{"id":285469,"date":"2019-10-21T09:09:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T13:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wearedore.com\/?p=285469"},"modified":"2019-10-22T08:07:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T12:07:14","slug":"friendships-in-the-queer-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/features\/friendships-in-the-queer-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendships in the Queer Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of Friendship Month<\/a> at DOR\u00c9 we wanted to explore friendships in the Queer Community, with their specific cadence, nuances and struggles. Here, James Francis Kelley opens up to us about the complexities he’s found navigating those friendships… <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

__________________<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you have a community of like-minded people around you, and the opportunity to explore commonalities with others, you\u2019re in a better position to understand how you\u2019re really different \u2013 to recognize your specific desires, attributes, tastes, etc. rather than being different just because you’re gay.\u201d Michael Diaz-Griffith, 33.<\/em> <\/center><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t grow up around boys like me. I liked boys, and most of the boys of Westwood liked girls. I did regional theatre, where I met a few guys with similar hormones, but we never clicked. It would bum me out so much. I just wanted to feel like I wasn\u2019t alone. I only had Will & Grace as my gay point of reference at the time. I hoped that I would meet a Will for my Jack. In college I got into Absolutely Fabulous, and realized that what I really wanted was an Eddy to my Pats. And then, I met Manhattan. <\/p>\n

The city helped me realize that there are millions of guys like me out here. Not gay men, obviously, but gay men who didn\u2019t have gay friends growing up. Those gay men who are a little raw because they never felt normal as a kid, and there are a lot of us. Adriano Batista, Editor-In-Chief of Fucking Young!, is one of those stars who grew up shining solo. \u201cComing from a small town in the middle of Portugal, it was hard for me to have lots of gay friends while growing up,\u201d he says. \u201cThe only one I met while being a teenager turned out to be one of my best friends, and it\u2019s obvious why. He was basically the only one that really knew me or understood me.\u201d That reasoning is easy to follow. I think we\u2019re all just looking for a few someones who understand us. <\/p>\n

Why are so many gay men and women are drawn to places like New York? Why do so many of us fall into creative lines of work? For me, living in New York and working in fashion brought normalcy to my existence like so many others. \u201cI like other gay men, I guess, because we like a lot of the same things, and work in aligned fields,\u201d says Michael Diaz-Griffith. The former Alabaman has been living and creating in New York for almost a decade. Metropolises turned outcasts into \u201cIt\u201d crowds. Creative fields valued gay opinions long before \u201cthe gay vote\u201d existed. To this day, when gay people are cast out of their families, these environments turn into their homes. There, they meet their new families.<\/p>\n

\u201cQueer culture recognizes celebrating the \u2018chosen\u2019 family over the one you were born with,\u201d says Diaz-Griffith, who touts an assemblage of fantastic and curious gay friends. I agree. Shows like \u00ab\u00a0RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race\u00a0\u00bb invite us into the world of drag families. And \u00ab\u00a0Tales of The City\u00a0\u00bb shows us the chosen family in full force. But while true for some, it is equally untrue for others. <\/p>\n

If gay culture had a sign, she\u2019d be a Gemini. Mr. Batista explains, \u201cThere is always going to be a special link, an intuition, an empathy between gay people.\u201d But, another reality totally exists. As Kevni Woodside, 26, says, \u201cWe are a minority who loves to attack our own people.\u201d Both sides of this rainbow coin are born from the same insecurity. I think that we want to be loved and supported, as we were not in our youth. But, that lack of young friends left most adult gays without gay friends in our formative years, This includes all 10 of the people that I spoke with for this piece. Gay people don\u2019t automatically know how to read each other. That\u2019s not how gaydar works. Who is on our team? Who is competition? I had one friend that I believed was both. It\u2019s confusing! \u201c[Gay men] have had to live our lives with our guards up the whole time, so it\u2019s only natural that the behavior leaks out into our social lives,\u201d says Woodside. The gay community is a big knot of feelings that, as individuals, we have to pull apart while we figure out ourselves in the process. The past has led to some pretty abrasive interpersonal dynamics amongst gay men and women. Still, those dynamics don\u2019t include one of the most difficult parts of friendships amongst gay men and gay women, navigating the waters of being just<\/em> friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a sucker for the fantasy,\u201d says Gordon Gerbert, 27. \u201c[That] falling in love with your best friend and becoming lifelong partners sort of thing.\u201d I agree with Gordon, who is a totally platonic friend of mine that I am very happy to have. But, once feels \u2013 aka feelings of like or love – weasel their way into a relationship, I\u2019m completely lost. They often pop up very unannounced, too. When looking for a friend, I\u2019m looking for someone who shares my interests in music, leisure, food, etc., has similar aspirations, and wants the best for me so I can give my best to them. When I\u2019m looking for a partner, I want the exact same thing, plus an attractive face on a person who finds my face attractive too. Generally, when I\u2019m meeting someone who\u2019s gay, we begin by tiptoeing around a question. Will we want each other? When I meet other single gay men, forming something platonic is not always on our minds. Mostly, the men that I meet are not looking for friends right off the bat. And, that\u2019s not only me. \u201cAsk any gay friends who met after college\/outside their job how they met,\u201d says Woodside. \u201cI\u2019d be willing to bet it was after a hookup.\u201d I think we\u2019re all looking for a partner to grow old with\u2026 but what if that\u2019s not the right approach? What if we should be looking for a group of likeminded folk who love and support us to spend our lives with instead?<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it is time to rewrite gay friendships, romances, and life [stories] in general to abandon old stereotypes,\u201d says Marco Cattoretti, Vice President of Sales at Naeem Khan and openly gay man for over twenty years. \u201cSexual attraction and friendship can\u2019t mix in my book,\u201d he says. As someone who doesn\u2019t make a habit of turning friends into bedfellows, Cattoretti has lived an incredibly successful and happy life. He\u2019s right. Friendships between gay men are just as important as lovers\/spouses, if not more. Many of us grew up feeling so abnormal, and friends normalize us. They let us know it\u2019s okay to feel one way, say another, and think a third. Those gay friends who understand us should be cherished, hugged, and never taken for granted because they aren\u2019t someone we end up sleeping with. I feel like a lot of big pictures look like two people in front of a house with a few kids in the yard. In reality, the big picture looks like a community holding hands, hugging, and lifting each other up. Gay friendships are weird, extraordinary, complicated, and ever evolving. Find your pal and hug them. Find another, and hug them too. Help your inner gay 12-year-old feel normal now, so gay 12-year-olds of the future will never know otherwise.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

D\u00e9sol\u00e9, cet article est seulement disponible en Anglais Am\u00e9ricain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1398],"tags":[7651,6929,5947,7652],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285469"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285482,"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285469\/revisions\/285482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.wearedore.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}