Barking up the gay tree

Dear They Said What?,

Yay! Not another (romantic) relationship question! Here's my issue: My best friend just moved in with a girl. In keeping with using fake names to protect privacy, I'll call him Hernando and her Janice. Our close knit group of friends only really started hanging out with Janice a few months ago, and she and Hernando really hit it off. Although we all found her to be kind of annoying, they did seem to have a lot of fun together, and it could be fun partying with them. When they announced they were moving in together though, that is when everyone really started to worry. See, Janice seems to be madly in love with Hernando. And Hernando is openly gay.

Janice talks about Hernando constantly when they are apart. She raves about him and never expresses any interest in hanging out with anyone else. On his part, I know that he liked the attention at first, especially since the rest of our group had an autumn full of schoolwork and late shifts, and weren't really able to party all the time, which is what she loves to do. At the start of it all, he thought maybe we were being jealous, because she wanted to occupy all his time, but really, he works hard to make sure that all his friends know how much he cares for us, so that was never an issue.

What is an issue is that we all pretty much think she is delusional, and think that she sees their friendship and roommatehood as having the potential for much much more. It has gotten to the point were even Hernando (since moving in with her for financial reasons) has even told me "I don't know what to do, I think she actually might have feelings for me" to which I of course replied "Well, yeah. I told you that." She keeps constant tabs on him, always wanting to know where he is and who he is with. She likes sleeping in his bed, as opposed to her own. She buys him presents all the time, and makes plans for the long-distant future as though really planning a life with him. Hernando told me that once when they were both drunk, she propositioned him, and then pretended it was just a joke. To top it all off, one day as Janice was telling me "I need a boyfriend. It is just so hard, living with this beautiful man, and he's just so amazing, and I need to get laid!" and I said, "Janice, don't fall in love with Hernando, okay?" and she said "What?... Oh my god, I know. Why would you say that... wait, has he said anything?" in a very lady-doth-protest-too-much sort of way.

I feel like this is getting really long, so I will try to wrap up. Basically, since moving in with this girl, Hernando has finally become creeped out by her behaviour enough to ask me for advice, but I am just no good at giving advice. He doesn't want to hurt her feelings, but she does know that he has no romantic interest in women, and he doesn't know what else he can tell her. He can't move out because they have a lease, and he still wants to be her friend of course. As his friend, I don't like to see him in this situation mainly because it has the potential to get really awkward. So, um, any thoughts?


We say things all the time for the sake of sensitivity. They're often truthful, but they also don't risk hurting anybody's feelings. There have been many a drunken Saturday night when I've been all too happy to utter the words, 'I have a boyfriend' to some physically unappealing or otherwise offensive man or woman. Hernando has: 'I'm gay.' With options like these, the trick is often done without having to call attention to what is underlying in these scenarios: a lack of attraction. The hit-on-er is left thinking, 'she/he isn't able,' and they move on without having to acknowledge the that the hit-on-ee's answer ALSO likely means he or she is not willing, either.

In Janice's head, the problem is 'just' Hernando’s homosexuality. She seems to have mentally reduced it to the single thing standing in the way of her happiness with someone she really likes and gets along with, so really she needs to come to see it in terms of utter lack of attraction in order to get it. We, along with Janice, risk forgetting that this business here with Hernando is equal to any other unwanted sexual advance.

Why might Janice need this extra dose of reality? Not all hags are alike, but at least some of the heterosexual ones are hungry for love, and some of that subset are into gays because straights aren't into them. They seek validation from those whom they may see as non-threatening eunuchs, because they don’t actually understand homosexuality. Sure, they don’t live in a vacuum, they’ve been told that some men love men like other men love women, and they know that men manage to have sex with each other somehow, but the whole thing has not been actualized to them. They are accepting of homosexuality in an unthinking way. They like gay men, but they don’t actually get what they do, beyond, ‘hey, I like boys, too.’ Deep down they might even believe a gay boy may just need the right woman to come along. Shudder with me: Ugh!

Unwittingly, some of the cuddlier homos oblige them; gay men would be well within their rights to think that they can be as verbally and physically affectionate as they like with their willing female friends because they don’t risk sending mixed messages; their proclaimed orientation should speak for itself. But hormonally, when a friendship with a gay man turns a certain shade of warm, women like Janice embark on a simulated romantic relationship. Companionship, light physical contact -- sometimes intermediate physical affection if you're dealing with some of the Ted Homosexuals I've rubbed up against in my day – from someone who, let's face it, probably works out, with no sexual tension or heartbreak. Friendship is the romance that never has to end. Right?

As we see here in the case of Janice and Hernando, oh Hell no. The sexual tension kicks in real good and one-sided, and in the words of The Marvelettes: Danger, Heartbreak Dead Ahead. "If only he wasn't gay."

Here's a question for you and H-man to ponder: how has he dealt with the fact that he's gay? I am by no means suggesting that this is his fault for not looking gay enough. But perhaps a key to understanding lonely Janice's delusion lies in what she may be able give her brain to fantasize/scheme with. How recently openly gay is he? Is he out to his family? Did he try out bisexuality as a label before warming up to public homosexuality? Has he had girlfriends? Is he dating men now? Is he bringing any boys home? I gather from your mention of school and partying that you guys are kind of young. Maybe Janice, in her naïve, kind of disrespectful internalization of gayness, doesn’t believe Hernando, who may just still be learning to be comfortable with himself, is walking the walk enough.

If that’s what she’s thinking, she hasn’t got a right. People are gay or straight in their own ways, and Hernando shouldn’t feel pressure to conduct himself in a way he wouldn’t usually, and especially not in his own home. It’s not an excuse for her behaviour, but it’s a reason, and maybe that can give you guys some insight as to how to proceed.

Unfortunately, I am not completely certain about how to communicate lack of attraction to someone without risking an air of the confrontational in this scenario, in which reality would be a clear enough indication of what is reasonable behaviour for most people. If he’s not comfortable about leveling with her yet, things obviously haven’t gotten weird enough. Trust me, that’ll happen. I would actually put money on my suspicion that it has happened and attachments like these form a pattern in Janice’s life. You guys may have only been hanging out with her a few months, but she didn’t come out of nowhere, and you have to wonder what she did with her time before you and Hernando came along.

Hernando can’t live like this, and he certainly can’t let it get worse, for his sake and for Janice’s. If he really doesn’t want to beat her over the head with how much he does not want to do the sex with her because he cares about her, and doesn’t want to hurt her feelings, and wants to keep her friendship, tell him to think of it this way: Friends don’t let friends make themselves ridiculous and miserable. If Janice is his friend, she is his friend who has a problem, and he does her no favours by pretending everything is fine. To make it known, in a caring and genuine way, that she is making him uncomfortable, and to try to talk to her about why she is so very, very inappropriately focusing her energy on him, is to be a true friend.

If she doesn’t respond well to this -- and a poor response encompasses everything between disproportionate anger to groveling, disproportionate repentance. Huge reactions are sometimes ploys to take the focus off of the situation at hand and make the other party feel bad -- her problem may not be one that Hernando is equipped to help her iron out, especially if she’s not willing to confront it herself, and especially if my pattern theory is true. Sometimes you have to quietly break a lease and let crazy sort itself out.

If all of that is still not an option for him, he could just try cutting the apron strings a bit. Start making it a point to not divulge everything about his life to her, start consciously making plans that do not include her… does his bedroom door have a lock on it?

Readers, you can chime in at any time. I'll post your advice on Monday!