Gay Best Friends Are This Season's Hottest Teen Accessory
This month, important sociological journal Teen Vogue has an in-depth and thought-provoking study of a fascinating phenomenon: Sometimes heterosexual females are friends with homosexual males. Though "friends with" implies parity. Let's say: Heterosexual females have homosexual male friends. It's trendy!
Yeah, it's one of those stories. Let's do the whole pull-quote game, shall we?
"A few years ago, all the popular, pretty girls were walking hand in hand with a preppy jock," [a Pacific Palisades high school student] says. "Now you'll see them in hallways with a Mulberry bag on one arm and a Johnny Weir look-alike on the other." She says one girl at her school even recently tweeted: "OMG, watching Glee makes me wish I had a guy like Kurt in my life. ... It's a little ridiculous how in demand a gay best friend has become in the past year"
Mmm, tasty milkshake. More please!
Maggie,* a seventeen-year-old Bostonian, found that since becoming so close to her GBF, she spends less time with her straight guy friends. "It's nice because I don't have to stress about Kevin* developing feelings for me," she says. "Pretty much every time I've formed a bond with a straight guy, he ended up being attracted to me, and I would wind up hurting him when he found out I didn't feel the same way."
Maggie! You sound hot. All the regular boys love you? Honey girl fabuloso pet, there is no reason to become a fag hag. Next!
"There's a guy who's so in demand within this one social circle that girls will literally get jealous if he spends a night out with someone else," [the same Pacific Palisades high school student] says. "They used to get guy-crazy; now they get gay-crazy. It's become more of a gay- boyfriend situation."
Ohhh sugar snaps! Gay dudes are like the last Berkin merkin flerkin bag or whatever the fuck on the store shelf. Girl, keep it comin'!
Katie,* 20, from Dallas, finds the new cultural infatuation with gay stereotypes absurd. "I hate all the tired tropes perpetuated by the media," she says. "My best friend, Brett,* isn't some superfabulous style consultant that I take shopping and sing show tunes with."
Heyyyy, gir— Wait, what? Katie you are bumming me out.
So yeah those are the greatest hits! Well, except for the greatest hit. The Editor in Chief of Teen Quarterly chimes in at the end to give us this Fierce Fact™:
We girls compare ourselves to one another, and it can just get a bit . . . intense. Thank goodness for gay best friends. I treasure my GBFs—I live in New York City; I have many, many!—because they are noncompetitive and nonjudgmental
Ohhh sassysnatch, preach it! They are not competitive and not judgmental because they barely exist as real people. They are to be written about in articles as if they are shoes. And you would know, lollipop licks, because you live in New York City.
Um, OK. I don't even know how to be mad at these kinds of things anymore, y'know? I'll just say to Vogue, what if I wrote an article that was called "Asians! Everyone Wants To Be Friends With 'Em." Would you enjoy that? Though race and sexuality are two very different things, so how about "Cripplez: Are They For You?" That would be a very interesting and good article to read I suspect.
YOU KNOW WHO I'M ALSO MAD AT, but I guess I'm mad at them in a I-feel-bad-for-them kind of way? The gay dudes who are like so into this idea. Oh gosh, isn't that so depressing to think about? Lady came all the way out of the closet just to end up hung up in some pizza-faced, lip gloss-'n-BO stinked teenage girl's armoire. Don't worry, Dustin. Madison will trot you out for the next party or breakup or Teen Vogue interview. Oh what a life!
Fuck it all. Let's all move to Gay Island and be done with it.
Important note: I know that Ryan and Sharpay are SIBLINGS. But still.