How To Do It: I Pretended To Be Gay To A Female Friend.

[cereta]

Dear How to Do It,

I made a mistake. I have been very close with my friend, who’s a woman, for the past three years. I am a man, and for the most part, I’ve been able to convince her that I am gay.

At first, I just yearned for the platonic affection that only a woman can offer; nothing obscene. But now … I am enticed by her smooth skin and curves. I’ve seen her naked several times, and she’s always felt safe around me because she thinks I am gay. How can I proposition her so that she’ll forget all about my so-called gayness? Should I pretend to be bisexual? HELP!

—Cross My Heart and Hope to Die

Dear Cross My Heart and Hope to Die,

Did you consult with any media before deciding to pursue opportunistic identity impersonation? With icing on her face, Mrs. Doubtfire would have shrieked at you, “Hell noooooo!” You have placed yourself in a farce that rarely works out as intended. You purposely deceived someone in order to make a connection, and now that you have that connection, you want more. Meanwhile, your friend will end up with less. It is safe to assume that her attachment to and comfort around you are predicated on your lie. You’re asking what to say to make her forget, as if I’m a wizard who’s been holding out on revealing a magic technique for mind-editing and not just some guy sitting on his couch in Brooklyn.

Here are your options: Keep up the deception and forget any kind of romantic pursuit because to her, you are as good as gay. You will have to keep up this deception for the rest of your life and/or friendship (whichever ends first), which seems exhausting and doomed to fail. Or you can come clean and hope that she is already in love with you and has been secretly wishing that you would just turn straight already. Unless she is under love’s spell, she is likely to be angry when she finds out that you have deceived her. Since your relationship is built on a lie, you can expect the relationship to collapse once the lie is dismantled. I don’t think there’s any way around that, but at least now you know what not to do next time.

Comments

[cereta]

No. No no no. Rich was way, way too easy on this asshole. He allowed a woman to think she was safe from sexual interest, allowed her to think that while being naked. That is borderline sexual exploitation. This is not wacky hijinks. Ew.

[annotated_em]

Fuck this LW right in the ear. I hope he never knows the touch of a woman ever again.

[matsushima]

Please, please tell me this is a fake letter. This sounds like the plot of a bad '00s romcom, like The Bird Cage but in reverse or something.

If it is real: what a creep.

[lucymonster]

Well, my days of finding the How To Do It columnists nauseatingly sympathetic to sexual predators are coming to a middle.

This specific letter pings me as a bit false flaggish, tbh. “Watch out, ladies, your gay best friend is secretly a huge heterosexual creep!” But maybe that’s just wishful thinking because I don’t want to believe a real person is out there living his life like the plot of some sleazeball “romcom” written and directed entirely by men in the mid-2000s back before Hollywood learnt the word “consent”.

[conuly]

At first, I just yearned for the platonic affection that only a woman can offer; nothing obscene.

Bro, what?

[movingfinger]

This is a very weird line. Very, very weird. Did ChatGPT write the letter?

[ethelmay]

"I’ve seen her naked several times, and she’s always felt safe around me because she thinks I am gay."

Honestly, I don't think it's because she thinks he's gay that she's felt safe. It's because THEY'RE FRIENDS, SHE TRUSTS HIM. I've heard plenty of gay men say things about women's bodies that would make me VERY uncomfortable ever getting naked around them.

My bet is that he hasn't pretended to be gay, really (dollars to doughnuts he hasn't talked about his attraction to this or that sort of man). He's pretended to be a man who likes women as friends, and the only way he knows how to do that is to pretend to be gay.

[ethelmay]

(That said, I too am hoping this letter is fake. But even as a fake it illustrates that sort of thinking.)

[liv]

I really like your analysis. He "pretended to be gay" in the sense of pretending to respect her as a person. He can start actually for real being normal around a woman he happens to find attractive, and if he shows her he's still trustworthy, it might not in fact end their friendship if he admits he's actually into women. If he can make that work, like genuinely, for a serious period of time (I'm thinking months, not a couple of hours), at that point he could talk to her about the possibility of their relationship being more sexual. Not "proposition her" but talk to her as a friend he's fallen for, making it clear that he will accept no for an answer and still carry on being a friend. In that scenario, either he'll get his bad romcom ending, or he'll get to stay friends with her and benefit from her womanly platonic affection, and neither of those outcomes is in fact bad.

I have no problem being naked and otherwise in intimate situations with straight men, even those who have mentioned being attracted to me, if they are also decent, non-misogynist people (which many straight men are). If a friend had told me they were gay and then went back on it 3 years later, I wouldn't think worse of them; sometimes people's sexuality evolves over time. Sometimes when you first get to know someone you say something untrue and you get caught in a lie. But if he starts being gross and creepy, even a little bit, continuing to insist that he's gay wouldn't restore my trust. He just has to walk the walk and be the person his friend thinks he is.

[oursin]

I was trying to remember what this reminded me of - apart from what other people have mentioned, really dire romcom plot - and a few weeks ago, noodling around the internet I came across the reverse, sort of, of this situation, where the woman had had this male friend for years, very much Not Dating, nothing at all of the nature, and suddenly, while they were on a trip together, he came out with a public proposal.

And she was, are you serious? is this a prank? what?

And he was, apparently, serious.

[goljerp]

This is just so strange. I mean, how hard is it to just be friends with someone and not pretend to be something you're not? I am a straight man, and when I was single I was friends with several women because, ya know, I liked hanging out with them and they were good people. Still am friends with them, although one who moved away I don't talk to as much now. There was one woman who I wanted to date, and you know what? I asked her out. She said she wanted to just be friends. And you know what? That was fine! She's still a friend, and it's worked out for the best (we've both been married now for years). Like many here, I hope that this is a fake letter...

[full_metal_ox]

Exactly! Being friendzoned is the opposite of being creepzoned.

[frenzy]

toot toot beep beep whole man disposal service~

[raytheraven]

Y'all haven't you heard? Respecting women as people and liking them platonically is gay. /s

It sounds like the plot of a bad 90s rom com and I hate it.

[swingandswirl]

... what the fuck did I just read.