Straight Is All It Takes

straight is all it takes

by isabella castelo

The best thing a straight man can do for his love life is give up male friendships. Why waste time with boys when you can be surrounded by women who secretly want to fuck you. 

Ok, this is an exaggeration… I don’t think that anyone should ever give up friendships to get fucked, but there is something to be said of the token straight man in an all-girl friend group. 

A writer friend and I meet regularly to “write.” We rarely get words on a page, but that doesn’t mean we don’t hit a word limit. We rant, tell secrets that aren’t our own, and talk about how bad our resumes are (we never do anything about that). My favorite part of these conversations is when she tells me about her most recent drama involving her crush—who is also her friend’s crush and her frenemy’s crush. 

I ask why he’s such a catch, why everyone is swooning, and I’m told that he’s “really nice” and “funny.” All I have to say to that is, “No, he’s probably not.” He’s not super funny or super nice or super handsome. He’s just straight. In a school where everyone is either a twink, a twinky bisexual, or a baseball player, finding a decent straight man is a straight woman’s dream. So when they find that man,—who yes, might be a little boring, or a little musty, or really funny but only because he comes with emotional baggage—they have to hold on. 

They bring this man into their lives as friends, and the rest of their girlfriends meet him and instantly know how hot a commodity he is. They all secretly want him, but they smile at each other and say they’re over it. Then, one of them comes to me and tells me how very un-over him she is, spilling all the tension and meanness that stems from these not-so-secret crushes. 

What interests me about this phenomenon is that lesbians are always faced with the accusation that we only fuck our friends; That we always have intense homoerotic friendships that either end in love or extreme hatred. I think we should start telling it how it is and admit that straight people do this, too. Everyone defaults to friends to lovers, whether they want to admit it or not. It’s the easiest, but also most painful, pipeline. 

So next time you want to joke about incestual gay friend groups, expand your perspective. Dig deep within yourself and ask if you’ve ever been in love with your guy best friend, because I’m sure one of your gal pals was probably in love with him, too.