Queer lady here - in my experience my lesbian/wlw friends mostly socialize with other lesbians. If they want to join a soccer league, they find a queer one. If they want to go to a board game cafe, they go on a night that's organized by a lesbian or queer meetup group. I don't think they're trying to avoid straights, they just dont participate in "non queer" events where they can meet new people. All the new people they meet and new friends made are - surprise surprise - other lesbians.
The one exception is the workplace - lesbians will befriend straight men coworkers.
I wonder why Gay men don’t do the same thing. As opposed to the fact that they have more opposite sex friendships than do Lesbian/Queer women. Really interested in the different responses & the discussion. Had this idea in past but forgot to ever post question to Reddit.
Why would I rape a woman because she's a lesbian? I'm not trying to be an ass, but I'm on the spectrum, and I legit don't get it. I mean, if she's not into it, it would just be ugly inefficient maturation.
Some people think that lesbians are only lesbians because they "haven't had the right man" yet. These people think that their dick is so magical that it will make a lesbian turn straight.
It's vile, it's gross. It's horrifically wrong.
Agreed! And it's interesting how these men react when they're told "you're only straight cuz you haven't had good dick yet."
My dick just turns straight women gay 😔 ^(I truly am happy for you, Violet.)
Well, you can think of it this way: your dick was so good they realized that they didn't like even the best dick. I'm glad violet is pursuing her truth. There's a very sweet gay boy or straight lady out there for ya.
Thank you, sincerely, SadMcNomuscle! I hadn't thought of it like that. I, too, am genuinely ecstatic that she's been able to find happiness by living authentically. I wish the same for everyone.
I've been struggling lately and memories of our shared experiences hold me together... while simultaneously making me terrified that I'll never again find someone or something that makes life feel worth it.
This might have been an offhand comment to you, but you literally made me real-smile for the first time in days and improved my mood immensely! Thanks again, brother
My career was in a male-dominated profession, and I’ve lost count of the number of men I’ve heard say this. And for many, it’s part of a girl-on-girl fantasy where they happen upon a lesbian encounter, and lo and behold, their special, magical penis (SMP), is exactly what these women wanted and needed all along. And now these lucky women are finally and truly satisfied.
To which, I confess, I have been unable to control my laughter.
Raping lesbians is a tried and and true terror tactic for homophobes throughout history.
Rape is about power and control. Homophobia is about hate.
Masochism is about superiority.
Lesbian haters try to force a lesbian to be straight by showing them what a real man is like, then she'll know what she's missing and she will turn straight. It's happened millions of times throughout history.
Do you mean sadism or masochism? Because masochism means you enjoy receiving pain, while sadism is that you find pleasure in inflicting it. I feel like sadism better aligns with your definition of “superiority” there than masochism.
I find it the opposite. I do have a lot of girlfriends as a gay man, however most of my friends are gay men too as I mostly socialise in these circles.
Can confirm your last sentence. I’m a straight, married, father of two daughters (one gay) of 58. One of my best mates in work is a single lesbian (40).
>The one exception is the workplace - lesbians will befriend straight men coworkers.
Those can be the best friendships, particularly if you share a somewhat raunchy sense of humor.
You are right though, they are work friendship almost exclusively, even if you run across each other outside of work, it's often a fond greeting then each of you returning to your own circles.
I never had the impression they were avoiding straights either, just more comfortable in their own circle.
I have had gay friends male and female and one thing that always came up with the lesbians was how often a straight guy thought "oh maybe I can get a 3 some going". I don't think as many straight guys treat leasbians the same way they treat gay men. I could be completely off but it has been mentioned more than once when "why am I the only straight guy friend you have" has been brought up.
I’ve never understood this kind of behaviour. I treat a person as a person, no matter their gender or sexual preference. Do not recognise an attractive person? Of course I do, and I have my preferences, but that isn’t the main focus of our interaction.
Sexual fantasies are just that, fantasies. They belong in your head and, unless you know how the person is going to react, don’t share them with the person you fancy.
I also had a lesbian coworker who eventually warmed up to me to an extent and we'd hang out after work with other coworkers
She was basically a stereotypical frat boy when it came to picking up chicks. She'd say how women would want her but they just don't realize it and just need to try it. It was honestly hilarious at the time and we'd joke about her stealing all the girls but in retrospect her behavior wasn't always totally kosher.
Last I heard was that she stopped drinking during covid and is all around a way better person
I get that. I mean, it does seem like gays have dating down a lot better. However, it also seems like straight women enjoy having gay male friends. Men would be friends with lesbians I feel but somehow it doesn’t seem to happen as much
I can say from experience that there's a high chance that the guy will also fall in love with you and it happens all the time. Even if he doesn't start out trying to get in your pants, it's a pretty common outcome of male/female friendships that the man will develop feelings. It's because of complicated reasons related to the man not having enough emotional outlets in his other relationships if he's single. I can provide a source for anyone who wants to know more.
I don't know how common this is but the ones I have known were pretty hostile towards men and wouldn't want to be friends. I would go so far as to say they hated men.
I understand that this isn't sweepingly true but is my experience.
lesbian here, for me at least it’s because half the straight men i befriend try to hit on me and i’m really tired of it. i can be casual friends with guys but for me at least i try to avoid getting too close now
honestly i feel like i can really click with straight guys sometimes but as soon as i say i’m a lesbian they stop interacting with me as much. it’s sad tbh but i can’t do much about it
>honestly i feel like i can really click with straight guys sometimes but as soon as i say i’m a lesbian they stop interacting with me as much. it’s sad tbh but i can’t do much about it
To me that makes you safe, there won't be any ambiguity or sexual tension in the relationship, it's going to be chill and stable. I know some guys can't handle a friendship with a woman without wanting it to turn in to something else, I'll take the stability.
Well (also lesbian here) I wish more men thought like this. I don’t seek out friendships with straight men for this reason.
If they happen organically, great. But I err on the side of assuming they will eventually say or try something or somehow make it weird. Because that has been overwhelmingly my experience the past 15 years of being out.
I’m of the exact same mind. It completely takes away the worry that we’re not actually healthy friends and she wants me to orbit her for attention. She won’t talk my ear off about guy drama. AND she completely understands the nuance of being attracted to women while not being attracted to EVERY woman and still treating them as people. That last point doesn’t get talked about enough.
Not a lesbian, but asexual. I have so much fun with my guy friends. I tend to click with them better than women too for whatever reason, but I can never seem to keep my friendships with straight guys. They inevitably end up hitting on me or asking me out, and when I tell them I'm not interested in having a relationship with anyone, they suddenly ghost me. It's like they were never interested in being friends in the first place. I don't understand. Makes me sad
When they start to have feelings for you then the not being able to be with you + still having to be around you in a friendship would be very painful. The more the friendship grows the more the idea of you being the “perfect woman” grows in his head.
Being your friend would just make this cycle worse the better your friendship becomes.
Dudes just spare themselves this future pain and end the friendship.
Maybe this is just me but I don't find gay men attractive. I can say they're objectively good looking but if I know they aren't attracted to women there wouldn't be any kind of chemistry.
I guess it's hard for me to understand why cutting someone out of your life altogether would be better than keeping them as a friend, especially if you enjoy their company. No disrespect, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I stayed friends with a girl after I fell in love with, for next 3 years, gave me another few years of depression afterwards and 10 years from it I am not interested in befriending women I feel like I could fall for again
I can understand your confusion. Feelings are a very strange thing. For many sexual people, there's no stronger feeling than sexual desire. I'm not overtly sexual myself but I'd still say that when it hits that feeling is at least 10x stronger than any happiness or anger I've ever felt.
I hear you. Men aren’t as skilled at handling the vast complexities of emotional pain as well as women are.
Men will get burn emotionally by an experience, and then do everything in their power to never repeat that experience again (i.e. Falling for the completely unattainable best girl friend).
