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“Where it can get confusing for a straight man and a gay man is when they connect on every other level, and then the gay man starts to question, ‘Well if there was just that one other thing, this could be perfect,’ ” Mr. Jason Mills, a gay screenwriter in New York, wrote a short film called “Curious Thing” about the time he lost a straight friend after things briefly turned sexual. Still, as Billy Crystal remarked in “When Harry Met Sally,” it’s difficult for men and women to be friends because “the sex part always gets in the way.” The same can be true between gay and straight men only it gets way more complicated. “Most liberal-minded straight guys today could say they have gay friends, and people wouldn’t bat an eye.”
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“The younger generation understands the spectrum and fluidity of sexuality much more than generations of the past,” said Tom Bourdon, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Center at Tufts University. Although male friends of opposite orientations can face formidable obstacles sexuality, language, peer pressure, inequality there seems to be more mutual appreciation and common ground. And as with all friendships, no two are exactly alike.īut as America’s openly gay minority becomes more visibly interwoven into society a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 4 out of 10 respondents had a close friend or family member who was a gay man or a lesbian the straight world becomes more aware of the gay world. For every sweeping statement one can make about such friendships, there is a real-life counter example to undermine the stereotypes. The kinship between gay men and straight women is familiar to the point of cliché (see: “Sex and the City,” “Will and Grace,” Kathy Griffin’s audience, etc.), but friendships between gay and straight men have barely registered on the pop culture radar, perhaps because they resist easy classification. But do give him credit for overcoming one of the most common deal-killers in friendships between straight and gay men: the awkward crush.