he really is straight. But at the very least he'll know his friends support him either way.
posted by lampoil at 12:41 PM on November 6, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

I set off peoples' gaydars and have known people who act towards me on thoughts like the ones you describe. This makes them jerks.

By all means keep being his "friend" and always only take him to gay bars. His thoughts and desires are evidently worthless, so just keep on keepin' on. That he feels the need to assert his gender in the face of your superior intellect means he's never had a "friend" like you before and obviously needs help coming out of the closet. His slowly disappearing smile has nothing to do with your single-minded social relationship with him. Maybe if you take him to enough gay bars you can convert him, or at the very least if he refuses to identify as the gay man you know he is, you can do your best to have other people identify him as gay. After all, it's chemical and you can't argue with science.

The more you can do to put your friendship between him and the women he desires, the more likely he will be to realize how much he really just wants to suck some cock. It may take time, but thankfully you're just that good a friend for him. Kudos!

I'm worried that Adam will get so worried and so internally tied in knots about this that he'll stop being friends with me.

Right. The friendship would end because he is an emotional failure and could never have anything to do with you. Glaringly, in your interest to illustrate his history (or lack thereof) of being a Friend of teh Gay, you don't mention how many straight friends you have.

In my 40 years on this earth I have grown exceedingly tired of socially conservative heterophobes.
posted by rhizome at 12:44 PM on November 6, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

I suspect that there's very little physiological about being gay, which means that everything that sets off "gaydar" and such is cultural. From limp-wrist, gossip, lisping, pink-wearing, et c., it's all acquired. Being gay (probably) isn't cultural, but all the rest of the baggage is. And, the fact that some cultural s are so widespread shows how easily memes spread themselves.

He may be completely straight, and yet still carry some of the baggage you think of as strictly gay. The seed could have been anything, but he probably found it easy to be around people that behaved the same way or were accepting of his (unconscious) trait. Being near you and other people in that tribe has a positive feedback, where he'll adopt more and more of the mannerisms, colloquialisms, et c.

He may have found your triad attractive because it's like the tribe he accustomed to. That doesn't necessarily say anything about his sexuality.

Be careful not to fall prey to thinking he's gay because he's like you in other ways. There are other explanations.
posted by cmiller at 12:57 PM on November 6, 2007

He could just be confused about his sexuality whether he is gay or straight. Don't try to pin him down to one or the other, it should be none of your business if you are really a friend. OTOH, if you are after his ass then maybe do what you have to and to hell with the consequences.
posted by JJ86 at 1:16 PM on November 6, 2007

I believe my friend is gay and in denial.

OK, fair enough, you think that he's gay. The important words in that sentence being "you" and "think". As opposed to say, "he" and "knows". I don't mean to be harsh, but really, his sexuality has nothing to do with you. It's none of your concern. He's your friend, not your classroom experiment in social engineering.

I appreciate that you want to do right by him, which is really great. But your version of right by him might be completely different to his version of right by him. Friends accept one another for who they are, not what they perceive each other to be.

Overall, you sound a bit like you should be working at a change ministry. You're trying to force someone to be something that they either don't want to be, or aren't ready to be. He's old enough now to know what he wants, and to try stuff out that he wants to. He's also old enough to know that, if he wants to, he can stay in the closet for the rest of his life. That's his right.
posted by Solomon at 1:23 PM on November 6, 2007

I'm with rhizome. You don't need to let him figure anything out, regardless of whether he's gay or not. You need - well, okay, let's be accurate here.

You don't NEED to accept him for who he is
You don't NEED to allow him to self-identify as he sees fit
You don't NEED to take the things he says at face value
You don't NEED to respect that everyone is on their own journey and moving at their own pace (to go all 60s hippie follow-your-bliss)
You don't NEED to sometimes go with him to 'straight' bars like he goes with you to gay bars
You don't NEED to stop gossiping about your belief of what he is or isn't to other people

but those are the things a real friend SHOULD do.
posted by phearlez at 1:38 PM on November 6, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Adam set off my gaydar the second I met him. And my friends who have never met him have their gaydar set off just by his facebook picture. He's not terribly effeminate or flamboyant, but he gives off the gay vibe - and strongly. It's not just the way he holds his body, or the way he talks, or the fact that he shrieks a little when he gets drunk, or the care he lavishes on his clothes and hair - it's also that essential, intuition-level quality of gayness, like a chemical thing.

