Gay Men and the Confusion of Friendship and Romance

[00:00:01][music] >> Hi, hello, welcome in and welcome back.

[00:00:14]My name is Dustin. This is a podcast called Boy Meets Therapy. And on this podcast we are blending clinical research with real conversations about vulnerability, relationships, friendship, identity, and culture with an emphasis on the LGBTQ+ community.

[00:00:26]Episodes feature solo insights like this one is going to be and in-depth interviews with licensed professionals who share both their expertise and their humanity so graciously with us. They're not going to be here today though. It's going to be just me. And if this is your first time here, hello. My name is Dustin. I am a therapist in New York City. I work with gay men. I work with bisexual men.

[00:00:44]I work with queer men. So, whenever we do this podcast, the approach that we take is typically a mental health topic or a mental health issue or something in society or culture or whatever. And we do the spin on it. We talk about the gay approach. That's what we do. We gayify things here. And I really like to do that because I found that it's really there's not as many platforms available that talk kind of exclusively about these topics that we're so intimately familiar with. Things like relationships.

[00:01:18]Again, things like intimacy, friendships, but specifically from the gay view. So, that's something that I'm really really proud of that we do here.

[00:01:26]So, if you were here for the first time, hello. I'm glad that you're here. That's what we do. If you're back, thank you for coming back.

[00:01:33]And we're going to be talking about something that I've heard a lot about in the past week that I'm really really excited to go into, uh which is essentially we're going to be talking about platonic attraction versus romantic attraction. And we're going to talk about some of the nuances with it. We're going to talk about the differences because a lot of these things are confused.

[00:01:55]And I hear this all the time of I started dating someone, but then we realized that we're just better off as friends, or I had this friend and I'm trying to figure out am I like romantically attracted to them or not? I don't really know. So, there's a lot of things going on that we're going to we're going to dive into. But, first of all, I want to let you know that this is a yap zone, okay? Somebody commented and I've gotten a few comments actually, like there was a comment from Spotify and there was a couple comments from YouTube about how I need to just like yap less and just go right into the issue and just talk about it. And I am physically like incapable of doing that.

[00:02:30]So, if you are interested in kind of a show where someone is just going to come on and they're just going to almost robotically talk about, you know, some of these really complicated issues, that's not going to be this one.

[00:02:44]And I'm just incapable of doing it. So, I hope that we can have a little bit of fun here. I hope that we can have um some silliness. I hope that this can be a show that is educational and that talks about like mental health issues, but is also not stale or sterile, which is what I notice in a lot of typical educational videos, right? It's like I remember in high school kind of dozing off cuz it's like the person talking is like, "Hello. This is the monarch butterfly." And I'm just like physically incapable of doing that. So, if you are here for a little bit of yap, that you're in the right place, okay?

[00:03:24]And if you ever want to yap, I'm a professional yapper. But, I just wanted to throw that out there. I I really try to make an effort to make this something that is not like, you know, nails on a chalkboard when we're we're talking about an issue that is also considered educational, right? Um anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there cuz I've gotten a couple of those comments and I'm like, they're kind of hurting my [ __ ] feelings. And I was like, I talked to my friend about it. My friend was was "Dustin, stop reading the comments."

[00:03:51]Which I normally like try not to do, but I also am realizing that like people interact on the comments and so I want to be able to like interact with people.

[00:03:59]But there was these comments about like, "Talk less. Like get to the point." And I'm like, "No.

[00:04:04]You get to the point, okay?"

[00:04:07]So with that, I'm going to get to the point.

[00:04:08]>> [laughter] >> Okay. So, what do I How do we know what we are feeling, right? One of the questions that I hear really, really often is not necessarily like, "How do I find a relationship?" Which is something that we do hear very often, but it's also like, "How do I know what I'm actually feeling when I'm in a relationship?

[00:04:29]Or when I'm with friends." Maybe you've met someone and you can't stop thinking about them. You get excited when they text you. You look forward to seeing or hanging out with them. You feel disappointed when they cancel plans. You find yourself wanting more of their attention and more of their time.

[00:04:44]Your immediate assumption might be that you are attracted to them, right? I'm into them. I like them.

