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Where to make gay friends?

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  • 27-07-2015 4:22am
    #1
    coffee with colm
    Registered Users Posts: 8 ✭


    So it turns out I maybe gay or bisexual at least, which comes as a surprise to me. I'm 28 years old and always thought of myself as an alpha type, played a lot of sports at school, did well, had lots of girlfriends etc.

    After my teens my straight friends went into decline to the point where I now have none. So now I'm looking for some gay friends, not to sleep with, as I think there is more to being gay than sleeping with people of the same sex.

    I'm friends with one or two work colleagues who I suspect maybe gay but there is no point if they're not even aware of it themselves. I think it's best to try and make friends with those who have accepted they're gay. It's stressful enough than having to deal with someone elses problems.

    So how do I make friends with gay people while staying single?


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    #2
    BuffyBot
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 24,924 Mod ✭✭✭✭BuffyBot


    coffee with colm wrote: »
    So it turns out I maybe gay or bisexual at least, which comes as a surprise to me. I'm 28 years old and always thought of myself as an alpha type, played a lot of sports at school, did well, had lots of girlfriends etc.

    After my teens my straight friends went into decline to the point where I now have none. So now I'm looking for some gay friends, not to sleep with, as I think there is more to being gay than sleeping with people of the same sex.

    I'm friends with one or two work colleagues who I suspect maybe gay but there is no point if they're not even aware of it themselves. I think it's best to try and make friends with those who have accepted they're gay. It's stressful enough than having to deal with someone elses problems.

    So how do I make friends with gay people while staying single?

    There is no magic place, alas. Where abouts are you based? What are you interested in? Folks might be able to give you some ideas based on that :)


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    #3
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,912 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    BuffyBot wrote: »
    There is no magic place, alas. Where abouts are you based? What are you interested in? Folks might be able to give you some ideas based on that :)

    Agreed op

    If you can tell us where you are and some things that interest you we might be able to give some advice.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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    #4
    LegacyUser
    Registered Users Posts: 166,026 ✭✭✭✭LegacyUser


    Since you mention sports and they are seem like fairly friendly chaps why don't you look into the football or rugby team, Devils or Shamrock Warriors or for mixed sports groups Front Runners or Wet&Wild. Failing sports there is always meetup DIGS and Dining Out spring to mind. All Dublin based pretty much although Wet and Wild do adventure weekends around the country.


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    #5
    Daith
    Registered Users Posts: 4,935 ✭✭✭Daith


    My other advice would be not to look for friends. Broaden your social scene, join clubs, sports clubs, book clubs. You'll find friends naturally from that.


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    #6
    Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9
    Closed Accounts Posts: 87 ✭✭Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9


    Daith wrote: »
    My other advice would be not to look for friends. Broaden your social scene, join clubs, sports clubs, book clubs. You'll find friends naturally from that.

    Yeah, in total agreement - really, you can't force friendships to happen - and I imagine a lot of people would be a little less than open to a friendship where they need to meet certain parameters i.e: being gay


    And OP, this last bit - "So how do I make friends with gay people while staying single?" - Well, I find it kinda mystifying; the whole premise is...


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    #7
    nozipcode
    Registered Users Posts: 137 ✭✭nozipcode


    Not to be rude or off-topic, but are you sure you're gay? Discovering you're gay at 28 is well, unusual, especially considering you were sexually active up to now.

    I'd say the same for your colleagues. If they're gay I'd say they know it themselves. They just might not be sharing it at work, or with anyone.

    I agree with the above, don't try and force it. I believe there is a group that meet in Outhouse on Friday evenings that might be what you're looking for. Sorry I can't be more specific but a friend told me it is good way of meeting people outside of a pub/club/hookup :)


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    #8
    Daith
    Registered Users Posts: 4,935 ✭✭✭Daith


    nozipcode wrote: »
    Not to be rude or off-topic, but are you sure you're gay? Discovering you're gay at 28 is well, unusual, especially considering you were sexually active up to now.

    It's not unusual at all.


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    #9
    nozipcode
    Registered Users Posts: 137 ✭✭nozipcode


    Daith wrote: »
    It's not unusual at all.


    Agree to disagree then.

    As for 'there's more to being gay than sleeping with the same sex' - I'd like to hear more on that. To me that is exactly what being gay is about, sleeping with people of the same sex. Any other attributes to a person or their personality isn't about being gay, it's about being themselves.


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    #10
    J_E
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,734 ✭✭✭J_E


    nozipcode wrote: »
    Not to be rude or off-topic, but are you sure you're gay? Discovering you're gay at 28 is well, unusual, especially considering you were sexually active up to now.

    No, that's not unusual. It is very easy to mask it or unconsciously dismiss it if it is something you are not willing to face. There are many who carried on through their 20's and sometimes 30's and over before they realised and pursued it.
    nozipcode wrote: »
    Agree to disagree then.

    As for 'there's more to being gay than sleeping with the same sex' - I'd like to hear more on that. To me that is exactly what being gay is about, sleeping with people of the same sex. Any other attributes to a person or their personality isn't about being gay, it's about being themselves.

    Being gay is a social identity too, whether you choose to represent it or not. Some nowadays are very agitated trying to distance themselves from it to 'straighten up'. In a social sense you are liberated from a lot of expectations, while also facing others.