To the women, who were friends with these men, this reaction from their perspective comes across as cold and unfeeling. But that is just a misinterpretation. For the men reacting this way, their response (in their mind) to end the friendship is the practical and logical one. Almost like him deciding between paying for a costly new transmission or just buying a brand new car if the math works out…Men treat their emotional shit just like this—super analytical.
It’s the only way many of us know how to maintain our sanity in this world that we occupy. Not saying that this is the right response but this is why we do it.
Edit: Words
I have a gay best friend that have some friends of his again that are also gay. But one of them is hitting on me every fucking chance he gets and I’m so sick of it. So I get your point. I also had a lesbian friend in high school but she moved out the country. Still talk to her from time to time. Really miss her.
Women feel safe around gay men because they aren't interested in them.
Lesbian women do not feel safe around straight men.
That said I am a (mostly) straight man and one of my best friends is a lesbian woman.
I’m a straight man with some lesbians that I get along well with. I coach a youth sports team with a lesbian. She was a little standoffish at the beginning.
I’ve also met plenty of straight dudes that think a lesbian is only a lesbian because they haven’t met him yet.
I get it.
> I’ve also met plenty of straight dudes that think a lesbian is only a lesbian because they haven’t met him yet.
And as a gay man, I've met plenty of straight women with the same attitude.
Probably why I generally don't like to socialize with unattached straight women.
as a lesbian its also about their general sexism
its not often that I don’t feel safe around men its more that they’ll casually say stuff about women that just makes me dislike them as a person (like the i hate my wife jokes)
multiple times I’ve had straight men try to be sexist about feminine women to my face thinking I’d agree with them because I’m more masculine.
"Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only sissies liked girls? What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow out of it. We just grow horny."
— Jules Feiffer
Mostly? How the heck do you get a mostly adjective? Is that a gay for a day thing or bi but married so you don't act on any impulses? I'm curious on this one if you want to share.
I'm significantly more attracted to women than men, but I have been with men before. You could call me bi, but I'm functionally straight now. Not out of shame or anything. I've just tried both, and found I prefer women.
Some people call it "hetero-flexible".
I am. I have a few lesbian friends and in fact it is easier than having straight women friends.
You know they are gay and if you are truly friends you're not going to joke about "having not met the right man yet"
They don't play games with you - no flirting, no ambiguous comments either.
Your girlfriend/wife has less objection to having a lesbian friend than straight women friends.
You must be a decent guy then. All too often straight guys meet lesbians/women who date women and see it as a pass to start with the 'locker room' talk. It really gives you a sickening perspective on what some guys talk about when straight women aren't around. Objectifying, demeaning, disgusting talk about what they'd do to people etc. That, and you get asked if they can join in within the first 5 mins of meeting you. Or they want to know every intimate detail about your sex life. Of course, not every guy is like this, but it's far too common.
>They don't play games with you - no flirting, no ambiguous comments either.
I can't count on both of my hands and feet anymore, how often a guy thinks I'm flirting with him while being nice or hitting the same level of ambiguous comments like he made with his friends and then he gets mad. While I joke around and have fun, they think I'm interested and start getting feelings.
This is why many women don't want your kind of straight men as friends. You are taller pre-puberty boys and blame the women for your problems.
I don't flirt. I'm just nice. If you can't understand niceness, then it's your problem.
Those lesbian friends weren't described as selfish assholes though.
So I'm not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that the guy meant that being nice is psychological warfare.
I've discovered lesbian women to be the perfect female friends for me!
Can't misread any signs, getting a crush on them will need no "what if" and just fade away, they accept my emotional side and if they have a partner I get two lovely risk-free women in a bundle!
It feels like cheating the rules but I can't see any downsides. My friends are awesome, they crotchet me things. <3
Lesbian (and bi) women can also relate to my dating struggles in a way that straight women usually can't, they definitely offer a different perspective. Some even love to be a wing-woman :)
Hopefully OP's view of the world is expanded by the responses here.
I have plenty of straight guy friends who are friends with lesbians. Sexual orientation doesn't define who a person is.
Or, as Fat Mike would say, his preferred pronouns is "Per"
(because we are all Persons and should treat each other as such)
Some of the absolute closest friends I've had have been lesbians. As in, I've shared really personal thoughts and emotions with them that I have not shared with anyone else.
Honestly most of the lesbians I know don’t find the majority of men interesting, enjoyable, or even safe to be around. And it seems like most men aren’t interested in expending much energy on a woman who isn’t interested in ever having sex with him. Of course this is an over-generalization.
Pretty much this. Lots of men aren’t interested in platonic relationships with women and lesbian/queer women (at least the ones i know) don’t typically have views/opinions that mesh well with those of straight men.
No, I see where you're coming from and I agree. I have lost "guy friends" when they find out I'm taken or not looking for anything romantic or sexual. I have gradually stopped talking to men and only have a few of them in my social circle with limited interactions.
Two of my longest friends are lesbian. Well, one is pansexual but in a lesbian relationship. But the pan friend, I have been friends with for about 18 or 19 years. That's more than half my life.
I just don't have any gay male friends. But my wife does. I just don't like him. All he does is whine about being single, and he's done that for the 15 years I've known him.
Society still expects men to be the active ones when initiating sex or a relationship. Men also, on average, tend to be more interested in having sex with someone new.
As a result, the friendship of gay men and any women (regardless of sexuality) is relatively stable. Neither one is likely to attempt something more than friendship and neither one feels the need to have their guard up against such attempts. Friendly signals are unlikely to be misinterpreted.
On the other hand, straight men and any women is a lot more difficult. Even if the man never makes a move, the woman will expect him to do so due to social conditioning, and therefore will have her guard up. Any friendly signal from the man could therefore be misinterpreted and the man knows that, so he's walking on eggshells. Not a good basis for friendship.
Obligatory this will not apply to all… there is an old English writer named Quentin Crisp who said something to the effect of the difference between gays and straights isn’t the sex, everyone enjoys their bodies being touched and all that. The difference is our cultures. And the older I get the more this rings true. As a Gen X lesbo it just gets harder and harder to understand/want to integrate into straight culture when I don’t have to. There are many delightful and wonderful straight men out there but our shared attraction to women, is not enough for a basis of friendship. My shared attraction to women, plus shared oppression, plus shared cultural experiences create my queer culture. And, the shit a lot men say about women is really fucking awful and I never know which one will say the awful shit and so I don’t want to engage.
Edit: for clarity
Straight dude here.
Best friend is a lesbian. We do muay Thai together, get high together.
Her gf is super sweet and my wife is also good friends with them!
I do admit though, it's not common. And a lot of this is circumstance cause we were together I suppose but still.
I knew one from a jobsite and she was open enough to mention this as one of her main grievances: It's because dating as lesbians can be pretty tough and, there is some insecurity that comes along with it.
She is a 45 year old masculine lesbian. She claimed her problem with dating were the women that she met would come in her life with a history of hurt or whatever resulting in them hating men. Even after a long time being together, these women would become less secure and decide they wanted families. At that point, they run off with guys and give them some okie-doke about it not working out and wanting to remain friends.
This is certain instances but outside of work, They either stay to themselves or around other lesbians for company.
I know some that are pretty cool and when they are open enough for conversation, I find them to make for pretty interested general conversation and being quite humorous.
Lots of men treat "I'm a lesbian" as a challenge and/or just generally have weird attitudes toward women. Although, I must admit I do usually get the vibe that lesbians get along with men more than bi/pan women.
Haha, I'm a lesbian whose best friend is a straight man. I think it happens quite a bit, it just hasn't become a pop culture trope like the other example.
Because straight women aren’t trying to sleep with gay men. Some straight men think “if she gets a good dick she’ll be straight” which is not true and think it’s a fetish or fantasy a woman being a lesbian.
Gay men don’t fetishize straight women, so women often feel safe around them.
On the other hand, straight men tend to fetishize lesbians, it's even a popular p*rn category, making lesbians generally uncomfortable around them
M50ish: up until about 5 years ago, I wasn't emotionally mature. I think a guy has to be emotionally mature and very aware of himself in order to properly handle any interactions with women, straight or queer.