[00:04:50]But are you?

[00:04:52]On the other hand, maybe you've had the opposite experience. You start dating someone. They're cute. You find You know, you find them attractive. They're kind. They're emotionally available.

[00:05:03]And everything seems to be going really well. You enjoy your time together. The conversation is really easy. The connection is really genuine. Then a few weeks or months into dating, you start realizing that something feels off.

[00:05:15]Something is different. You care about them deeply and you love your time with them, but you don't find yourself thinking about them sexually.

[00:05:23]Physical intimacy feels more obligatory than it does exciting or something that you want to do. You begin wondering whether what you feel is actually romantic attraction or whether you've mistaken friendship and intimacy for something else.

[00:05:37]In both of these situations, the same question kind of pops up. And it is, "How do we tell the difference between platonic attraction and romantic attraction?"

[00:05:46]And it seems like it would be a really easy question to answer.

[00:05:50]Most people assume that they would know the difference immediately. You just know. I just know that this is my friend versus this is someone that I'm romantically interested in.

[00:05:58]In reality, people struggle with this distinction, and they struggle with it a lot all the time. I've struggled with this, and I think there are some reasons why this confusion may be particularly common amongst gay men.

[00:06:12]I see this in gay men all the time.

[00:06:15]Actually, and actually I noticed the comments as well that are like, you can tell what bothers me on this episode. The comments that are like, well, straight people do this, too. Or like, how is this unique to gay men? Like, I hear that so often, and I'm like, okay.

[00:06:30]Um but this is one of those topics that I think is really unique to like queer people, which is distinguishing friendship from attraction. So, let's kind of like jump into it. Why is this a little bit different for us? So, one of the ways that people learn to distinguish friendship from attraction is through repetition.

[00:06:50]Over time, they learn what each experience feels like because they have multiple opportunities to compare them.

[00:06:56]Imagine a straight teenage boy, right?

[00:06:58]We're going to go to this scenario. He has close friendship with another boy, and he has a crush on a girl in his class.

[00:07:05]Friendship and attraction are occurring in completely separate lanes. They're in completely different contexts.

[00:07:12]Over time, he learns that these experiences feel different because they're directed toward different people.

[00:07:19]For many gay men, that separation is not so clear. The boy that you wanted to be friends with may also have been the boy that you had the crush on.

[00:07:27]The classmate that you admired, or you you you you really really had this sense of like awe of, may also been the class have been the classmate that you found attractive.

[00:07:39]The teammate whose approval that you desperately wanted may have also been the teammate that you couldn't stop thinking about.

[00:07:45]Friendship, attraction, admiration, belonging, identification, and longing often become directed towards the same people. As a result of this, many gay men spend years learning that being drawn to another man can mean several different things simultaneously.

[00:08:04]Do I want to be his friend?

[00:08:06]Do I want him to like me? Do I admire him? Do I want to be more like him? Do I want to date him? Do I want to sleep with him? For many of us, these experiences become intertwined from the very beginning.

[00:08:17]The result is that adulthood often becomes a process of learning how to separate them.

[00:08:23]We get older and we start having gay friends or we start having these attractions and we have to determine what is what.

[00:08:31]And there's a little moment here that I want to refer to as a friendship catch-up. So, many people spend years feeling disconnected from other gay men.

[00:08:40]They may have gay acquaintances, casual friendships, or online interactions, but they don't necessarily have deep, emotionally intimate relationships with other gay men.

[00:08:50]And then, something changes.

[00:08:52]Maybe they come out, or they move to a larger city, or they find a certain community in the city that they're in.

[00:08:59]Maybe they simply meet new people who understand experiences that previously felt very isolating to them.

[00:09:05]Suddenly, they're having conversations they've never been able to have before.

[00:09:09]They don't have to explain themselves.

[00:09:12]They don't have to translate their experiences. They are just understood because the person they're talking to just has them.

[00:09:18]The emotional intensity of that experience can be really surprisingly powerful.

