Gay ladies! Long have your cries echoed into the wilderness! Long have your stories repeated themselves! Since the beginning of time (or at least, since the birth of AfterEllen.com forums) your voices have rung out, woeful and forlorn: Help! I’m in love with my straight best friend! What should I do? For too long now has the scourge of the enticing but untouchable Straight Best Friend (SBFF) clouded your brains and befuddled your souls. Weep no more my most favourite of “Help!” forum writers, because lo! Your voices have been heard.
The Reason For The Problem:
First of all, there are very few lesbians in the world. Latest estimates have numbered the entire world’s lesbian population at approximately 207. While these numbers may sound shocking I can assure you that they are extremely accurate and up-to-date, having been calculated only three and a half minutes ago by the exclusive and privately funded Ruth Callander Expert Lesbian Research Institute (for those interested in the mathematics involved in reaching this statistic, experts simply counted the numbers of lesbians Ruth knows personally and multiplied it by the number of ex-girlfriends they’ve told her about by name). As a result, once you’ve dated one lesbian, and all their exes and their exes’ exes, you’ve run out of lesbians entirely and must now turn to your straight best friend, all of which the RCELRI predicts will have likely occurred within two years of your gay lady career.
The second reason is due to the apple-cheeked, newly faux-hawked, freshly arrived members of our population: the baby dykes. I’m not talking about just anyone who happens to be under 22, anyone still in braces or anyone who makes me feel creakily ancient in nightclubs by calling Nirvana “retro,” I’m talking about anyone of any age who’s known they’re of the gay lady persuasion for under six months. Yes, I’m looking at you – the slightly shy one standing there in the corner of their first ever gay bar, confused at how a room could contain so many women and yet only one haircut. Maybe, you need a little more time, a little less pressure, maybe some more room for longing and less room for action: A straight girl crush. See, I know you! I’ve been you.
The Only Solution:
The most commonly recommended method of convincing your SBFF that she is gay for you is that of plying your het lady of choice with large quantities of alcoholic beverages. There are multiple reasons for this advice – which comes in various sparklingly intelligent packages such as “the only difference between a straight girl and a lesbian is about five vodkas” – which include the following:
– All the world’s most beautiful, poignant and satisfying romances began when one intoxicated human being slurred beerily at another drunken human being by way of seduction. (See Romeo and Juliet, Bette and Tina, Helen and Nicki.)
– Amongst alcohol’s many other harmless benefits, one of the most well known is its ability to permanently change the sexual orientation of any human being, allowing for full and long-lived romantic relationships, and quite frequently in fact, marriage.
– Every gay lady in the world is dying to be a drunken straight girl’s one night experiment.
– There are no muddy ethical issues involved whatsoever in getting someone drunk in the hope that they’ll sleep with you. For more information, please see “consent.”
Alternative Cures:
Whilst every gay lady knows that it is relentlessly horrible in every single way to be friends with a straight girl at all (what could you possibly talk about if it’s not about Things Lesbian?) you might give it a go. You may find the benefits are quite charming: they’ll never steal your girlfriend, they’ll enjoy feeling drama-free in comparison with your complicated love life, and shopping trips together may help balance out the amount of flannel in your wardrobe.
It’s also true that being attracted to someone means you have no option but to fall in love with them – it couldn’t possibly mean anything else. Otherwise you face the terribly hideous option of having to spend portions of your leisure time with someone good-looking and quite likely their good-looking friends (who for that matter, may exist at various different point along the sexuality spectrum).
If however, you’re still stuck on the idea of falling for a straight girl, please watch Kissing Jessica Stein on loop, which I believe you’ll find to be adequate aversion therapy to inoculate you for life.
Dedicated to my SBFF April. I’m secretly in love with you. Help!
Burning etiquette questions? Tweet Ruth! @RuthCallander