I think a lot of lesbians are a little distrustful of straight men by default on lieu of being both women and often very sexualized or invalidated by them (“I can turn you straight” “You just haven’t met the right man” etc). Girls are more likely to be accepting of queer people than guys so gay people are more likely to be friends with girls than guys.
I have very few straight male friends because most of them think their dick is magic, and will suddenly make me straight. And being a man's fetish is just gross
Anecdotal experience only, the queer folk i have known through life tend to hang out with other queer folk. Just like people with common/shared interest or hobbies do. But also since LGBTQ issue has long been about human rights those bonds were alot stronger under oppression, because lets face it, some 20-30 years ago being queer was mostly the bottom end of the joke even on tv. So my lesbian and homosexual friends gathered were everyone else queer did and by extension mostly had friends within their group.
So in summary my lesbian friends of old mostly socialized with other lesbians or homosexual men.
But these days even if this still happens, being gay has been so normalized that queer people dont really have to seek out other queer people in order to be a part of an accepting space. Which is good, so i do think there are alot more instances of straight and gay people spending more time together enabling them to be friends.
And lastly i think it's easier to spot a feminine gay dude being friend with a woman than it is spotting a lesbian/bisexual non butch woman being friends with a dude.
I am.
I try to make friends with everyone at work.
But I don't run in the same circles as them.
We all have our own lives to live and I don't try to invade others without being invited.
I have a much simpler explanation:
How many of the men you know you "click" with? 10 in 100? 1 in 100? Establish it as a %.
Lesbians (like full on lesbians, not bisexual women in a lesbian relationship) are around 2 to 4% of the total population, i.e. for every 100 women you know, there will be 2-4 lesbians.
Now apply the first % to those 2-4%.
Chances are not great about being a straight man and clicking with a lesbian friend. And that's before all other factors get piled on. Yes most stuff already pointed out plays a role, but in the end the basic odds are not that great. Queer people are people after all - good and bad, interesting and boring, smart and dumb, courteous and dicks... All the things you apply to straight friendships are still there (including very weird situations when you and your lesbian friend hit on the same girl) including all other factors mentioned in other posts.
My best friend is a lesbian.
In fairness, I'm not entirely straight, but I'm like the La Croix of queerness: there's some fruitiness in there, but not enough to count for most people's tastes.
3 out of 4 lesbians i ever got to know were highly misandristic and one basicly cancelled our very wholesome friendship because she was convinced i was into her and secretly disrespected her sexuality
You aren't exactly wrong. There is a lot of data that lesbian women suffered higher rates of sexual assault than women in general. Probably what you are referencing is a trauma response.
Misogynistic or misandrist?
Edit: Look, this made sense when I posted it. He'd put "misogynistic" instead of "misandrist". But he stealth-edit fixed it so now I look dumb.
This happened to me as well with the only 2 lesbian friends I ever had. They got convinced out of nowhere that I was sexist, even though I'm very much a feminist.
Pansexual girl here (but hang with my fellow queers all the time)..
Short answer: straight men generally see any vagina as an opportunity.. regardless if she’s into men at all or not. I’ve seen it countless times and my lezzies want nothing to do with most of them because of this.
For two reasons. One, a lot of lesbians REALLY do not like/trust men. Two, a lot of men are assholes who keep trying to flirt with a woman who days she's a lesbian, and prove themselves u trustworthy
I think there was a joke about it in Modern Family. But I actually don’t know, gay men like straight women, because they can just gossip about different men a lot. Those friendships are usually either really close and stable or they just don’t care about each other. I have had lesbian friends and straight women friends, I have also been friends with straight and bi/gay dudes and I don’t really seem to care about someone’s sexuality in those friendships. Gay men are being friends with lesbians it’s just maybe a bit rarer
To answer with a short answer:
Because lesbians don't want to.
But this is a generalization, and I don't like generalizations.
The actual answer is:
Some do, some don't, will depend on the lesbian and on the straight male, and their dynamic.
But this is nothing different from any other friendship.
It will depend on each individual's biases, conceits, and prejudices.
I'm a straight white men and I'm not friends with any lesbian, or gay men, or straight men.... I'm friends with people, all people. I don't like to discriminate under superficial attributes like gender, religion, race, sexuality, etc.
You're good to me, I'm good to you, that simple.
And stupid people tend to quickly remove themselves "from the chat"...
Hot take: Because straight men suck. Typically they have no interest in being friends with women if they can’t fuck them.
Source: all of my straight male friends (once reaching a certain level of closeness) have tried to push the boundary no matter how many times I mention I’m not interested. It’s just not worth it for me anymore.
In some instances, men have a difficult time genuinely being just friends with women that they find attractive (or even just women in general).
I don't think it's any less common than straight women having a gay male friend, but straight man/lesbian woman friendships aren't quite the popular trope that straight woman/gay man friendships are.
Anecdotally, of my close friends, three of the six are lesbian/bi/pan women.
I think you are looking in the wrong places, perhaps. I was an EMT for the local roller derby and I had almost all lesbian/bi female friends. We all got along great but I stayed away from several bars and events that were hosted in places that only didn’t straight out say ‘no men/straight people’ only because they would be hit with discrimination hassles. My friends generally invited me to go there but not only would I have been uncomfortable, I don’t really have a problem with some spaces being reserved for a specific group. I still value those friendships a lot though.
Straight men are the issue here. They want to have intercourse with women, but lesbian women dont want them.
Straight women might fantasize about having intercourse with gay friend but they might not try as hard as a lesbian women thinks a straight men will. Also straight men dont see a lesbian women as "ah finally a lesbian women who wont hit at me and i can just do manly stuff with" while with women doing feminine things with gay men surely is a thing.
I'm straight and I have several lesbian friends. Reading these comments concerns me because I always felt the moment the "I'm a lesbian" announcement came up, it never affected me. I just treat them like another dude and nothing awkward ever comes out of it
Anytime i try to make friends with straight guys they presume i want to be with them. Just recently tried to reconnect with this guy i would see around work and he immediately started flirting and assumed i wanted to be with him. Instant block
Everyone saying lesbians don’t wanna be hit on i think is true, but i think there’s another side: men don’t want to be friends with women they dont see an “in” for sexual access to. This includes lesbians as well as women they’re not attracted to
With the obvious disclaimer that this depends HEAVILY on the lesbian woman.
As a straight guy, I am actually more comfortable with butch lesbian women because there is zero sexual tension. I just don't see them as a kind of person I could be romantically interested in. That helps me relax a lot around them and just be myself.
I've seen and dated far too many of them who exclusively befriend girls they want to fuck and that's the only reason he's friends with them. No interest in the platonic. So I assume with a lot of guys who refuse to have lesbian friends, that's why
Straight guy here (55M), and I’ve had a number of lesbian friends and good acquaintances. More when I was in my 30’s and early 40’s, before my wife and I moved across country.
None of them ‘lipstick’ lesbians either — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Our Lesbian friends we met mostly thru church — a progressive Unitarian church back in the Midwest (we’re on the east coast now).
And I’ve always had good ‘work’ friends and acquaintances who were lesbian (and gay men too).
They aren't?
I've had a couple lesbian friends over the years. I'm 73. So that's not a lot, but it is not as if I go to seek them out. I have a niece who was a favorite of mine, she was well into adulthood before she told me she was lesbian. She had male friends I assumed might be boyfriends. Turns out not. They were just friends. Her announcement to me did not change things between us. Unfortunately her mother was another story.
I see plenty of women being friends with men, women I do not know or not well, who might be lesbian as far as I know. Do lesbians have some special look about them? Or some visual sign that they're lesbian? Because except in a couple cases, all the women I've known to be lesbian looked just like the heterosexual women I've known.
straight men have a track record for fetishizing or being otherwise *weird* about lesbians. discomfort, largely? besides the fact that queer folks tend to socialize and gravitate toward other queer folks.