[00:09:24]Like, and it's powerful and people people feel this thing and they're like, "Wait a minute. Like, this is actually another person that I can talk to about these issues or these things that are ailing me that they also have experience with." And for a lot of our lives, we're not connected to people like that, right? Like we have to explain certain things or we have to try to alliterate a feeling or we have to try to explain a feeling that we have to someone who might not get it in the same way that somebody who is also gay might get it, right? I It's powerful.

[00:09:58]And people often assume that it's romantic, like this connection that they have with another person that they haven't had. It's deep and I'm and it's genuine and I can really be my authentic self.

[00:10:10]Is this romance? And that could be a good question for someone who has really not understood reciprocal romance in the past.

[00:10:17]I've heard many gay men describe meeting another gay man and becoming preoccupied with them.

[00:10:22]They think about him frequently. They look forward to spending time together.

[00:10:25]They feel hurt when he seems distant or pulls away. And they wonder, do I have a crush?

[00:10:31]Is this a crush Is this what a crush is?

[00:10:33]Sometimes they do, but sometimes what they're experiencing is belonging. Is a sense of belonging. It is intimacy.

[00:10:40]It's the experience of finally having the kind of friendship that they've really wanted for years. And one of the challenges is that these experiences can feel remarkably similar from the inside.

[00:10:52]One of the things that I think we have to go into is a definition of platonic attraction, right? Like if we're going to use these terms and we're going to really understand them, we need to kind of go back to the basics. So, one of the reasons that this topic is confusing is because we rarely actually talk about platonic attraction.

[00:11:10]We we we don't talk about what it means.

[00:11:11]We don't talk about it. We're not talking about friendship as though it's something that simply happens.

[00:11:17]You're either friends with someone or you're not. And if you're wondering what platonic means, it's essentially just a relationship that I have with someone that is not romantic. Like a relationship that I have with friends or a relationship that I have with a co-worker or or These are like relationships. These are relationships that don't involve any kind of sexual or romantic pull.

[00:11:37]And we talk about friendship as though it's something that simply happens, you know, it's like you just you just have it. You just know. You you you either are or you aren't. But most people have experienced being drawn toward a friendship.

[00:11:50]You meet someone and immediately [clears throat] you want more of them in your life.

[00:11:55]You want to spend time together. You want to talk. You want to know what they think. You look forward to seeing them.

[00:12:01]You miss them when they're gone. You feel excited when they reach out to you.

[00:12:04]That's a platonic attraction.

[00:12:06]And the issue here is that many of those experiences sound very similar to the way that people describe romantic attraction, right? It it seems the same thing. And that's because friendship and romance have far more overlap than we acknowledge. They are very similar in more ways than we talk about. Both of them involve some sort of affection, care, emotional intimacy, attachment, excitement, vulnerability. Both of them involve the feeling of missing someone or maybe even longing for them.

[00:12:39]And so we're not really looking at whether these feelings exist.

[00:12:43]It's really what we hope these feelings become.

[00:12:46]And when I think about platonic attraction, one of its defining characteristics is that the goal is closeness. You want this person in your life. You want access to them. You want connection, friendship. And the relationship itself is the reward. The relationship with the other person is the reward, right? That is what you gain. Is you want to spend time with them. You want them to be around you.

[00:13:09]You want to be able to call them when you need them. You want to feel connected to them.

[00:13:12]That is what the reward of that relationship is. Is being those things with them. What is romantic attraction?

[00:13:17]So, if we're going to define platonic, we got to define romantic. Romantic attraction contains many of the same ingredients like we talked about before.

[00:13:25]You enjoy being around them. You care about them. You think about them. You miss them. You feel connected to them.

[00:13:31]But there is often an additional desire present. There's something else. You don't just want them in your life.

[00:13:37]You want a different role in their life.

[00:13:40]There is this pull or is this desire for partnership. A desire to become primary figures in each other's lives, to build something together.

[00:13:51]This is one of the reasons that people sometimes really struggle to explain why someone feels like a friend and another person person feels like a romantic partner.

[00:14:01]The feelings may overlap significantly, but the imagined future often looks different. Platonic attraction really often imagines people doing things together, right? Like hanging out, spending time together. Romantic attraction really often imagines being something together with someone else.

[00:14:20]What's the role of sexual attraction?