Yeah, I've always had people say this about me, especially in high school (in the 80s, a lot of straight-boy primping and preening was going on.) I've always had lots of gay friends, as well as straight. I've been hit on by guys as much as by girls. Heck, I'm even completely comfortable with the idea of being gay, and would happily jump in bed with another guy if I found them attractive.

However, I don't. Just doesn't do a thing for me. If everyone in the world were gay except a small minority group, I'd be in that minority group, and no matter how much pressure I was under to be gay, I wouldn't stop finding women attractive.

You could be right, but you could also be wrong, and unless you want to sleep with him there's no reason to care.
posted by davejay at 1:56 PM on November 6, 2007

Trust him, not your gaydar.

I'm gay, but it came to a surprise even to people who knew me well when I came out to them. Apparently, "socially-awkward, overweight geek" reads the same whether you're gay or not.

I once was convinced that one of my fraternity brothers is gay. For me, it wasn't the big things like how he spoke or how he moved, but the little ones that seemed to add up to something bigger. The other guy gay in the fraternity thought he was gay (and spent a lot of time drunkenly--but unsuccessfully--trying to get him to come out.) We had the same major and worked together in addition to being in the fraternity, so we got to be pretty good friends and spent a lot of time hanging out with each other socially after fraternity meetings, study sessions, etc., enough that one of my gay friends called him my boyfriend.

I figured all these other people thinking he was gay couldn't be wrong despite his denials and that, if he was gay, we'd be pretty compatible, and spent a few months trying now and again to get him into bed with me, and got turned down every time.

I finally came to my senses when we were sharing a hotel bed (but about as far away from each other as we could get without fear of falling off of the side when we rolled over during the night) on an out of town trip and he asked me to give my spot in bed to a girl he'd met that evening. Let's just say that the sound of creaking bedsprings while I tried to sleep on the bathroom floor was my wake-up call. When I paid attention who he was and not who I thought he was, I discovered that not only was he straight, he's such a horndog that I don't feel particularly guilty for the sexual harassment because he was getting as much unwanted attention from me as he's giving the women he's interested in.

A few weeks ago, we were at Subway getting something to eat, and there were two girls down at the end of the counter who had a conversation like "Is he gay?" "I don't think so." "Look at him. He's got to be." "Maybe so." He told me later that he wanted to go up to them and tell them that they were 0-for-2.
posted by djlynch at 2:14 PM on November 6, 2007

My general logic on the topic is "A person's sexuality is none of my business unless I am trying to get in her pants."

This bears repeating, and is fundamental to the freedom to express one's own sexuality. People have little control over who it is that they are attracted to, and little control over who they are attractive to. The guy may just be in that unfortunate position where most of his prospects don't "think of him that way". His physical appearance and demeanor are, apparently, not particularly attractive to most exclusively-straight women. This sucks for him, but it's a numbers game.

He's made it clear that he wants to meet single, potentially dateable women. Help with that. The advice I'd give you is, ask him--and try to figure out for yourself--what kind of girls are his type, and introduce him to more women. You must realize that as an openly-gay man, you have certain advantages befriending women that a straight, or bisexual, man just doesn't get to have. From what you've said about the social dynamic of your clique, you seem to be a main organizer of nights out: invite more single straight or bisexual women. Talk to the third friend about this too, she has female friends. Make your groups five rather than three, the other two being girls.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:21 PM on November 6, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Let the poor man go to a straight bar for once. Maybe that will make him smile.

I really doubt he's gay. If he were, he'd be coming out right about now.

Sorry, your gaydar sucks (and is really condescending).
posted by sondrialiac at 2:35 PM on November 6, 2007

And I don't like him being unhappy.

The rest of your post doesn't jive with this. It reads more like you want him to be gay for your own happiness and well being.
posted by almostmanda at 2:43 PM on November 6, 2007

Is his sexuality really any of your business?
posted by mrbill at 2:46 PM on November 6, 2007

I always end up being The Gay that all my straight friends come to when they want validation that a mutual friend of ours is in the closet. Every time this happens I make a point of refusing to speculate, stating that it's his life and his business.