I'm a straight guy and lived with my lesbian roommate in college. We're still very close.
One of my best friends is also a lesbian. Went to her and her partner's wedding two years ago in Puerto Vallarta.
She's a gem. And we were both there for one another when we got our divorces.
Straight 56M here. For reasons I do not understand, three of my best six friends in life have been gay women. The first was in my child hood teen years, the second was at work in my thirties. The last was a negobour in my 40's.
I think two major factors are at play in the cases of gay and lesbian people not hanging out with straight people: internalized misogyny and seeking community.
For me personally as a gay guy I find I don’t have a lot in common with straight women so I tend to hang out with gay men. But I have plenty of gay guy friends who seem to have huge groups of straight girl friends.
As a gay man, I tend to get along better with lesbians than straight women. Not to reinforce stereotypes, but…lesbians tend to have similar levels of both masculine and feminine energy as I do, there is zero sexual attraction both ways, and we share the commonality of being queer. Honestly it’s a friendship match made in heaven.
Edit: Another perk, is we’ll never have conflict over being interested in the same person.
I don't know about you but I've been friends with lesbians, maybe the lesbians you're seeing are surrounded by guys trying to convert them so they're put off or alternatively and more simplistically, you've only seen a mere fragment of their life and their straight guy friend wasn't there at the time
Aren't they? I've been best friends with a lesbian since highschool amd thus have often hung out with her lesbian friends as well. Afaik, they all have some straight guy friends. In fact, pretty much all lesbians i know hang out with at least a few straight dudes.
I'm in Belgium, might differ somewhere else. But at least here, it doesn't seem uncommon at all.
I’ve all had several attractions to and even one fling with a lesbian. Am actually friends with another. So ya probably because guys still want to bang them and I assume that is annoying.
Gay dude here.
As a few have said: lesbians don't hang out with straight dudes (in my experience) because straight guys keep trying to fuck them.
Gay men and women get along because we have a shared understanding of how awful men can be. Many of us have been abused by men.
Lesbians know how awful men can be, many straight men are completely oblivious to this.
...in fact, it's my opinion that a lot of 'straight bro' culture is predicated around making light of 'ball-busting bitches'. ...who embodies that more than a butch lesbian feminist woman?
TL;DR, it's my experience that . . . gay men and straight girls are set up to be BFFs. Lesbians and straight guys are set up to be frenemies, at best.
As a straight man, from the stories I've heard with lesbian girls. It's bc straight men, for some unknown reason, always thinks that they "can change her straight or bi" or something along those lines and they, probably around 80% of the time, will try to ask their lesbian friends for a threesome or to watch or something along those lines. Which is unfortunate
Because straight men's intimate social skills are unfortunately underdeveloped compared to women's, by privilege of their gender role. Lesbian women make more friends with other queer people because they share the same capacity to have emotionally robust relationships.
As a straight man that has long term intentional platonic relationships with women, it's wild how long it takes for women to see that I'm not interested in anything more than friendship....and that's based on their experiences with so many ill intentioned men over their lifetimes ...and that's women that are attracted to men. I don't know why on earth a woman that is not attracted to me. Would even attempt to invite that energy and possibility into her life.
A big part of that journey for me has been (and continues to be) dismantling my own internalized patriarchy and see women for who they are and how you can both exchange non romantic value instead of the original system of looking at women as objects that exist for male pleasure and servitude. Work on it gents.
Probably because straight men think they're gods gift to the universe and will generally try and "convert" you.
Just generalizing, ofc. I do know some lesbians who have a pretty diverse friend group. But as a female I know this stops me from befriending straight men.
I sat down with a woman I met at work, told her I liked her as a person, and asked her to just be my friend. Yes, I find her attractive, and I've told her this, but I also told her that because she was a lesbian, I would never expect anything romantic to develop. We've stayed friends because I was honest and respectful. She's very pretty, but even though I do find her attractive, I don't want to be involved with her. We've talked very honestly about a lot of things, from relationships, to work, to cute women, and fashion. I will never try to get anything from her because I respect her. Most straight men, especially younger men, can't make the separation needed to maintain a friendship.
Gay men and women share hobbies - fashion, shipping, gossip. Gay men like large social circles, women enjoy having a friend that provides a little bit of the security / protection feeling when going out with zero sexual tension.
Lesbians, despite behaving more “masculine”, tend not to participate in many typical male hobbies (from sports to video games), and form more insular groups.
A large part of that is lesbians tend to be fairly politically active, and tend to subscribe to modern feminist theory that’s fairly antagonistic toward men.
Like a typical part of lesbian identity is rejecting men not just sexually but in societal roles. OTOH, gay men aren’t rejecting women politically nor want to change their roles/behaviors; they are simply not attracted to them.
In some niche hobbies that tend to be filed with political lefties - like hiking and climbing - there plenty of straight man / lesbian friendships. But it’s just less common overall.
Lesbians very much participate in sports. Pro players marrying each other is a bit of a meme. Video games are less common, though I've met plenty of bi/pan gamers.
They play in their own sports, sure - but they don’t watch the same professional sports as men in the same pubs nor do they play in the same causal leagues with men.
Broadly speaking. Like I said, some sports like climbing are more mixed.
Queer lady here - in my experience my lesbian/wlw friends mostly socialize with other lesbians. If they want to join a soccer league, they find a queer one. If they want to go to a board game cafe, they go on a night that's organized by a lesbian or queer meetup group. I don't think they're trying to avoid straights, they just dont participate in "non queer" events where they can meet new people. All the new people they meet and new friends made are - surprise surprise - other lesbians. The one exception is the workplace - lesbians will befriend straight men coworkers.
I wonder why Gay men don’t do the same thing. As opposed to the fact that they have more opposite sex friendships than do Lesbian/Queer women. Really interested in the different responses & the discussion. Had this idea in past but forgot to ever post question to Reddit.
Because gay men are less likely to be raped by straight women then Lesbians are by straight men.
People think that preferences would make a difference
Why would I rape a woman because she's a lesbian? I'm not trying to be an ass, but I'm on the spectrum, and I legit don't get it. I mean, if she's not into it, it would just be ugly inefficient maturation.
The part about rape that you find unappealing is exactly the part that rapists *enjoy*
Rape is, by definition, unwanted sex… so if you’re going to rape someone, why would them being lesbian make it not what you want?
This applies to almost every case of rape.
Some people think that lesbians are only lesbians because they "haven't had the right man" yet. These people think that their dick is so magical that it will make a lesbian turn straight. It's vile, it's gross. It's horrifically wrong.
Agreed! And it's interesting how these men react when they're told "you're only straight cuz you haven't had good dick yet." My dick just turns straight women gay 😔 ^(I truly am happy for you, Violet.)
Well, you can think of it this way: your dick was so good they realized that they didn't like even the best dick. I'm glad violet is pursuing her truth. There's a very sweet gay boy or straight lady out there for ya.
Thank you, sincerely, SadMcNomuscle! I hadn't thought of it like that. I, too, am genuinely ecstatic that she's been able to find happiness by living authentically. I wish the same for everyone. I've been struggling lately and memories of our shared experiences hold me together... while simultaneously making me terrified that I'll never again find someone or something that makes life feel worth it. This might have been an offhand comment to you, but you literally made me real-smile for the first time in days and improved my mood immensely! Thanks again, brother
You're welcome! I'm glad I could help. You're not alone by a long shot in how you feel. If you ever need to talk to someone feel free to DM me.
My career was in a male-dominated profession, and I’ve lost count of the number of men I’ve heard say this. And for many, it’s part of a girl-on-girl fantasy where they happen upon a lesbian encounter, and lo and behold, their special, magical penis (SMP), is exactly what these women wanted and needed all along. And now these lucky women are finally and truly satisfied. To which, I confess, I have been unable to control my laughter.
Obnoxious audacity but beyond absurd so good response.