[00:14:22]Because obviously sex is going to be a huge differentiator for these things.

[00:14:26]I'm typically not having sex with the people I'm only platonically attracted to. Sexual attraction deserves special attention because it is one of the most important pieces of this conversation.

[00:14:36]Many people have been told that sexual attraction is what separates friendship from romance.

[00:14:41]And I think that's an oversimplification.

[00:14:44]But I also think it's a mistake to ignore its importance. Okay? One of the most common experiences that people have while dating is realizing that they genuinely like someone, but they aren't actually attracted to them. The dates are enjoyable.

[00:14:58]The conversation is flowing.

[00:15:00]Connection's natural. You feel safe with them. You feel understood. And then you realize that you don't really desire physical intimacy with this person.

[00:15:09]You don't really think about this person sexually. The excitement that you feel is coming from a connection with them rather than an attraction to them.

[00:15:18]And this can be incredibly confusing because intimacy is like wildly powerful.

[00:15:26]Emotional closeness can create feelings that look a lot like romantic attraction, but intimacy and attraction are not the same thing. And similarly, sexual attraction alone is not enough either.

[00:15:39]Most people have experienced being sexually attracted to someone they would never want to date.

[00:15:44]The challenge is understanding how these experiences interact.

[00:15:49]So, what are some common sources of confusion, right? If you're saying that the challenge is understanding how these experiences interact, how are we commonly confusing them? Like, paint this picture for me, Dustin. Paint the [ __ ] picture. Okay, so one of the reasons why this topic is so difficult is because many experiences masquerade where they appear as attraction.

[00:16:11]Sometimes we think we're attracted to someone when we're actually admiring them.

[00:16:16]They possess qualities that we wish we had. They may be confident, successful, socially skilled, attractive, or comfortable with themselves.

[00:16:26]We become preoccupied with them and assume that it's a crush. That's what it is. It's a crush. I'm feeling this weird pull with them. In reality, they may represent a version of ourselves that we are trying to become or that we want to become. Sometimes we think that we're attracted to someone when what we actually want from them is validation. We don't necessarily want a relationship with them. We want to be chosen by them. We want their approval.

[00:16:52]We want confirmation that we're desirable.

[00:16:56]Or we want confirmation that this person thinks highly of us.

[00:16:59]Sometimes we think we're attracted to someone when we're lonely. That's a big one, too. When connection has been absent for a long time, almost any meaningful relationship can begin to feel extraordinarily important.

[00:17:14]Sometimes we think we're attracted to someone when what we're actually experiencing is belonging with them.

[00:17:20]This is especially relevant for gay men.

[00:17:22]The feeling of finally being understood, of being accepted and connected, can be so powerful that it becomes easy to interpret it as romantic desire.

[00:17:33]And sometimes, we mistake intimacy for attraction.

[00:17:37]We assume that because we feel close to someone, we must be romantically interested in them.

[00:17:43]And in reality, closeness is not exclusive to romance. Romance doesn't have a monopoly on this kind of like intimate closeness. Deep friendships can be every bit as emotionally significant as romantic relationships.

[00:17:56]And I want to talk about a little something here that I see a lot, that I hear a lot, that kind of inspired this discussion.

[00:18:03]Is when we mistake intimacy for attraction.

[00:18:08]A lot of times, I see gay men that, you know, they get they get older and they start developing friendships with other gay men. And these relationships are new. They are interesting. It is like, what is this? I never quite had this connection before.

[00:18:23]I may have been friends with other other men in the past or other boys when I was younger, or I may have had my girlfriends, or friends with other women, but I don't feel the same kind of connection in that way. I'm not as connected to them.

[00:18:35]So, what happens is we start developing friendships with other gay men and we're like, "Oh my gosh."

[00:18:41]And we feel these things like admiration. We feel these things like, "I really like them. I think they're really funny. Maybe I even think that they're cute." And we assume that because we feel this closeness to them, that this is what romantic attraction is. Or because I feel this closeness, I need to be romantically attracted to them. As in, this thing doesn't just happen. I don't just feel this way with other gay men that I maybe even think are cute.

