Gay Guys And Straight Girls: I'm Taking A Break

  I've been gay and proud my whole life and as you can imagine I have had countless friendships with girls 'cause that's all I could offer them anyway (except in some occasions where booze was involved, but that's not the point) and I've often rejected, undervalued and avoided friendships with people from my own community (the LGBTQ+ community) to be with my chosen female straight friend of the time but I've come to realize how much I might have lost due to my loyalty to these friendships. Now, I want to make it clear, I don't intend to trash out on straight women by any means and my goal here is to show you my personal experiences with them and try to understand as I'm writing why I chose to cut them off for a while.

  Having a female straight friend is awesome, you feel like they fully understand you and value your opinions, which they do as already proven by some scientific experiments and besides having a great time together you feel like you're both helping each other somehow. As a young gay boy I sought in the friendship of my straight female friends the comprehension and emotional support I didn't get from my family and in return I tried to be the best friend that I could possibly be. It was an agreement that worked for me until I realized something as I grew older, something that I unconsciously tried pretend wasn't true.

  All my female straight friends from high school drop me off at some point and the ones after that have also done the same at some point and now that I come to think of it, it seems really simple. As much as we want to fit in and be accepted by a group of friends/people we can't runaway from the truth 'cause sooner or later it will hit you in the face, without a doubt! Like I said before I've been gay and proud my whole life however acceptance and self-love is an endless process of self discovery and understanding in which you can't figure out by yourself and that's when things went south for me 'cause every time I tried to spoke about my personal issues with them it was as if they thought I was just making up excuses to justify why things went wrong.

  I remember when I broke up with my first boyfriend and my best female friend at the time said she already knew things wouldn't work out. I was pissed at her 'cause she didn't even give a plausible explanation for it. Furthermore, she ignored everything that I had told her and said what she wanted to say because in her mind things were that simple and maybe they were, for her not for me though. She couldn't or wouldn't take into consideration the times I couldn't be with my boyfriend because we were not allowed to hang out neither at my place nor at his due to the prejudice of our relatives. Meanwhile straight couple's biggest issue is deciding in which house/apt they're going to spend the weekend at. Amongst many other things that gay people normally go through that could end any relationship regardless of the feelings involved. 

It didn't matter to her 'cause she already knew everything right?

  When I became an adult I felt stuck and misunderstood even by my own friends 'cause I couldn't get why they'd spend days and even months without reaching out. It was like I served a purpose and once their lives got better I was the first person they'd let go. I know this might not have anything to do with being straight or gay or perhaps it has, who knows right?, I've read an article by Cris Riotta called 'I'm Gay, Not Your Accessory" that brilliantly expresses how we feel a lot of times, click here if you want to read it, I think you should. Anyway, I was left out under the impression that when my female straight friends were unhappy or unsatisfied I was the first person they'd talk to but when they were dating a guy I was the last thing on their minds, some people have unsuccessfully tried to convince me otherwise.

  The truth is, I'm tired of being left out. I'm tired of being an after thought. I want to be close to people who cherish my friendship/companionship as much as I do theirs. Luckily I had these people around me all this time and as it turns out they're mostly people from my own community, people who understand by experience what it means be me, what it means to unapologetically live your life in a world that despises your existence. To sum up, I'm not saying I'm giving up on being friends with straight women or men for that matter but I'm definitely taking a break from them. I wanna see how being around people like me feels like. Because until now every-time I needed them, they were there and they put me first and it is about damn time for me to start doing the same.