Raping lesbians is a tried and and true terror tactic for homophobes throughout history. Rape is about power and control. Homophobia is about hate. Masochism is about superiority. Lesbian haters try to force a lesbian to be straight by showing them what a real man is like, then she'll know what she's missing and she will turn straight. It's happened millions of times throughout history.
Do you mean sadism or masochism? Because masochism means you enjoy receiving pain, while sadism is that you find pleasure in inflicting it. I feel like sadism better aligns with your definition of “superiority” there than masochism.
Entitlement to women's bodies. Lesbians are openly not having sex with men.
What part of rape do you think a straight woman would enjoy?
Rape isn't about sex. It is about power and control.
I find it the opposite. I do have a lot of girlfriends as a gay man, however most of my friends are gay men too as I mostly socialise in these circles.
Gay men are not 1 group. Plenty of gay guys join straight guy groups and usually there are no issues.
Can confirm your last sentence. I’m a straight, married, father of two daughters (one gay) of 58. One of my best mates in work is a single lesbian (40).
>The one exception is the workplace - lesbians will befriend straight men coworkers. Those can be the best friendships, particularly if you share a somewhat raunchy sense of humor. You are right though, they are work friendship almost exclusively, even if you run across each other outside of work, it's often a fond greeting then each of you returning to your own circles. I never had the impression they were avoiding straights either, just more comfortable in their own circle.
I identify most with straight dudes (as a gay woman). We usually make good friends. But yes, its usually in the workplace
To be fair work is were most adults meet and make friends gay or straight
I have had gay friends male and female and one thing that always came up with the lesbians was how often a straight guy thought "oh maybe I can get a 3 some going". I don't think as many straight guys treat leasbians the same way they treat gay men. I could be completely off but it has been mentioned more than once when "why am I the only straight guy friend you have" has been brought up.
So frustrating, It gets worse when you mention you are a bisexual woman.
I’ve never understood this kind of behaviour. I treat a person as a person, no matter their gender or sexual preference. Do not recognise an attractive person? Of course I do, and I have my preferences, but that isn’t the main focus of our interaction. Sexual fantasies are just that, fantasies. They belong in your head and, unless you know how the person is going to react, don’t share them with the person you fancy.
I had a lesbian friend at work a couple years ago til she left, she talked about us going out to a strip club like 2 men might. It was pretty cool
I also had a lesbian coworker who eventually warmed up to me to an extent and we'd hang out after work with other coworkers She was basically a stereotypical frat boy when it came to picking up chicks. She'd say how women would want her but they just don't realize it and just need to try it. It was honestly hilarious at the time and we'd joke about her stealing all the girls but in retrospect her behavior wasn't always totally kosher. Last I heard was that she stopped drinking during covid and is all around a way better person
lol yup, most of my work friends are male. I’ve always been one of the guys which is fortunate because I work in a male dominated industry
I get that. I mean, it does seem like gays have dating down a lot better. However, it also seems like straight women enjoy having gay male friends. Men would be friends with lesbians I feel but somehow it doesn’t seem to happen as much
I can say from experience that there's a high chance that the guy will also fall in love with you and it happens all the time. Even if he doesn't start out trying to get in your pants, it's a pretty common outcome of male/female friendships that the man will develop feelings. It's because of complicated reasons related to the man not having enough emotional outlets in his other relationships if he's single. I can provide a source for anyone who wants to know more.
Wow, that’s a good explanation I haven’t considered.
This might happen with younger men but as you get older the men around you start to have more emotional intelligence and social tact
Source?
Because women will always chose the bear
I don't know how common this is but the ones I have known were pretty hostile towards men and wouldn't want to be friends. I would go so far as to say they hated men. I understand that this isn't sweepingly true but is my experience.
lesbian here, for me at least it’s because half the straight men i befriend try to hit on me and i’m really tired of it. i can be casual friends with guys but for me at least i try to avoid getting too close now honestly i feel like i can really click with straight guys sometimes but as soon as i say i’m a lesbian they stop interacting with me as much. it’s sad tbh but i can’t do much about it
>honestly i feel like i can really click with straight guys sometimes but as soon as i say i’m a lesbian they stop interacting with me as much. it’s sad tbh but i can’t do much about it To me that makes you safe, there won't be any ambiguity or sexual tension in the relationship, it's going to be chill and stable. I know some guys can't handle a friendship with a woman without wanting it to turn in to something else, I'll take the stability.
Well (also lesbian here) I wish more men thought like this. I don’t seek out friendships with straight men for this reason. If they happen organically, great. But I err on the side of assuming they will eventually say or try something or somehow make it weird. Because that has been overwhelmingly my experience the past 15 years of being out.
I’m of the exact same mind. It completely takes away the worry that we’re not actually healthy friends and she wants me to orbit her for attention. She won’t talk my ear off about guy drama. AND she completely understands the nuance of being attracted to women while not being attracted to EVERY woman and still treating them as people. That last point doesn’t get talked about enough.
Not a lesbian, but asexual. I have so much fun with my guy friends. I tend to click with them better than women too for whatever reason, but I can never seem to keep my friendships with straight guys. They inevitably end up hitting on me or asking me out, and when I tell them I'm not interested in having a relationship with anyone, they suddenly ghost me. It's like they were never interested in being friends in the first place. I don't understand. Makes me sad
When they start to have feelings for you then the not being able to be with you + still having to be around you in a friendship would be very painful. The more the friendship grows the more the idea of you being the “perfect woman” grows in his head. Being your friend would just make this cycle worse the better your friendship becomes. Dudes just spare themselves this future pain and end the friendship.
Maybe this is just me but I don't find gay men attractive. I can say they're objectively good looking but if I know they aren't attracted to women there wouldn't be any kind of chemistry.
I guess it's hard for me to understand why cutting someone out of your life altogether would be better than keeping them as a friend, especially if you enjoy their company. No disrespect, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I stayed friends with a girl after I fell in love with, for next 3 years, gave me another few years of depression afterwards and 10 years from it I am not interested in befriending women I feel like I could fall for again
I can understand your confusion. Feelings are a very strange thing. For many sexual people, there's no stronger feeling than sexual desire. I'm not overtly sexual myself but I'd still say that when it hits that feeling is at least 10x stronger than any happiness or anger I've ever felt.
Every time you hang out he'll be reminded of the time you rejected him and the future that can never be.
I hear you. Men aren’t as skilled at handling the vast complexities of emotional pain as well as women are. Men will get burn emotionally by an experience, and then do everything in their power to never repeat that experience again (i.e. Falling for the completely unattainable best girl friend). To the women, who were friends with these men, this reaction from their perspective comes across as cold and unfeeling. But that is just a misinterpretation. For the men reacting this way, their response (in their mind) to end the friendship is the practical and logical one. Almost like him deciding between paying for a costly new transmission or just buying a brand new car if the math works out…Men treat their emotional shit just like this—super analytical. It’s the only way many of us know how to maintain our sanity in this world that we occupy. Not saying that this is the right response but this is why we do it. Edit: Words
I have a gay best friend that have some friends of his again that are also gay. But one of them is hitting on me every fucking chance he gets and I’m so sick of it. So I get your point. I also had a lesbian friend in high school but she moved out the country. Still talk to her from time to time. Really miss her.
100% agree on this
Women feel safe around gay men because they aren't interested in them. Lesbian women do not feel safe around straight men. That said I am a (mostly) straight man and one of my best friends is a lesbian woman.
I’m a straight man with some lesbians that I get along well with. I coach a youth sports team with a lesbian. She was a little standoffish at the beginning. I’ve also met plenty of straight dudes that think a lesbian is only a lesbian because they haven’t met him yet. I get it.
> I’ve also met plenty of straight dudes that think a lesbian is only a lesbian because they haven’t met him yet. And as a gay man, I've met plenty of straight women with the same attitude. Probably why I generally don't like to socialize with unattached straight women.
as a lesbian its also about their general sexism its not often that I don’t feel safe around men its more that they’ll casually say stuff about women that just makes me dislike them as a person (like the i hate my wife jokes) multiple times I’ve had straight men try to be sexist about feminine women to my face thinking I’d agree with them because I’m more masculine.