[00:19:06]This is an interesting kind of kind of setup here because straight people in with in straight people these terms are already defined, right? You can have a straight woman who is friends with another woman and she thinks she's really pretty and she admires all these qualities about her, but there is never this overlap of am I romantically attracted to her?

[00:19:27]And the same thing with straight men.

[00:19:29]Even though straight men like to pretend that they don't recognize that other men are good looking, you know, that that's a thing. It's like I I feel connected to this guy, I admire him, I think he's funny, I like hanging out with him, I want to spend more time with him, and maybe he's an attractive guy, but there is this established boundary of I'm I know that this is not going to become romantic because I'm not attracted to men.

[00:19:53]I'm just not attracted to men or with women I'm not attracted to other women, right? So there's already this kind of like understanding that is established when these relationships are being formed. With gay people and with queer people this isn't there, right? Like we are attracted to the same sex.

[00:20:09]So when we are or we are attracted to multiple sexes.

[00:20:13]So when we are feeling this, these senses of admiration, it's really easy to confuse them with wait a minute, should I be dating this guy?

[00:20:22]Especially when you couple that with someone who really hasn't been in a significant relationship for a lot of their life. Or when they've if they've really struggled to find relationships or if they've struggled to find consistent partnerships, you might think, oh well, I found this thing. Like I this guy is also gay and he's kind of cute. I guess maybe we should just be together. There's these like confusing things that kind of happen. So how do we tell the difference, right? Like how do we tell the difference? There is no perfect test.

[00:20:52]There's no perfect test for this, but there are some questions that I think can be helpful.

[00:20:57]If sex and romance and this is what they are. Let me let me tell you what they are.

[00:21:01]Uh if sex and romance were completely off the table, would you still want this person in your life?

[00:21:07]If they started dating someone tomorrow, someone else obviously, would that hurt me What would If they started dating someone else tomorrow, what would hurt me the most about this?

[00:21:20]Losing the possibility of a romantic relationship with them or losing access to the connection that you currently share? What Where is the fear coming from when if I start to think about this object of my desire or this person that I'm interested in potentially dating someone else? Like how how What do I think about this?

[00:21:38]When you imagine the future, what are you imagining?

[00:21:41]More conversations, more time together, more closeness, or do you imagine partnership, commitment, and building a life together? What role do you actually want this person to occupy in your life?

[00:21:53]And possibly most importantly, what need is this person meeting of mine? Are they meeting a need for friendship? Are they meeting a need for intimacy, for belonging, for validation, connection, romance? The clearer we become about the need, the easier it becomes to understand the feeling.

[00:22:13]And this is important because I want to add a little bit of like nuance here. I want to add some things. You know, when we talk about what need a friend is meeting, we're not talking about how is this person serving me or like how is keeping this person around benefiting me in some way. That's not really what we're doing.

[00:22:28]We can look at situations that we have with friends.

[00:22:30]Like I may have a friend that we hang out all the time, we see movies together, whatever.

[00:22:37]Which need are they kind of meeting? Are they meeting my friendship need? Am I meeting this need that I have for connection? Maybe they're not meeting this need I have for romance. Maybe they're not meeting this need that I have for validation.

[00:22:50]But maybe I'm a I'm allowed to have deep and intimate conversations with them.

[00:22:52]Maybe maybe I'm getting that need met there. So, the clearer we can be about these needs and about what's going on, the easier it really becomes to understand and differentiate the feelings between romantic and platonic attractions.

[00:23:04]Why does this matter?

[00:23:06]Why are we talking about this, Dustin?

[00:23:08]And this discussion matters, I think, because many people spend years trying to force relationships into categories that do not fit them.

[00:23:15]Some people enter romantic relationships that are actually friendships.

[00:23:19]And I realize, I'm just friends with this person. Like But we're calling each other boyfriends, or we're calling each other girlfriends.

[00:23:27]Some people lose potential friendships because they assume that every powerful connection must become romantic.

[00:23:33]They assume that if we're going to have this deep of a connection, it has to be romantic. That's That's the only way that we can have it. Some people spend years chasing attraction when what they really need is belonging. Is a sense of belonging and a sense that they are wanted and desired in an environment that they're accepted in. Many gay men have never been taught that friendship itself can generate feelings powerful enough to be confused with romance. And when we don't understand the difference, we often misunderstand what our emotions are trying to tell us.