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    #11
    coffee with colm
    Registered Users Posts: 8 ✭coffee with colm


    BuffyBot wrote: »
    There is no magic place, alas. Where abouts are you based? What are you interested in? Folks might be able to give you some ideas based on that :)

    I'm abroad at the moment but planning to come back to Waterford next month.
    Múinteoir2015 wrote: »
    Since you mention sports and they are seem like fairly friendly chaps why don't you look into the football or rugby team, Devils or Shamrock Warriors or for mixed sports groups Front Runners or Wet&Wild. Failing sports there is always meetup DIGS and Dining Out spring to mind. All Dublin based pretty much although Wet and Wild do adventure weekends around the country.

    As in gay sports teams?
    Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9 wrote: »
    And OP, this last bit - "So how do I make friends with gay people while staying single?" - Well, I find it kinda mystifying; the whole premise is...

    I don't understand.
    nozipcode wrote: »
    Not to be rude or off-topic, but are you sure you're gay? Discovering you're gay at 28 is well, unusual, especially considering you were sexually active up to now.

    Not entirely but I have hooked up with transgender women on more than one occasion in the past. In fact I have more luck with transgender women than straight women so I think that indicates I must be gay.

    I went with my friend into a gay bar last night for about 10 minutes but he wouldn't come in with me so I was just standing there being real intimidating so I left while he stood outside smoking.

    Everyone seems to think he's gay even people in the first club we went to so that's why I enticed him to leave and try the gay bar.
    I think he is conscious of being gay but I don't pressurize him into talking about it.

    I thought maybe that is the reason why we are friends. But I don't particularly fancy men or ever have. But saying that, people have a habit of saying someone looks gay without them even being gay so it makes me question what the whole gay thing is about.

    It seems to be more about identity than actual plain sex.


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    #12
    Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9
    Closed Accounts Posts: 87 ✭✭Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9


    coffee with colm wrote: »



    I don't understand.

    Well that makes three of us... doesn't it?
    coffee with colm wrote: »

    Not entirely but I have hooked up with transgender women on more than one occasion in the past. In fact I have more luck with transgender women than straight women so I think that indicates I must be gay.


    Ehmmm... No! Unless, of course, you view those, oh so lucky, "transgender women" you have been with as no more than gay men in disguise - which, judging by your comments: it seems pretty clear you do.

    I would be pretty pissed to be compared to a man of any sexual orientation... You clearly wouldn't understand that either though...

    Yeah, I'm getting a clear idea now...


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    #13
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,912 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Wait hang on!!

    You're a man who is into trans women?

    That's not a gay man

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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    #14
    Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9
    Closed Accounts Posts: 87 ✭✭Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    Wait hang on!!

    You're a man who is into trans women?

    That's not a gay man

    Exactly!

    I've seen this M.O. before...


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    #15
    coffee with colm
    Registered Users Posts: 8 ✭coffee with colm


    Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9 wrote: »
    Well that makes three of us... doesn't it?

    Ehmmm... No! Unless, of course, you view those, oh so lucky, "transgender women" you have been with as no more than gay men in disguise - which, judging by your comments: it seems pretty clear you do.

    I would be pretty pissed to be compared to a man of any sexual orientation... You clearly wouldn't understand that either though...

    Yeah, I'm getting a clear idea now...

    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    Wait hang on!!

    You're a man who is into trans women?

    That's not a gay man


    Well that's what I thought too. My last encounter with a trans woman I asked her whether she thought I was gay and did she sleep with gay men.

    She said straight men only sleep with her and that the reason someone would be attracted to her is because of her 'feminine' qualities and not masculine ones. Which made lots of sense to be.

    But it does not explain why I am friends with my mate whom I suspect is gay.

    Is it possible straight and gay men can be friends?


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    #16
    Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9
    Closed Accounts Posts: 87 ✭✭Pumpkin PJs Fan No.9


    coffee with colm wrote: »

    But it does not explain why I am friends with my mate whom I suspect is gay.

    Is it possible straight and gay men can be friends?

    ¿Qué?

    Are you for real?

    Right... that's it... I'm officially suspicious...

    P.s: I've found the upsidedowny question mark


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    #17
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,912 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    coffee with colm wrote: »
    Well that's what I thought too. My last encounter with a trans woman I asked her whether she thought I was gay and did she sleep with gay men.

    She said straight men only sleep with her and that the reason someone would be attracted to her is because of her 'feminine' qualities and not masculine ones. Which made lots of sense to be.

    But it does not explain why I am friends with my mate whom I suspect is gay.

    Is it possible straight and gay men can be friends?

    People are friends. Some gay people are friends with mostly straight people. Some gay people are friends with mostly gay people. Sexual orientiation is an innate thing within yourself and nothing to do with who is your friend. I'm not gay because I have gay friends. I'm gay because I'm sexually attracted to men.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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    #18
    coffee with colm
    Registered Users Posts: 8 ✭coffee with colm


    Someone suggested that men who sleep with transgenders are in fact gay. It's just a more socially acceptable way for them to be gay.


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    #19
    al22
    Registered Users Posts: 169 ✭✭al22


    Attracted to some men but not attracted to have a sex with them.
    Like to fcuk girls but not attracted to live with them at all.


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    #20
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,912 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    coffee with colm wrote: »
    Someone suggested that men who sleep with transgenders are in fact gay. It's just a more socially acceptable way for them to be gay.

    And?

    Someone suggested something silly.

    You said it yourself. You are sexually attratcted to women not men.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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