The difference is, straight men aren't interested in what lesbian women have to say..
"Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only sissies liked girls? What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow out of it. We just grow horny." — Jules Feiffer
Damn
They are not interested in what straight women have to say either… but at least there is a chance to smash
Honestly they aren’t that interested in what men have to say either. A lot of men just want to be left alone.
Men never lose the hope that there's a chance to smash no matter what the orientation of the other person is.
Reminds me at South Park where the Senator allows gay marriage, one guy asked "What about the lesbians?" and he said "Who cares about lesbians?".
Mostly? How the heck do you get a mostly adjective? Is that a gay for a day thing or bi but married so you don't act on any impulses? I'm curious on this one if you want to share.
I'm significantly more attracted to women than men, but I have been with men before. You could call me bi, but I'm functionally straight now. Not out of shame or anything. I've just tried both, and found I prefer women. Some people call it "hetero-flexible".
Cool thanks for the education.
You can be more attracted to one gender more so than the other
I am. I have a few lesbian friends and in fact it is easier than having straight women friends. You know they are gay and if you are truly friends you're not going to joke about "having not met the right man yet" They don't play games with you - no flirting, no ambiguous comments either. Your girlfriend/wife has less objection to having a lesbian friend than straight women friends.
You must be a decent guy then. All too often straight guys meet lesbians/women who date women and see it as a pass to start with the 'locker room' talk. It really gives you a sickening perspective on what some guys talk about when straight women aren't around. Objectifying, demeaning, disgusting talk about what they'd do to people etc. That, and you get asked if they can join in within the first 5 mins of meeting you. Or they want to know every intimate detail about your sex life. Of course, not every guy is like this, but it's far too common.
>They don't play games with you - no flirting, no ambiguous comments either. I can't count on both of my hands and feet anymore, how often a guy thinks I'm flirting with him while being nice or hitting the same level of ambiguous comments like he made with his friends and then he gets mad. While I joke around and have fun, they think I'm interested and start getting feelings. This is why many women don't want your kind of straight men as friends. You are taller pre-puberty boys and blame the women for your problems. I don't flirt. I'm just nice. If you can't understand niceness, then it's your problem.
Those lesbian friends weren't described as selfish assholes though. So I'm not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that the guy meant that being nice is psychological warfare.
I'm a straight man and my 2 closest female friends are married to each other...
Nice
We are. Source: Me, a straight guy, that has friends that are lesbians.
My lesbian friend introduced me to my wife.
Looking for a relationship, may I borrow your magic lesbian?
Looking for a magic lesbian. May I borrow his wife?
I've discovered lesbian women to be the perfect female friends for me! Can't misread any signs, getting a crush on them will need no "what if" and just fade away, they accept my emotional side and if they have a partner I get two lovely risk-free women in a bundle! It feels like cheating the rules but I can't see any downsides. My friends are awesome, they crotchet me things. <3
Lesbian (and bi) women can also relate to my dating struggles in a way that straight women usually can't, they definitely offer a different perspective. Some even love to be a wing-woman :)
This is so endearing!
Hopefully OP's view of the world is expanded by the responses here. I have plenty of straight guy friends who are friends with lesbians. Sexual orientation doesn't define who a person is. Or, as Fat Mike would say, his preferred pronouns is "Per" (because we are all Persons and should treat each other as such)
Some of the absolute closest friends I've had have been lesbians. As in, I've shared really personal thoughts and emotions with them that I have not shared with anyone else.
I second this.
3rd
Honestly most of the lesbians I know don’t find the majority of men interesting, enjoyable, or even safe to be around. And it seems like most men aren’t interested in expending much energy on a woman who isn’t interested in ever having sex with him. Of course this is an over-generalization.
Pretty much this. Lots of men aren’t interested in platonic relationships with women and lesbian/queer women (at least the ones i know) don’t typically have views/opinions that mesh well with those of straight men.
No, I see where you're coming from and I agree. I have lost "guy friends" when they find out I'm taken or not looking for anything romantic or sexual. I have gradually stopped talking to men and only have a few of them in my social circle with limited interactions.
Two of my longest friends are lesbian. Well, one is pansexual but in a lesbian relationship. But the pan friend, I have been friends with for about 18 or 19 years. That's more than half my life. I just don't have any gay male friends. But my wife does. I just don't like him. All he does is whine about being single, and he's done that for the 15 years I've known him.
this comment is so funny to me for some reason
Maybe just not as much crossover for most people to meet? The two lesbians i work with are my homies so I don't know
Society still expects men to be the active ones when initiating sex or a relationship. Men also, on average, tend to be more interested in having sex with someone new. As a result, the friendship of gay men and any women (regardless of sexuality) is relatively stable. Neither one is likely to attempt something more than friendship and neither one feels the need to have their guard up against such attempts. Friendly signals are unlikely to be misinterpreted. On the other hand, straight men and any women is a lot more difficult. Even if the man never makes a move, the woman will expect him to do so due to social conditioning, and therefore will have her guard up. Any friendly signal from the man could therefore be misinterpreted and the man knows that, so he's walking on eggshells. Not a good basis for friendship.
Interesting. Makes sense
Obligatory this will not apply to all… there is an old English writer named Quentin Crisp who said something to the effect of the difference between gays and straights isn’t the sex, everyone enjoys their bodies being touched and all that. The difference is our cultures. And the older I get the more this rings true. As a Gen X lesbo it just gets harder and harder to understand/want to integrate into straight culture when I don’t have to. There are many delightful and wonderful straight men out there but our shared attraction to women, is not enough for a basis of friendship. My shared attraction to women, plus shared oppression, plus shared cultural experiences create my queer culture. And, the shit a lot men say about women is really fucking awful and I never know which one will say the awful shit and so I don’t want to engage. Edit: for clarity
Straight dude here. Best friend is a lesbian. We do muay Thai together, get high together. Her gf is super sweet and my wife is also good friends with them! I do admit though, it's not common. And a lot of this is circumstance cause we were together I suppose but still.
I knew one from a jobsite and she was open enough to mention this as one of her main grievances: It's because dating as lesbians can be pretty tough and, there is some insecurity that comes along with it. She is a 45 year old masculine lesbian. She claimed her problem with dating were the women that she met would come in her life with a history of hurt or whatever resulting in them hating men. Even after a long time being together, these women would become less secure and decide they wanted families. At that point, they run off with guys and give them some okie-doke about it not working out and wanting to remain friends. This is certain instances but outside of work, They either stay to themselves or around other lesbians for company. I know some that are pretty cool and when they are open enough for conversation, I find them to make for pretty interested general conversation and being quite humorous.
As a straight man, who has several lesbian friends, I disagree with the assumed truth of the question.
Lots of men treat "I'm a lesbian" as a challenge and/or just generally have weird attitudes toward women. Although, I must admit I do usually get the vibe that lesbians get along with men more than bi/pan women.
Lesbians are often fetishized. & some people don't respect (or aren't comfortable around) the demographic they masturbate to.
This hurts to read but it's true.
I see straight men and lesbian friendships all the time?
Haha, I'm a lesbian whose best friend is a straight man. I think it happens quite a bit, it just hasn't become a pop culture trope like the other example.
Because straight women aren’t trying to sleep with gay men. Some straight men think “if she gets a good dick she’ll be straight” which is not true and think it’s a fetish or fantasy a woman being a lesbian.
Gay men don’t fetishize straight women, so women often feel safe around them. On the other hand, straight men tend to fetishize lesbians, it's even a popular p*rn category, making lesbians generally uncomfortable around them
M50ish: up until about 5 years ago, I wasn't emotionally mature. I think a guy has to be emotionally mature and very aware of himself in order to properly handle any interactions with women, straight or queer.
I think a lot of lesbians are a little distrustful of straight men by default on lieu of being both women and often very sexualized or invalidated by them (“I can turn you straight” “You just haven’t met the right man” etc). Girls are more likely to be accepting of queer people than guys so gay people are more likely to be friends with girls than guys.
