A 19-year-old young man has found himself bystander to a new friendship spawned from motivations that he concludes are problematic.
What tipped him off?
First, the use of the phrase "my cool gay bestie." But it was the shared ins and outs of masturbation habits that really hammered home the issue.
The DIY vetter of friends encountered the trouble when his childhood buddy began keeping some company with a new gal.
It is certainly not an issue of romantic jealousy AT ALL, as the narrator immediately informs.
"I have a best friend (M19) called 'Avery.' He's been my friend since kindergarten, and we're tight as hell.
"He came out as gay when he was 15, and I'm super proud of him and how far he's come."
Math time: the narrator has been kicking it with Avery for 14 years. The friendship passes muster.
Stage Left: enter new friend, followed by a chaotic, webbing hierarchy of friendship bonds with varying strengths.
"So we recently met a girl called 'Sally.' Sally is F20, and she says she's super supportive of the LGBT+ community and sh*t like that."
"She's closer to Avery than she is to me, but we're all kinda close, but Avery and I are still closer to each other."
Three would have been a crowd, but it's even more confusing when Avery's boo, Jackson, is in the mix.
It is here in the story where Sally spooks the narrator.
It's a bit of one-two punch from Sally. First, she eases into problematic by tokenizing Avery and Jackson.
It reminds of when a White person is over the moon when they make a Black friend.
"Last night, while we were all drunk, Sally confided in me that she thinks it's cool she finally has a a 'gay bestie' and that it's super sexy when Avery and Jackson make out, and she's touched herself thinking of that."
After sharing the fantasy, Sally even expresses an interest in enacting it LIVE.
"She also told me that since Jackson is bi, she wants to have a threesome with him and Avery, and maybe make Avery realise 'girls aren't all that bad'."
That was just about the end of discussion for our narrator.
His friend is gay. Sally is not an ally if she thinks all Avery needs is sex with a girl to make him bisexual.
He reached out to the subReddit "Am I The A$hole" (AITA) at a loss for what to do next.
"I honestly don't know if I want to be her friend if this is how she views my friend."
"[Would I Be The A$hole] if I tell Avery about this? I feel I'd want to know if I was my friend's walking porno."
Plenty of comments took the narrator's side and viewed Sally's behavior as disrespectful.
"She's not being a friend to them; she's being a creepy pervert. They should know." caffeine-and-emotion
"I'm a lesbian, and in my experience even after coming out I struggled a lot with men that thought they could 'change my mind' the way Sally seems to think she could change Avery's."
"It feels shitty and invalidating to have your sexuality treated like a challenge," desmodontriae
"She is not actually supportive of LGBT people, she is very homophobic. She seems to think gay men's sexuality is nothing but a ploy to attract girls, specifically her."
"She can't "turn" Avery, no matter what she does. He is gay. This is not something that can or should change." Niveot
Some offered advice to help the narrator let Avery know what's been going on.
"You need to be careful telling Avery and his bf."
"Maybe sit them both down together, inform that she's said some pretty alarming things, and that you're under the impression she's using them for clout and sexual gratification." ultimatesocks
"You can tell him your concern; but don't tell him things like "you've got to stop hanging out with her". Let him decide how he feels and see how he reacts." proteamom
Not everyone was all in for a Sally take down, though.
Many felt that nobody in this situation is really a problem.
"You should wait for her to introduce these ideas to your friend. Just because you might think it's wrong and perverted, it doesn't mean that your friend will feel the same way."
"If your friend is into the idea, he can embrace it. If not, he can tell Sally off." generalwhitmore1
"She may very well want them as friends and simultaneously fantasize about a threesome. One does not exclude the other."
"Girl might be an a**hole, she might not be, confirm her intentions before raising hell." Gauloises_Foucault
"My wife is bi, and we have MFF threesomes from time to time. The only issue here is her not respecting homosexuality over bisexuality, but its not a hate crime. Explain that one."
"You guys are basically kids, kids have bad assumptions." Chicup
There were even some that felt the narrator would be totally in the wrong to tell Avery about what Sally said.
"Seems like you're kink-shaming her righteously, when she has done nothing wrong at all. You're being very holier-than-thou about your friend's wank material and you need to calm down and recognize this is nunya business in general."
"She's not harming anyone and you're thinking of breaking her trust." boxer_santaros_2020
"Getting occasionally turned on by your friends is no big deal. Drunkenly telling you about it is no big deal."
"Best case you'll just make things awkward and weird, and make Avery feel bad for no real reason. Worst case, you'll divide the group and ruin friendships." VegetableConfection
"You are acting as if Avery's sexual preferences are etched in stone and that she would be deeply transgressing him by finding out what he's into, and what he's not."
"His boyfriend might be into it. They both might be into it, They both might not be into it. You don't need to police your friends relationship." theheartsofdarkness
As is sometimes the case, the original poster leaves the forum without much help in the way of next moves. Sometimes the slew of responses and judgments only serves to make one's head spin even more than before.
But the narrator did add two updates.
The first stated that if genders were reversed, he would still not be OK with a male friend's agenda to convert his lesbian bestie.
Then he added that he decided to message Sally before deciding what to do.
"Okay, so I messaged her an hour ago, and her sentiment hasn't changed, but she did try and laugh it off."
"She pressed on the 'maybe Avery's secretly bi' for a hot minute, and that if the roles were reversed, I'd probably jerk off to it."
Not a great look for Sally the ally here. Would she be OK if someone befriended her then tried to sleep with her to prove she was "secretly a lesbian"?
What do you think?
@kileywrestling/Bluesky
