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A good man is hard to find

By Abby Dees

The first writing I ever got published was an essay about my frustration with straight men. It was really more of a screed, albeit a funny one. I wrote it in an emotional purge after an old family friend, a man who'd known me since I was a kid, rather artlessly came on to me after we'd spent a few after-work dinners together at a local Indian restaurant we both enjoyed. He had known for years that I was a lesbian, and had apparently read my comfort and ease with him as a sign that I wanted him.
I nearly ripped his head off and we haven't spoken since. Partly that's because his come-on included a bad pun about his, er, manhood (a little advice: when asking a woman for a date, never talk about your private parts in any way whatsoever, no exceptions), but mostly it's because the essential fact of my lesbian identity seemed completely irrelevant to him.
My essay made the link between this event and all the other times my efforts to be friends with straight men got derailed by their maddening disregard for my lesbian identity as either the ultimate turn-on or something easily disposed of with the right equipment. Every lesbian who's not living on Paradise Island right now knows what I'm talking about.
I was angry, but looking back I see now that what I really felt was profoundly sad. Between the lines of my caustic essay was loneliness. I was single then, and being with my friends was a life-sustaining infusion of human warmth. Friends were supposed to appreciate and see me exactly for who I was. Feeling comfortable and at ease was the point of the whole thing, I thought, so it hurt that someone who'd known me since the Nixon administration had gotten me so wrong – and he did it with all the subtlety of chainsaw art.
Though I was longing for a girlfriend at the time, I really needed a good straight guy friend too – a bro-friend, if you will. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the image of my ideal guy: he'd be my energetic counterpoint, a straight talker with a big tough heart, who I could also shoot pool with; someone who'd bring a little more canine to my decidedly feline way of thinking. (I am aware that I might be into bears.) That I would be forever cut off from this possibility because of a few relentlessly predictable attitudes seemed so unfair.
I'd forgotten about that old essay until the subject of lesbians and their friendships with straight men came up this week in my conversation with some other women. I realized that my thinking has been quietly evolving over the years. Sure, we'd all met men who just couldn't "get it" about us – that's inevitable, and it still happens a lot. But then so does jerky behavior out in the world generally.
I think I'd forgotten for a time that good character really isn't gender based, but it can be elusive. I'd confused the two. Like romantic partners, good friends are hard to find. And you don't always get people exactly how you order them from the cosmos or on your own schedule. My friends aren't perfect. But they are all extraordinary, and that definitely includes my bro'friends. Who has time for anything less?
Thinking about the loneliness I felt when I wrote my essay, and so many other times in my life, I see how easy it was to place inordinate blame on the crap behavior that was right in front of me, rather than patiently keep the door open to people, men and women, straight or gay, who could confound my expectations. Gender politics are real, of course, but the search for a friend shouldn't stop there. In other words, it really is better to focus on those rare special people than the one-in-every-crowd clod who wants to join in for a three-way. My bro'friend could kick his ass anyway.

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