You've been through the process of coming out; you know what it's like for people to judge you and have preconceptions about you. That should give you enough empathy to inoculate you against doing the same to someone else.
posted by kittyprecious at 2:58 PM on November 6, 2007

Believe him wholeheartedly. Then when he comes out to you in a few years, you get to gasp in genuine astonishment.
posted by Reggie Digest at 3:16 PM on November 6, 2007

maybe you're straight and you're in denial.

seems like you're less interested in your friend's happiness than you are about breaking him in.
posted by Mr_Crazyhorse at 3:43 PM on November 6, 2007

mdn writes "do you have a crush on him at all? That could influence your judgment a bit..."

NOOOOOOOOOOO ...that cannot possibily be..and indeed the dude writes

anonymous posted "I believe my friend is gay and in denial. I'm openly gay. How can I keep his cognitive dissonance from causing him to drop me?"

Who's in denial, anonymouze or him ?

Without any further info, I would say to anonymous to let the guy be, do whatever you want to seduce him , BUT don't absolutely try to convince him he is gay because your "gaydar" says so....what about it being wrong ?

If he is gay , chances are he may realize that, thank you and leave you for another man because, sorry, you just are not his type. Couldn't it be ?
posted by elpapacito at 3:43 PM on November 6, 2007

I used to set off people's gaydar all the time, not so much now as I've gotten older and less thin/pretty. I'm pretty damn sure I'm not gay, but I am a bit kinky. I think kinky or even being extremely libidinous or sensual tends to prompt misreads.

I have no idea if the following would work, or even be a good idea. However, if you found out what his type was vis-a-vis females, and tried to introduce him to some, if he was gay he'd probably uncloset a little faster. If he wasn't gay, you'd be doing him a nice favor.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:33 PM on November 6, 2007

I think people are being unnecessarily harsh to the poster, whom I'm sure has gotten the point that he needs to be supportive and patient and take his friend's sexuality for what he says it is.

All this "People used to think I was gay, but I break bricks with my dick when a lady walks in the room" talk isn't helpful. Almost everyone has been perceived as gay by others now and then, in some cases frequently. But the poster isn't an idiot, and the factors he mentions build a pretty strong case that, at best, his friend clearly has unresolved issues with his sexuality.

Ive known lots of people who everyone knew were gay for years before they came out. We call that "so flaming gay he didn't come out of the closet-- he burned it down." And as for it not being his business... well when you're close friends with someone, they MAKE it your business. Especially if they seek validation from you, and SUPER-especially if they seek validation in ways that you feel may be doing them more harm than good.

Fortunately most of the advice here is applicable either way. In the meantime I wish people would stop treating a caring friend as if he was a manipulative, selfish, thoughtless drama queen. He gave a lot of details and took pains to cover his tracks, and deserves the benefit of the doubt.
posted by hermitosis at 7:12 PM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

hermitosis writes "deserves the benefit of the doubt."

As much as the guy Adam deserves not to be suggested into believing that , because A B C and 1 2 3 , therefore it only follows he is gay, except that he is in denial !?

Consider the following : suddendly a person discovers that , indeed, he always really much liked woman even if for some time he was absolutely firmily positive in his/her homosexuality. I think that would be quite an astonishing and maybe confusing experience for anyone, regardless of their previous evaluation of their own sexuality.

Now imagine an heterosexual friend of yours, of your same gender , is convinced you are so much hetero , but in denial and being homo. Being hetero and your same gender, he certainly doesn't stand to gain a new potential sexual partner ; actually if he is bisexual and in denial he stands to lose one potential partner.

Wouldn't you be somehow annoyed by his attempts to suggest you your own sexuality ? Wouldn't you, rather, appreciate an idea such as the following : that one own sexual preference could change during life, that unless clearly hermaprodite his gender is either male or female, BUT that his/her sexual choices are definitely in control and that he may have other insecurity issues that don't DEFINE once and for all their own sexual choices as if it they were cast in stone and out of their own control ?

Certainly I'd rather find a friend in a person that doesn't shame me into heterosexuality or homosexuality, or suggest me even he/she is not into suggesting me for the shake of having sex with me, but just to demostrate to selves that they have nailed it, they can tell an homo from an hetero.
posted by elpapacito at 5:15 AM on November 7, 2007

I believe that perhaps not for the first time, ottereroticist has just broken new ground in eponystericalisms.
posted by roofus at 5:28 AM on November 7, 2007

If you actually read my comments, I actually did say that the poster should give his friend the benefit of the doubt.

