The Fag Hag’s Dilemma

Boring

Apologies for my blogging absence.  Have been ill for a few weeks here in London…. Or maybe I’ve just started to fret too much about my disturbingly unbalanced social schedule as a fag hag.  Honestly, it’s starting to get unhealthy!  Take the last weekend of February, for example.  I looked at my calendar and realized in that single weekend I had five separate social engagements with various gay men:

Friday night – Late-night at the Natural History Museum with “Patrick”

Saturday, 1pm – Indoor rock-climbing with “Marcus”

Saturday, 4pm – Coffee with “V”

Sunday, 6pm – Drink with out-of-town gay man “Jacob”

Sunday, 9pm until Monday, 5am – Watching the Oscars with my flatmate “Will”

Ok, I did see a straight friend on Sunday for about 3 hours.  And the house where Will and I watched the Oscars is owned by a straight couple.  So that counts, too. 

But other than that, it was just a packed weekend of gay gay gay.  Some flaming man-whores might even have trouble getting through five gay men in one weekend, but apparently it’s not a problem for me.   

This begs the question: WHAT HAPPENED TO MY STRAIGHT FRIENDS?!!!   The fact is, they have abandoned me.   Only the gays are left.  I would like to clarify that I have not deliberately abandoned my straight friends.  But the sad truth is that by your early 30s, straights have fallen into two camps: the couples and the singletons, and never the twain shall meet.  Except awkwardly, at weddings.  

Evidently, in your 30s you can’t just call up whomever and say “Hey, what are you up to tonight?  Let’s hang out” because everyone else’s social schedule has been couple-ized.   I feel like in our 20s everyone was just rolling around, looking for a crowd to hang out with, people to get drunk with, something to do.  “Hey, random dance party in a crumbling church in the East End.  Let’s go!”  “People I’ve never met before are doing vodka shots in the park tonight!  Let’s go!”  And now in our 30s…. well, everyone just wants to STAY IN and DRINK WINE.  

Enough with the Staying In and Drinking Wine!  For someone who thrives on spontaneity, this is deadening.  Here’s a Note to All People in Couples:  On a Friday night, your single friends don’t really want to stay in and drink wine AGAIN.  They’re just being polite when they accompany you in this activity AGAIN. 

There’s a whole goddam city out there full of things to do, to learn, to experience, new people to meet.  WHY Stay In and Drink Wine AGAIN?  I do that and I won’t be learning anything new, except for maybe what really pisses you off about his mother’s visits and why she needs to be more accommodating of your brother’s weird hang-ups, he’s just trying to give advice, and…. Argh!  This is not interesting!  If anything, it drives me even further from ever wanting to be in a couple!

This is part of the reason why I’m a fag hag: Because all my straight friends have become couple-ized.  I still love them, but many of them seem to have lost their spontaneity, their will to meet new people and discover new scenes.   They seem to have gotten embroiled in the politics and hard work of being in a couple.  Ok, fine, many of my gay friends are now also in couples and increasingly prone to Staying In and Drinking Wine, but I seem to have less trouble getting them off the couch on a weekend night.   I’m not sure what causes the difference.  Maybe it has something to do with breeding and impending parenthood.   Settling down, nesting, losing interest in the outside world, whatever you want to call it.

 Yes, because shortly after the process of Couple-ization, there is Engagement, Marriage, and then, for many, Reproduction.   Ah, yes, starting a family.  It’s like Gremlins.  Once they start multiplying, the deadly process has begun.   Your friends with kids will never call you back.  Or stay out past 7pm.   Or get really, seriously shit-faced.   (Except awkwardly, at weddings.)

This doesn’t mean they are any less fun.  Actually, I take that back.  Let’s be honest, they have become less fun.  But on the plus side, they’ve become mature responsible adults, and well on their way to extending human society for another generation.  In fact, this whole business of reproducing and raising families has been going on for millennia, since before the dawn of human civilization.  So why is it that reproducing seems like anathema to so many of us in our day and age?   What has happened to modern society to cause such a massive divide between the singletons and the couples, the breeders and the non-breeders?   *Whine*… why can’t we all just get along?

Or perhaps there isn’t such a massive divide – we’re just imagining it.  But then I find myself on the couch guzzling Bottle No. 2 of merlot with yet another couple on a Friday night, and I know I’m not imagining it.  The divide is real.

It’s not that I hate straight people.  I don’t.  I am a straight person, for god’s sake!   But I hate what often happens to straight people once they get in couples.   And now, other people being in couples has seriously skewed my social life.  Is that even fair?  The straight people have abandoned me, and  as a result, I am a fag hag.    

I know, I know. Someone at this point will probably say: “Winnie, just you wait.  Someday you’ll meet the right guy and you, too, will lose all interest in the outside world and become boring and will only want to stay in and drink wine on the weekends.”   To which I will say: “Really?  Can’t fucking wait for that to happen.”

Anyway , since I’m nowhere near ever meeting the right guy, that day is still very far off and I might as well continue in my rollicking rampage of faghagdom.  Pump up the ABBA!  Break out the pink champagne!   But — eek!  There is a Scary Disturbing Question hovering over the whole scene.  I ask myself, unwillingly: If I continue to sink even deeper into the life of a fag hag, if I surround myself further with gay men, will that greatly diminish my chances of ever meeting that one right straight guy?

Ooh, sharp intake of breath. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the fag hag’s dilemma.