[00:24:06]Now, it's important to note that not every powerful connection is romantic.

[00:24:10]And not every powerful connection has to be romantic in order for it to be powerful. One of the challenges of adulthood, particularly for queer people, is learning that not every meaningful connection is asking to become a romantic relationship. This is kind of something that we deal with that straight people don't really have to worry about, right? Again, because those boundaries have already been established. We already know, when I go into a relationship, or when I'm hanging out with this person, this is not going to become a romantic thing.

[00:24:37]It's just not. In the same way that, you know, when we're hanging out with our girlfriends, we know that our relationships with our girlfriends are not going to become romantic. So, automatically we jump into the platonic role.

[00:24:47]>> [snorts] >> And this becomes more complicated when we're with other men that we could potentially be in a relationship with, or even be attracted to.

[00:24:56]So, some people in our lives to become partners.

[00:25:00]They become or they become friends or some become chosen family that we have, mentors. They help us feel seen, they help us feel understood, they help us belong. One of the challenges of adulthood is learning to identify what our feelings are actually asking for.

[00:25:16]And not every person we think about constantly is a romantic partner. Not every powerful connection is a crush.

[00:25:22]Not every relationship that feels meaningful is meant to become a romantic relationship.

[00:25:28]Sometimes what we're experiencing is attraction. Sometimes it's friendship.

[00:25:33]Sometimes it's admiration or belonging.

[00:25:36]Sometimes we're experiencing loneliness.

[00:25:38]Sometimes it is the experience of finally finding someone who understands us. And that's such a foreign feeling to us, right? Like we we can come into our to our kind of gay selves and realize like, oh my god, this person understands me. What is this? I've never felt this before.

[00:25:54]The difficulty is that these experiences can feel remarkably similar.

[00:25:59]Especially for gay men and queer people whose experiences of friendship, of attraction, admiration, and belonging have often been directed towards the same people.

[00:26:10]When we become better at distinguishing them, we can typically make better decisions. We are less likely to date people who would make better friends. We are less likely to mistake loneliness for attraction. We are less likely to assume that every emotionally significant relationship is romantic.

[00:26:26]And this is a big thing that I hear all the time.

[00:26:28]And also, there are several times where we may go on a hookup or we may go on a date and we end up becoming friends with that person. And in that situation, we kind of notify notify or we kind of notice pretty quickly, this is not something that I'm feeling that's super romantic. This is something that I'm definitely feeling is more platonic.

[00:26:45]Sometimes it's more complicated.

[00:26:47]Sometimes it's like, wait a minute. What am I feeling right now? I'm not sure.

[00:26:51]And that's like and I want to hell of validate that because how are you supposed to know? Like if you don't have experiences with these things, if it's not as cut and dry as easy as boy with girl, girl with boy, then it's like how am I supposed to determine these things? So I would also cut yourself a little bit of slack when it comes to determining these things and cut your friends a little bit of slack because we're all kind of figuring this out.

[00:27:18]And yeah.

[00:27:20]That's I think it for today. I wanted to talk about this because I I was getting this a lot with people and I was like, "Huh?

[00:27:29]How do we actually distinguish these things? They feel Sometimes they feel so incredibly different and sometimes they feel so incredibly similar.

[00:27:38]What's going on in my mind?

[00:27:40]But I also want to validate to you that like you're figuring this out and sometimes the kind of connection that you feel with people feels really deep and intimate because it is, but also because you haven't really been able to form those kinds of relationships with other people that are like you in that way.

[00:27:56]Other people When I say like you, I mean like other gay men or other queer men or other queer people.

[00:28:01]So with that, I am going to leave you. Thank you so much. If you are listening, please uh subscribe, like, leave a comment, leave a five-star review. I appreciate all of them. Share this with a friend. Share this with someone. I hope that this was helpful to you in some way. My name is Dustin. This is the Boy Meets Therapy podcast.

[00:28:22]Oh my gosh. All right. Bye.

[00:28:24]>> [music] [music]