odd curiosity

LegacyUser

Hey, firstly let me explain that I'm a single guy in his mid 20s

I seem to have developed this curiosity with gay culture. Maybe I'm just trying to figure it all out or whatever but I'd imagine that it's a bit weird. I have gay friends - all of whom don't make too much of a deal out of it - which is the way I think it should be. I just enjoy reading about it etc and understanding the perspective from a gay person's point of view.

Now I know the first thing to say here is that maybe I'm gay - but I'm not. How do I know? Well I've tried being with guys and got very bored very quickly! I know that's horrible to say but I just enjoy being with women. I have two gay friends whom I'm particularly close to, I just seem to relax more around them for some reason; there's no pretense with them whereas with other friends it's always a laugh but it's very hard to have a serious conversation without them getting majorly uncomfortable.

Is there any explanation for this?

biko

Maybe you're just more open minded than most?

Miss Fluff

whatsupwithme wrote: »

Now I know the first thing to say here is that maybe I'm gay - but I'm not. How do I know? Well I've tried being with guys and got very bored very quickly!

Maybe you've just been with the wrong guys

Sherifu

Are you bisexual?

wylo

whatsupwithme wrote: »

Hey, firstly let me explain that I'm a single guy in his mid 20s

I seem to have developed this curiosity with gay culture. Maybe I'm just trying to figure it all out or whatever but I'd imagine that it's a bit weird. I have gay friends - all of whom don't make too much of a deal out of it - which is the way I think it should be. I just enjoy reading about it etc and understanding the perspective from a gay person's point of view.

Now I know the first thing to say here is that maybe I'm gay - but I'm not. How do I know? Well I've tried being with guys and got very bored very quickly! I know that's horrible to say but I just enjoy being with women. I have two gay friends whom I'm particularly close to, I just seem to relax more around them for some reason; there's no pretense with them whereas with other friends it's always a laugh but it's very hard to have a serious conversation without them getting majorly uncomfortable.

Is there any explanation for this?

You sound straight to me, the difference seems to be the fact that your good mates are gay meaning your the 'different' one, usually its a bunch of straight lads that are friends with a gay lad(that doesnt know it) wondering why he gets bored with women and loves men. The reason theres no pretense with them isnt because their gay, its just because their good mates of yours.

Overheal

you may be more comfortable around your gay friends because they are comfortable around themselves.

Talliesin

whatsupwithme wrote: »

I seem to have developed this curiosity with gay culture. Maybe I'm just trying to figure it all out or whatever but I'd imagine that it's a bit weird. I have gay friends - all of whom don't make too much of a deal out of it - which is the way I think it should be. I just enjoy reading about it etc and understanding the perspective from a gay person's point of view.

Pretty much none of the music most of us listen to today would exist were there not white people with an interest in some aspects of Afro-American culture. This didn't make them black. European otaku aren't Japanese. Hearing signers who live very much within the deaf community can still hear.

In all of these cases there are cultures that developed around communities defined on lines of race, nationality or physical ability but which contain features which are not of interest solely to people from those groups and hence interest people outside of those groups to various extents.

This is ultimately inevitable. Whether you are sexually attracted to members of your own sex, the opposite sex, or both has no innate link to ABBA, disco, Judy Garland or most artefacts of gay culture. Gay history can be interesting to straight people and bore gay people. Gay politics has benefited from the support of allies outside the community.

In a way, it's at the point where whatever historical accident has made something associated with a given community that it becomes "cultural" rather than practical.

There will always be straight people interested in gay culture (some to the extent that they could be said to "live in" the gay community, most nowhere near as strongly) just as there will always be gay people with no interest in it at all.

Just don't be someone who takes something that's been in the gay community for a couple of years and then makes a fortune out of it by being the straight guy who makes it mainstream

AARRRGH

I read the Gay and Lesbian forum on boards.ie every now and then, and I have lesbian friends and a lesbian flatmate, but I'm straight.

Having an interest in a subculture doesn't mean you're a part of that subculture.

Don't worry about it.

LegacyUser

hey, thanks for all the replies... no i don't think that i'm bisexual or that i've been with the wrong guys...in fact the guy i was with i was only with because I felt so close to him...but as i said i was bored in the end (don't get me wrong - it wasn't all bad)

I'm not going to worry about it too much, i just think that my straight friends think i'm gay from time to time - not that it would matter anyway - but i guess i'm just careful what i talk to them about. like i can't imagine ever telling any of them i ever did anything with a guy... even the fact that i'd never do it again wouldn't ease their level of freaked-outness.

i think i also feel so comfortable with my gay friends because i can tell them that i've thought about it and not be judged

redcrew

I'd say just relax with your other friends as well but just accept that maybe it's not because your friends are gay you feel comfortable around them but just that those friends are comfortable in themselves which puts you at ease

Captain Ginger

I'm exactly the same as you, I have gay friends, I do a load of research on it, and even hang out in gay bars (weird eh?). But I'm not gay, I have tried being with guys and I just simply didn't like it.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all, you're just as other people have said "open minded".

craichoe

Captain Ginger wrote: »

I'm exactly the same as you, I have gay friends, I do a load of research on it, and even hang out in gay bars (weird eh?). But I'm not gay, I have tried being with guys and I just simply didn't like it.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all, you're just as other people have said "open minded".

Yeh .. i've gone to gay bars too, never thought of them as gay bars though.. just bars .

LegacyUser

hey,

i never really go to gay bars...my gay friends seem to belong to different groups as opposed to being in one group so they'd come out with me to pubs and clubs if we go out together - not that i'd have any problem and have been to gay bars and niteclubs

thanks you guys, you are making me feel like i'm not weird or that i'm someway confused but can't admit it to myself...thanks!