The Five Kinds Of Friends That Make Every Gay Man’s Crew

Every guy needs friends, and every gay guy? More so. As we live our short, but fabulous lives, we collect friends like we collect discount coupons from the newspaper — greedily. You have friends that you unwind with, friend that wind you up, and some friends that even flake out on you like the wind (that would be me). People come and people go, but some stay till the very end, or till last call, whichever comes first. These are the ones that matter; these are the ones that you make unfulfilled plans to vacation with. Whether you are an out-and-about social butterfly, or a Netflix-binger of the most asocial kind, start those tabs, guys — because you’ll be doing shots all night with these five friends every other weekend: The Fag Hag The Fag Hag is the crown jewel of the crew that the average gay man calls his own — she’s vivacious, brilliant, and woefully brash — but you only cherish her for every bit of it. Your relationship with the Fag Hag is one of extremes — extreme joy and debauchery — which is built on a string of bad exes, internet memes and free shots at the bar. Have you dissed each other’s exes as you downed glasses of Ciroc? Check. Made fun of someone you mutually hate over scrolls-worth of WhatsApp conversations? Check. Proclaimed your undying love for each other every alternate date? Check and check. The Fag Hag takes your love life seriously, and scrutinises all your romantic prospects down to the last detail, automatically loving or hating them based on 1) what they think of her outfit for the night, and 2) what your future artificially-inseminated kids will look like when they grow up. The fact that she’ll always be dismissive of your long list of conquests aside, remember one thing, boys. You’ll be a great friend to a lot of people, but for her, you’ll always be her every-day guy. Her 4 am friend. Her little pet. Her therapist. Her punching bag. Her shopping cart. Her grocery list. And occasionally, even her prescription reminder. It won’t be a problem, because she’ll most certainly be yours as well. The Diva The Diva is a strong mix of Kim Kardashian quotes, gin-based cocktails and bottled-up sass that would put the entire cast of Real Housewives Of New Jersey to shame — which means you also need to go through a few bottles of wine to go through a sitting with him. In his bespoke shirts and Italian loafers, the Diva feels terribly out of place in your motley crew of misfits, and he makes it a point to tell you (repeatedly) so. He has an important-sounding job in an important-sounding organisation — which lets him eat at ‘all the right restaurants’, shop at ‘all the right places’, and date ‘all the right boys’. He’ll tell you all about it over expensive drinks (and repeatedly so), but never introduce you to any of them. But that’s the thing about the Diva — apart from his raucous jokes, his self-worth and his complete disregard for anyone’s (or more importantly, your) feelings; he’s a really nice guy. Plus, he is friends with ‘all the right people in the world’. Including you. The Brozoned Buddy Hidden behind deleted cookies, incognito windows and emptied caches; the brozoned buddy and you have a history that neither likes to bring up at the dinner table (or the bar). You’ve probably hooked up with him in the past, but decide to stay friends because of two reasons: The sex was bad, but the fallout that followed probably wasn’t. Now, months later, you bond over your (thankfully) similar taste in alcohol and (fortunately) different taste in men.  You overcompensate your (un)resolved feelings by slurring out compliments to each other every time you hit the bar, because you don’t want to make the mistake of hitting the bed ever again. Have you ever called him your ‘guuuurlfriend’? Yep. Is he a ‘Damn! You are a goddess’ kind of boy? Oh yes. Would he #SLAAAY? Most definitely. Does that mean you are still attracted to him? Certainly not. When you are not talking about each other’s boy problems, you are sorting out each other’s boy problems. You still look at each other’s romantic pursuits with mild interest and milder jealously, but support the other wholeheartedly, because that’s what friends do. References to the past will never be made and if they do ever spring up, they are drowned over vodka shots and bad decisions you’ll probably regret when you wake up the morning after. Hopefully, separately. The Husband Let’s get it straight. The Husband is only here because his wife/girlfriend/lover wants him to ‘try a bit harder and get to know her friends as well’.  You both show a mild interest in each other’s lives because of that one thing you have in common: his significant other. He’ll ask you questions about your boys, you’ll ask him questions about his work, all peppered with ‘hellos!’, ‘how do you do’s’ and ‘it’s been so long’s’. You finally give up trying to get to know each other because it’s going to be a losing battle — and now, you stick to politely nodding your heads at each other every time you hang out, chuckling over sports jokes that you don’t get, chugging beer that you don’t like. The Lovebug We might all be looking for love, but some of us look for love harder than others. The Lovebug is the ditzy lead character from every feel good rom-com — he falls in love so often (every week, if you want to keep a count) — he’s a walking ad for Tinder. All it takes is a gorgeous, Rumi-spouting man to send him a charming hello on Grindr, and he’s already planning out the wedding. Bonus points if it doesn’t include a dick pic. He’s spoken about so many boys over quarters of cheap rum and soda, you’ve reached a point now where you just nod and smile every time he starts a new story because you’ve no idea who ‘Sam from Santa Cruz’ is. Illustration courtesy: Siddha Kannur