Your Mother’s Gay Friends

There is a review of the collection of essays called Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True tales of love, lust and friendship between straight women and gay men in the Irish Independent today.

The reviewer, Siobhan Cronin writes:

• The authors, Melissa de la Cruz and Tom Dolby, themselves a perfect example of the type, have assembled an array of well known writers to tell their fag-hag tales.
• They have possibly spotted a gap in the market for us Sex And The City-starved followers of gay culture, left with just the remnants of Will & Grace repeats on Paramount and a sad replacement in Ugly Betty for our gay fixes of witticism and flamboyancy.

The article made me think about my past. Like many urban women with a bohemian side, there have been times in my life when my best friends, my most supportive, and most loving helpers through life have been gay men. I can’t classify all of them under one category. Their friendships have been as unique to me as any others, but the more deeply entrenched I’ve become in my children’s lives (Kindergartens, play groups, staying with my mother on visits home), the less I see them, the less we move in the same circles. In the same way I see less of my single female friends, I see less of my gay male friends.

Luckily, I have hope. I read about trends toward gay marriage and adoption as positive steps our society is taking. Steps that mean our life experiences will converge and intersect again soon. I hope so. I miss you.

Have you been able to maintain friendships with your single friends, gay or straight, since you have become a mother?