Also: some people ARE in denial, elpapacito! Just because some people see denial everywhere they look (religious people thinking gays could be straight if they wanted to, gay people mistakenly reading straight people as closet-cases) doesn't mean that real cases of denial don't exist. We encounter them all the time. As a gay person that has counseled (and slept with) many "straight" friends, I certainly have.

If I had a straight friend who assumed I was also secretly straight (my mother fits this category, I believe), I would mainly be amused, and perhaps later, annoyed. Really it would tell me more about the psychology of the friend than about my own identity. But then gay people may be more accustomed to assuming various sexual personas and fulfilling various gender roles, so it would be a little easier to understand why a straight friend might have gotten hung up on something that wasn't there.

The poster's poor friend doesn't have the strength of his convictions. He is constantly (perhaps even obsessively) trying to assert his heterosexuality in ways that don't actually involve pursuing or sleeping with women. This is not to be overlooked. Maybe he just has insecurity issues, maybe he's a total cocksmooch, who knows? The poster is allowed to have his theories (informed as they are by his regular contact with the friend in question) as long as he is a respectful friend in the ways everyone has suggested. It's unnecessarily mean to gang up on him for making an assumption that may be incredibly true, when the advice winds up being the same either way.
posted by hermitosis at 8:31 AM on November 7, 2007

hermitosis writes "doesn't mean that real cases of denial don't exist."

Well obviously they do actually exist, but just because he is constantly positively, maybe obsessively, assessing "no no, I am hetero" (but his behavior is not that of an heterosexual ) doesn't imply he is necessarily homosexual. Indeed you , imho, correctly recognize that he may as well just be seriously insecure OR I might add he maybe completely confused and fearful when it comes to sexual behaviors, because he may consider it sinful and indeed -->

"Adam is very religious and comes from a conservative part of the country. He went to a religious college "

--> which suggest me there could be the heavy hand of indoctrination suggesting him that sex is "wrong" or that he just doesn't know what to do so much is his fear of doing something wrong and therefore feeling guilty or bad.

Mind you, I received a similar education (religious high school) but thankfully I didn't come out as wrecked as they can make you, so I am maybe biased and looking at it from the angle of a person who felt on the skin what a load of guilty sensations and moral absolute can do to a kid and probably harboring resentment against religious people as well.

hermitosis writes "He is constantly (perhaps even obsessively) trying to assert his heterosexuality in ways that don't actually involve pursuing or sleeping with women."

So one can reasonably assert that he is just waaay to much into saying he is not gay, but fact is he is not in "pursuit" mode on woman , so to say. Why should one be bothered so much, perhaps obsessively, to say he is not gay when he really isn't ? Maybe because he is very very insecure and doesn't WANT to be seen as gay by his gay friends, maybe fearing they will advance on him.

He could as well desire homosexual encounters, but maybe feeling double guilty about being "a fag" (religious based) and so rejecting the notion in every possible way including the obsessive "i am not gay" actually told to himself ; Yet at the same time he could desire hetero encounters, but he is pretrified by the idea of desiring a woman outside of a "love and marriage" context, or maybe he has got a strong dating anxiety, but being an otherwise fine guy he is being friendly with people who are homosexuals , but don't "bother" him .

So I guess it's pacific it is not so easy to assess wheter a person has homosexual desires or not..maybe he knows better. As for "being homosexual" by dictates of brain chemistry, that's something best left to a scientific assessment of which chemicals or combination thereof , or arrangment of brain should solicit one behavior instead of another, and I declare myself incompetent in the matter. It could be that there is a "born homo" or "born bisexual" arrangment of brain, but I doubt it's an absolute dictate on/off switch.

As for being doubtful of anonymous intention , I'd rather err on the side of excess and advancing he could have got an agenda of his own , but NOT BECAUSE he is an homosexual, but because people of all sexualities have agenda and Adam seems to be the weaker party.
posted by elpapacito at 3:49 PM on November 7, 2007

Until someone chooses to come out, treat them as straight. Period. I've known some guys who hit every single checkoff on the Gay Stereotypes List, except for the part where they only fuck women. Stereotypes are no guarantee. Really. If he wants to come out, then wait until he does, and LEAVE IT BE in the meantime.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:15 PM on November 8, 2007