The Guys

FYI, I noticed that anonymous commenting was turned off, so that's been turned on. Don't be afraid to speak it out, I'd love to hear from you, get some new perspectives, etc.

Anyway, I thought I’d write something here more frequently than I have been lately, but I really haven’t felt the need or desire to; I usually only feel the need to write when things bother me or start to suck, which hasn’t happened lately. Things have been going good in life so far: the weather’s actually been decent around here with a good dose of sunshine and warmer temps, rather than being rainy and dreary like it is most of the time, so I’ve been able to do one of my favourite things and drive around with windows and sunroof open, singing and dancing (as much as you can in the driver's seat, anyway) along to the radio. It’s just so liberating to have the wind going through your hair and taking in the fresh air! (I know, my sister thinks I’m a dork too) My martial arts classes started back up too, so I’m also a little more active and energetic than I was before when I was sitting around on my lazy ass. That, and I’ve been hanging out with my friends a lot more and having a ton of fun with them.

Being around them though has stirred up a lot of internal conflict and acting that I want to avoid. This weekend, for instance, a group of us went out to do some karaoke, which turned out to be a setup by my buddy Brian and his friend Iris to try and setup the rest of the guys and girls that went along. At the end of the night when he asked both my buddy Nate and I who we thought was cute, it didn’t feel natural just to shrug it off and say they weren’t my type (sort of true though, my taste in girls didn’t match with anyone there). As stupid as it sounds, I even avoided singing certain songs that I knew pretty well, like the Backstreet Boys (no doubt thanks to being a kid in the late 90s...really!) because I didn’t want to seem stereotypically “gay” or the like. Thinking about it more, just coming out to my friends would make life a whole lot easier and I feel as if I could talk to them honestly a lot more, but I still don’t know how they would react.

Which is why I wanted to start talking about them here; maybe in analyzing my relationships with my friends, I can figure out why I feel so afraid as to hide from them. I’ll start with my closest allies, “the guys”. Some dudes call them bros, homies, buddies, pals. Call them what you want, they’re a guy’s group of closest male friends. I keep it simple and refer to them simply as “the guys”. There’s a group of four of us, myself and my buddies Brian, Danny and Nate. Brian, Danny and I are friends from 2nd grade, but it wasn’t till the 9th grade when Nate came along that all of us really started to hang out together on a regular basis. We do all the regular things buddies do together, play video games, shoot pool, grab a bite to eat together, bowling, generally shoot the shit. We keep each other updated throughout the week when we play video games online together and talk about school/work, relationships, roommates, just what’s going on in life in general. We also make it an effort to see each other once a week, usually on a Friday, to hangout, so we’re pretty close and can confide in each other in a pretty meaningful way. Honestly, these are the guys I can see myself playing golf with when we’re 65, having our kids all play together, etc; that’s the sort of close relationship we all have with each other.

Really, I only have one beef with them as a group. Of course, being a group of masculine guys, we’re always poking fun at each other for being feminine or gay, which of course becomes a problem. I know they don’t mean it, since they have gay friends and relatives, but that’s just how it works with a group of masculine guys; bring the other guys down to make yourself more macho, right?

And that’s just another game I have to play. I don’t want to have to brush off one of them or give them a “fuck you” whenever they teasingly ask if I’m a homo. I know what the answer is, but I’m afraid if they knew it, it’d fuck up the group dynamic. My worst fear would be for things to change if I were to come out; I want to be able to tease them about shit and them to tease me right back, but I’m afraid if I were to come out, they wouldn’t feel comfortable joking around simply because some of that is based in teasingly questioning each other’s sexuality. And that’s not to say we should be calling each other fags and making homophobic remarks or the like, but it’s one of those ways a lot of masculine guys use to joke around and bond with each other, so to kill that dynamic I’m afraid will create a huge lull over the group, which I definitely don’t want.

And if you’re wondering, it’s strictly platonic with these guys. They’re the closest thing I have to brothers, so imagine dating your brother and beyond. Completely grossed out now, right? Same way I feel these guys. Besides, if you’ve seen/heard some of the shit they say and do, you’d be completely unattracted to them too, but that’s another story.

-Matt

PS. I’m ClosetCarGuy for a reason (because I love cars, duh), and this is what I’d love to be rocking out in the sun right now, a Honda S2000.