Candid Camaraderie

Do you remember being in elementary school during a science lesson about magnets? The teacher would break out two huge red magnets, each with an N on one end and an S on the other. The whole class would ooh and aah when the teacher showed how the two like ends of the magnets repelled each other, demonstrating the law of magnets... and gay Asian boys.

It's very rare that you see two gay Asians together as friends in public. You're more likely to encounter a lone Asian in a group full of white men, or a bunch of couples with Asians who have boyfriends. But there are few cases where two single gay Asians are part of a group, and you can bet your bottom dollar that there's going to be a lot of tension there.

They'll make rude comments to each other, call each other mean names, imply that the other was a bigger whore than himself, and even go as far as to cock block the other when one of them is getting ready to snag a man at a bar. There's a sort of tacit, cut throat competition that exists between single gay Asians. You can't ask an Asian about it because he'll deny it

A young woman in in my circle of friends who recently witnessed my light hearted yet venomous interaction with one of my Asian friends couldn't handle all of the pressure. It wasn't even that bad. I was just calling my friend a big slutbag and he accused me of only being able to take his sloppy seconds. That was only true because you can't walk five steps in the city of Chicago without finding a white man that he's had sex with.

The girl in our group apparently got fed up with all the cattiness and scooted away unnoticed. I guess she was afraid that we'd get into a chopstick fight or something because she left us without saying goodbye. For the record, it's very rude to leave the group without telling anyone. Not as rude as blowing your best friend's dad in high school, but still up there in that upper tier of rudeness.

What she didn't understand was that even though my friend and I were constantly at each other's threats, we were still friends. It's how we bond. We're a lot like those little magnets from elementary school. No matter how much you think they'll repel each other when you put the like ends together, they'll eventually flip around and stick together.