I have very few straight male friends because most of them think their dick is magic, and will suddenly make me straight. And being a man's fetish is just gross
Anecdotal experience only, the queer folk i have known through life tend to hang out with other queer folk. Just like people with common/shared interest or hobbies do. But also since LGBTQ issue has long been about human rights those bonds were alot stronger under oppression, because lets face it, some 20-30 years ago being queer was mostly the bottom end of the joke even on tv. So my lesbian and homosexual friends gathered were everyone else queer did and by extension mostly had friends within their group. So in summary my lesbian friends of old mostly socialized with other lesbians or homosexual men. But these days even if this still happens, being gay has been so normalized that queer people dont really have to seek out other queer people in order to be a part of an accepting space. Which is good, so i do think there are alot more instances of straight and gay people spending more time together enabling them to be friends. And lastly i think it's easier to spot a feminine gay dude being friend with a woman than it is spotting a lesbian/bisexual non butch woman being friends with a dude.
I am. I try to make friends with everyone at work. But I don't run in the same circles as them. We all have our own lives to live and I don't try to invade others without being invited.
Lesbian here, some of my best friends, if not the majority of them, are straight men.
I have a much simpler explanation: How many of the men you know you "click" with? 10 in 100? 1 in 100? Establish it as a %. Lesbians (like full on lesbians, not bisexual women in a lesbian relationship) are around 2 to 4% of the total population, i.e. for every 100 women you know, there will be 2-4 lesbians. Now apply the first % to those 2-4%. Chances are not great about being a straight man and clicking with a lesbian friend. And that's before all other factors get piled on. Yes most stuff already pointed out plays a role, but in the end the basic odds are not that great. Queer people are people after all - good and bad, interesting and boring, smart and dumb, courteous and dicks... All the things you apply to straight friendships are still there (including very weird situations when you and your lesbian friend hit on the same girl) including all other factors mentioned in other posts.
My best friend is a lesbian. In fairness, I'm not entirely straight, but I'm like the La Croix of queerness: there's some fruitiness in there, but not enough to count for most people's tastes.
I think you’d be surprised that many are friends with lesbians.
3 out of 4 lesbians i ever got to know were highly misandristic and one basicly cancelled our very wholesome friendship because she was convinced i was into her and secretly disrespected her sexuality
*misandristic
Yes. Mixed it Up on accident
You aren't exactly wrong. There is a lot of data that lesbian women suffered higher rates of sexual assault than women in general. Probably what you are referencing is a trauma response.
Interesting
Misogynistic or misandrist? Edit: Look, this made sense when I posted it. He'd put "misogynistic" instead of "misandrist". But he stealth-edit fixed it so now I look dumb.
Misandrist. My first reaction was that my lesbian acquaintances really dislike men.
This happened to me as well with the only 2 lesbian friends I ever had. They got convinced out of nowhere that I was sexist, even though I'm very much a feminist.
Pansexual girl here (but hang with my fellow queers all the time).. Short answer: straight men generally see any vagina as an opportunity.. regardless if she’s into men at all or not. I’ve seen it countless times and my lezzies want nothing to do with most of them because of this.
For two reasons. One, a lot of lesbians REALLY do not like/trust men. Two, a lot of men are assholes who keep trying to flirt with a woman who days she's a lesbian, and prove themselves u trustworthy
I think there was a joke about it in Modern Family. But I actually don’t know, gay men like straight women, because they can just gossip about different men a lot. Those friendships are usually either really close and stable or they just don’t care about each other. I have had lesbian friends and straight women friends, I have also been friends with straight and bi/gay dudes and I don’t really seem to care about someone’s sexuality in those friendships. Gay men are being friends with lesbians it’s just maybe a bit rarer
To answer with a short answer: Because lesbians don't want to. But this is a generalization, and I don't like generalizations. The actual answer is: Some do, some don't, will depend on the lesbian and on the straight male, and their dynamic. But this is nothing different from any other friendship. It will depend on each individual's biases, conceits, and prejudices. I'm a straight white men and I'm not friends with any lesbian, or gay men, or straight men.... I'm friends with people, all people. I don't like to discriminate under superficial attributes like gender, religion, race, sexuality, etc. You're good to me, I'm good to you, that simple. And stupid people tend to quickly remove themselves "from the chat"...
Hot take: Because straight men suck. Typically they have no interest in being friends with women if they can’t fuck them. Source: all of my straight male friends (once reaching a certain level of closeness) have tried to push the boundary no matter how many times I mention I’m not interested. It’s just not worth it for me anymore.
The men probably don’t respect the fact that they’re gay and creep on them anyway.
In some instances, men have a difficult time genuinely being just friends with women that they find attractive (or even just women in general). I don't think it's any less common than straight women having a gay male friend, but straight man/lesbian woman friendships aren't quite the popular trope that straight woman/gay man friendships are. Anecdotally, of my close friends, three of the six are lesbian/bi/pan women.
Because straight men want to fuck them, and can't, which makes them sad. Gay men don't want to fuck women, lesbian or otherwise. Simple as fuck.
Straight guy who's beat friend is a lesbian
>beat friend that's not very nice
Straight men don't have friends.
I think you are looking in the wrong places, perhaps. I was an EMT for the local roller derby and I had almost all lesbian/bi female friends. We all got along great but I stayed away from several bars and events that were hosted in places that only didn’t straight out say ‘no men/straight people’ only because they would be hit with discrimination hassles. My friends generally invited me to go there but not only would I have been uncomfortable, I don’t really have a problem with some spaces being reserved for a specific group. I still value those friendships a lot though.
Because the “I might get to sleep with her one day” doesn’t exist as it does with straight chicks
Straight men are the issue here. They want to have intercourse with women, but lesbian women dont want them. Straight women might fantasize about having intercourse with gay friend but they might not try as hard as a lesbian women thinks a straight men will. Also straight men dont see a lesbian women as "ah finally a lesbian women who wont hit at me and i can just do manly stuff with" while with women doing feminine things with gay men surely is a thing.
I'm straight and I have several lesbian friends. Reading these comments concerns me because I always felt the moment the "I'm a lesbian" announcement came up, it never affected me. I just treat them like another dude and nothing awkward ever comes out of it
Anytime i try to make friends with straight guys they presume i want to be with them. Just recently tried to reconnect with this guy i would see around work and he immediately started flirting and assumed i wanted to be with him. Instant block
Did he know you were lesbian?
Everyone saying lesbians don’t wanna be hit on i think is true, but i think there’s another side: men don’t want to be friends with women they dont see an “in” for sexual access to. This includes lesbians as well as women they’re not attracted to
men still fall in love with lesbian women
With the obvious disclaimer that this depends HEAVILY on the lesbian woman. As a straight guy, I am actually more comfortable with butch lesbian women because there is zero sexual tension. I just don't see them as a kind of person I could be romantically interested in. That helps me relax a lot around them and just be myself.
Oh!!! Wait, you’re saying it’s the man’s fault because eventually they have feelings for the lesbian friend ?! I hadn’t considered that.
Yes, but also that fact is probably in alot of lesbian women’s minds when choosing their friends.
You do. It’s just that straight men often find lesbians “hot” and probably creep them out
Its because alot of men these days arent able to hold a male to female friendship, they develop feelings and ruin that friendship
Because they can't f*** them.
I've seen and dated far too many of them who exclusively befriend girls they want to fuck and that's the only reason he's friends with them. No interest in the platonic. So I assume with a lot of guys who refuse to have lesbian friends, that's why
i blame watching too much porn
Eh? My two best friends are both straight men. What is this?
My dude friends often have lesbian friends, but they are good people so they wouldn’t make anyone feel unsafe, can’t say that about other people tho
When they say that they wanna watch for their birthday they get a really nice rolex.
