fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5348 ]

[ SECRET POST #5348 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5348 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

[Dhux's Scar]

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02.

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03.

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04. [SPOILERS for The Green Knight]

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05. [SPOILERS for Song of Farca]

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06. [WARNING for incest/underage ship]

[Enola Holmes]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #765.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Ehhhh I mean tbh regarding thinking someone is a homophobe or will be uncomfortable. IME, gay people often have to think like that if they're given good reason to believe it.

Bc there are so many cases where gay people have been killed out of so called "gay panic" or just plain homophobia. So I can understand keeping attraction to myself .

If it were a stranger I'd get it but this is talking about long term established friends. Would you be friends for years with someone you think might panic and literally end your life if they found out you're gay? Should you be friends with that person?

Speaking as an actual gay who grew up in a very homophobic place: it's the fact you don't know. You're flipping a coin, and while it could end up bad, it could also end up good, and ending up utterly alone is kind of bad on its own. It ends up a very complicated mess of "coulds" and "maybes" and scares you into paralysis sooner.

As well, you also tend to have a much more limited pool than straights, so there's a big fear about speaking up and losing or "tainting" a friendship that you don't want to lose.

AYRT

I cannot imagine being friends with someone, much less having serious feelings of attraction toward, someone who I am not sure might literally kill me, according to the earlier anon's gay panic example, for having those feelings toward them or someone else. Or someone who might think I'm disgusting for it. The fact that this is possible and that I don't know for sure would turn me right off any affection for them. If I don't know for sure, then they can stay at arms length until they prove whether they're a bigot or not, because as a queer person, I sure am not diving into decades of good friendship without that being on my mind to clear up beforehand.

lol You wouldn't last a fucking day in the Southern areas of the US, where being out can get you killed by strangers still, and yes, you have to worry about your seemingly supportive friends actually being disgusted when they find out that a gay is crushing on them specifically. Your privilege of being in a liberal area is showing to hell and back.

You. You get it. How harrowing it can be.

Oh please. If someone chooses to be picky about their friends they are fully able to do that without being privileged. If it means they'd rather be alone rather than be wary of everyone then that's their choice.

Listen there's "picky" and "miserable and alone to the point of having literally no one around them because you really can't fucking know in the South, because plenty of people SAY they're fine with The Gays until one crushes on them and then they become violent"

It is 100% privileged because it says they never had to make that choice, never had to be 100% alone and isolated and scared. They'd always have SOMEONE.

This is projecting a lot into someone else's personal choices.

And have you considered, since the anon said they were queer, that they had been burnt by this before and therefore is now avoiding the chance of it happening again?

Simply avoiding being friends with people who might turn out that way is a great way to avoid that happening to you. Especially in the South. Even if it means they're lonelier than you personally care to be, or have fewer friends that you personally care to have.

Jumping immediately to "privilege" and assuming people who don't agree with you don't know anything is such a fandom thing to do sigh

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 02:36 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 07:59 (UTC) - Expand

SA

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 08:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: SA

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 16:49 (UTC) - Expand

Re: SA

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 19:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: SA

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 19:49 (UTC) - Expand

Sure, but then logically you'd have to cut ties with everyone who you're not 100% sure is not a homophobe, and that's, well... both sad for you and shitty for all the people you cut out of your life without telling them why.

Re: DA

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 01:16 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DA

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 19:50 (UTC) - Expand

Aren't you also projecting onto that anon? They didn't say anything about being alone. It sounds to me like the reason they can't imagine having to make that choice is because, like many of us, they're fortunate enough not to have to face it.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-28 13:40 (UTC) - Expand

+1

I grew up in Georgia. It was rough as a closeted queer.

Seriously, I had an outspoken queer ally friend who, the moment I confessed, tried to get me fucking expelled.

+1 and I’m baffled that this is even a discussion…

Eh. People stay friends with genuinely shitty people all the time, for years, for the same reasons anyone stays in any relationship (platonic and/or romantic) with meh-to-shitbag range people. Relationships are complicated, people second guess themselves a lot, and very few people can objectively calculate that point where an old friend has become too toxic to stick with, so they remain stagnant.

It's not that hard to imagine staying friends with someone where you're not sure how they'd react to your sexuality and you were too afraid to pull off the band-aid and find out.

These are wise words.

AYRT

This is true, but this is also not the trope that OP is addressing in their secret wherein the friendships are portrayed as wholesome.

If we had been talking about dysfunctional, self-abusive relationships to start with then I wouldn't be agreeing they don't make sense.

Listen, if this past year of racist and anti-vax absurdity has taught me anything, it's for sure that a lot of us didn't know our loved ones as well as we though we did, okay?

A-fucking-men to that

UGH.

There are also different types of homophobia. I grew up in an accepting area where being out was the norm. Now I live very far from there, and I haven't met anyone who is out. I've made new friends, and all of them are straight as far as I know, and if not then they're closeted like me. Nobody I've met is openly homophobic either. They support LGBT+ rights and such and are fans of some queer celebrities and media with queer themes.

I'm not attracted to any of them, but I have reservations about simply coming out to them because they might be the type of homophobes who are uncomfortable actually being around queer people. I'm not going to end a friendship with them over that because - unpopular take but - I don't think that type of homophobia equals bad person. It's internalized over a lifetime and often subconscious, and the people who have it may not even like that they have it. You can't help irrational feelings of discomfort, and you may want them to not exist, but they do anyway. I could come out and hope that if they're uncomfortable at first, they'll loosen up and become more accepting once they get used to the fact that I'm still the same person. Or they could start gradually avoiding me until we're no longer in contact and I'm left friendless again.

Yeah, my mom was one of those kinds of homophobes. She had a best friend when I was younger, they were doing stuff together all the time for years. Then Friend just stopped coming around. I always thought it was kind of weird.

Then when I was in my late teens, I think Mom was trying to feel me out on the subject or something, and almost out of nowhere she was like "Do you think you could be friends with someone who was a lesbian?" and ... uh what? "I mean, I was really good friends with someone once, and then I found out she was a lesbian, and after that I just couldn't think of her the same way. I couldn't be comfortable around her. Like, what if she was attracted to me?"

...Then you tell her you're not interested and both of you move on? Not to mention, married to my dad the whole time they were friends. (I can be pretty sure that's who she meant, because Mom never socialized with anyone else much except people who went to our conservative church, and in hindsight Friend was kinda butch.) For crying out loud, Mom, wtf.

+1, I've been out for a long time and live in a small town and people are *still* all "oh!" when they realise that no, she's my wife. I don't expect violence or even rudeness, but it's still uncomfortable and has greatly reduced my pool of friends.

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