Straight Eye for the Queer Guy

Dang.

apparently I missed the Comedy Central parody of Queer Eye, in which five straight men do a makeover on a gay guy. But, it seems that I didn't miss much. According to what the guys at work were saying, it sounds obvious and lame, just played for laughs. Throwing food on the floor of the kitchen. That kind of thing.

I think they missed the mark.

I'd say that there's a lot that gay men (in general) could learn from straight men.

Like what?

Three come to mind.

How to Have an Intimate and Heart-Wrenching Conversation With Another Man Without Using Any Personal Pronouns The secret? It's simple. You talk about sports. Guys like sports because sports are provide entertainment, but that's not the half of it. If you have only a basic familiarity with professional sports, you can have a conversation with any straight man on the planet. And, that conversation will quickly go from the trivial to the meaning of your life and his.

Serious.

Sports is a sort of code. The ancient Greeks would project their deepest longings and desires, their hopes, fears, and aspirations onto the pantheon of their gods and goddesses and their heroes. We have Wayne Gretsky and Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods and Pete Rose and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team.

That's what sports are all about. Longings, desires, hopes, fears, and aspirations.

Insights into Relationship Management Among straight men, there's this much disparaged concept, often derided as the Virgin-Whore paradox. It's usually expressed as, "There are women you sleep with and women you marry." In other words, the criteria used for determining the fitness of a life partner is different than what you would use for sex partners. It seems to me that gay men confuse those. At least I do. "Oh. My. God. He is so Hot!" does not necessarily translate into "Wanna go steady?" I think that as a rule, straight men get this, but gay men don't.

How to Beat the Bejeezus Out of Your Best Friend Competition is competition. I win today, you win tomorrow. It's all in how you play the game. I think gay men tend to go for the jugular. And if they lose, well then let's just hope they never have to be in the same room ever again. Right off the top of my head, I can think of no less than five such situations. Among gay men. When there's bad blood between straight men, both of them are sort of looking for an opportunity to bury the hatchet. Sports often plays a part in these reconciliations.

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