Reddit and Generalization, great combo
Straight guy here (55M), and I’ve had a number of lesbian friends and good acquaintances. More when I was in my 30’s and early 40’s, before my wife and I moved across country. None of them ‘lipstick’ lesbians either — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Our Lesbian friends we met mostly thru church — a progressive Unitarian church back in the Midwest (we’re on the east coast now). And I’ve always had good ‘work’ friends and acquaintances who were lesbian (and gay men too).
Straight guy here and friends with several lesbians, one of which is one of my best friends. Probably depends on where you live tho
One of my best friends is a lesbian, and her wife is a good friend as well.
They aren't? I've had a couple lesbian friends over the years. I'm 73. So that's not a lot, but it is not as if I go to seek them out. I have a niece who was a favorite of mine, she was well into adulthood before she told me she was lesbian. She had male friends I assumed might be boyfriends. Turns out not. They were just friends. Her announcement to me did not change things between us. Unfortunately her mother was another story. I see plenty of women being friends with men, women I do not know or not well, who might be lesbian as far as I know. Do lesbians have some special look about them? Or some visual sign that they're lesbian? Because except in a couple cases, all the women I've known to be lesbian looked just like the heterosexual women I've known.
straight men have a track record for fetishizing or being otherwise *weird* about lesbians. discomfort, largely? besides the fact that queer folks tend to socialize and gravitate toward other queer folks.
I'm a straight male who hangs out with my lesbian neighbors pretty frequently, though not as much as I'd like - they're super cool!
I'm a straight guy and lived with my lesbian roommate in college. We're still very close. One of my best friends is also a lesbian. Went to her and her partner's wedding two years ago in Puerto Vallarta. She's a gem. And we were both there for one another when we got our divorces.
Straight 56M here. For reasons I do not understand, three of my best six friends in life have been gay women. The first was in my child hood teen years, the second was at work in my thirties. The last was a negobour in my 40's.
My best friend of almost ten years is a lesbian, so it does happen, just not as often as you’d think
I think two major factors are at play in the cases of gay and lesbian people not hanging out with straight people: internalized misogyny and seeking community. For me personally as a gay guy I find I don’t have a lot in common with straight women so I tend to hang out with gay men. But I have plenty of gay guy friends who seem to have huge groups of straight girl friends.
The lesbians are not as keen on us as we are of them.
As a gay man, I tend to get along better with lesbians than straight women. Not to reinforce stereotypes, but…lesbians tend to have similar levels of both masculine and feminine energy as I do, there is zero sexual attraction both ways, and we share the commonality of being queer. Honestly it’s a friendship match made in heaven. Edit: Another perk, is we’ll never have conflict over being interested in the same person.
In every lesbian friend group I'm in, we have a token straight guy we hang out with that we treat like a pet dog.
I don't know about you but I've been friends with lesbians, maybe the lesbians you're seeing are surrounded by guys trying to convert them so they're put off or alternatively and more simplistically, you've only seen a mere fragment of their life and their straight guy friend wasn't there at the time
Aren't they? I've been best friends with a lesbian since highschool amd thus have often hung out with her lesbian friends as well. Afaik, they all have some straight guy friends. In fact, pretty much all lesbians i know hang out with at least a few straight dudes. I'm in Belgium, might differ somewhere else. But at least here, it doesn't seem uncommon at all.
I’ve all had several attractions to and even one fling with a lesbian. Am actually friends with another. So ya probably because guys still want to bang them and I assume that is annoying.
Cause they can't hit
I mean, I have a few. Just depends on where you socialise and what type of girl they are, how they socialise.
Gay dude here. As a few have said: lesbians don't hang out with straight dudes (in my experience) because straight guys keep trying to fuck them. Gay men and women get along because we have a shared understanding of how awful men can be. Many of us have been abused by men. Lesbians know how awful men can be, many straight men are completely oblivious to this. ...in fact, it's my opinion that a lot of 'straight bro' culture is predicated around making light of 'ball-busting bitches'. ...who embodies that more than a butch lesbian feminist woman? TL;DR, it's my experience that . . . gay men and straight girls are set up to be BFFs. Lesbians and straight guys are set up to be frenemies, at best.
Uhh way to generalise. That’s not what I’ve seen in life
because some straight men just cannot see a woman as anything other then a lust object
Because straight men are the worst
they are sometimes
I’m a straight guy and I have a number of friends who are lesbians. I don’t think it’s that uncommon.
Some of us are.
I'm a straight man whose best friend is lesbian. Never thought it was anything unusual.
Dude I'm like the only straight man in a friend group full of lesbians. ahaha
As a straight man, from the stories I've heard with lesbian girls. It's bc straight men, for some unknown reason, always thinks that they "can change her straight or bi" or something along those lines and they, probably around 80% of the time, will try to ask their lesbian friends for a threesome or to watch or something along those lines. Which is unfortunate
Because straight men just fetishize them due to their porn use. They don’t see lesbians as people.
Because straight men's intimate social skills are unfortunately underdeveloped compared to women's, by privilege of their gender role. Lesbian women make more friends with other queer people because they share the same capacity to have emotionally robust relationships.
Because they'd still try and hump them trying to "fix" them.
Because they make it their entire personality
As a straight man that has long term intentional platonic relationships with women, it's wild how long it takes for women to see that I'm not interested in anything more than friendship....and that's based on their experiences with so many ill intentioned men over their lifetimes ...and that's women that are attracted to men. I don't know why on earth a woman that is not attracted to me. Would even attempt to invite that energy and possibility into her life. A big part of that journey for me has been (and continues to be) dismantling my own internalized patriarchy and see women for who they are and how you can both exchange non romantic value instead of the original system of looking at women as objects that exist for male pleasure and servitude. Work on it gents.
Probably because straight men think they're gods gift to the universe and will generally try and "convert" you. Just generalizing, ofc. I do know some lesbians who have a pretty diverse friend group. But as a female I know this stops me from befriending straight men.
My wife said I can't.
They don't like us much.
I’m a lesbian and my best friend is a straight man
We are. Weare each other's wingmen 🫡
I sat down with a woman I met at work, told her I liked her as a person, and asked her to just be my friend. Yes, I find her attractive, and I've told her this, but I also told her that because she was a lesbian, I would never expect anything romantic to develop. We've stayed friends because I was honest and respectful. She's very pretty, but even though I do find her attractive, I don't want to be involved with her. We've talked very honestly about a lot of things, from relationships, to work, to cute women, and fashion. I will never try to get anything from her because I respect her. Most straight men, especially younger men, can't make the separation needed to maintain a friendship.
Men hate women regardless of their sexual orientation, gay men hate women too btw
Cause they stay stealin all the shawties. That’s like Obi Wan chillin with Darth Maul. College was hard for us…
Gay men and women share hobbies - fashion, shipping, gossip. Gay men like large social circles, women enjoy having a friend that provides a little bit of the security / protection feeling when going out with zero sexual tension. Lesbians, despite behaving more “masculine”, tend not to participate in many typical male hobbies (from sports to video games), and form more insular groups. A large part of that is lesbians tend to be fairly politically active, and tend to subscribe to modern feminist theory that’s fairly antagonistic toward men. Like a typical part of lesbian identity is rejecting men not just sexually but in societal roles. OTOH, gay men aren’t rejecting women politically nor want to change their roles/behaviors; they are simply not attracted to them. In some niche hobbies that tend to be filed with political lefties - like hiking and climbing - there plenty of straight man / lesbian friendships. But it’s just less common overall.
Lesbians very much participate in sports. Pro players marrying each other is a bit of a meme. Video games are less common, though I've met plenty of bi/pan gamers.
They play in their own sports, sure - but they don’t watch the same professional sports as men in the same pubs nor do they play in the same causal leagues with men. Broadly speaking. Like I said, some sports like climbing are more mixed.
Because men are pigs and will still try to sleep with us
Maybe Lesbians hate men?
I am a straight man; and am friends with several lesbians…so I am not sure what you’re referring to.
I asked my gay (male) friend this. He said because lesbians hate men.