Queering the pitch

Many straight people seem to think that they have to treat their gay friends differently. Please stop it, says Paul Flynn - it embarrasses everyone

A friend recently introduced me to her new boyfriend. He seemed a good sort: gregarious, stood his round, handsome, no prison record, au fait with the back catalogue of Girls Aloud, but definitely straight (shirt tucked in, Hackett socks, knew the offside rule, etc). The seal of approval was duly dispensed as he went to the bar. Last orders came and went and, no doubt lubricated by the five or six pints of lager he'd sunk, he bid me farewell with a kiss on the cheek.

Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. In some respects, it is a lovely thing. A straight man kissing a gay man he's met via a girlfriend is what social anthropologists might term a "signifier". It signifies: "I am cool with your friends being gay", "I understand modern social etiquette", "I possibly have gay friends of my own" and "I am renaissance man" all in one small, innocent gesture. In short, it says, "I am sorted". It's infinitely preferable to him shifting uncomfortably in his seat or being actively hostile. Three stars all round, then.

Yet in other ways it irks. I'm not a social kisser. I'm northern - we don't do that stuff unless we are a) theatrical, b) needy or c) on ecstasy. I find a handshake quite suffices by way of a greeting until you are either intimate with someone or likely to cop off with them. Here, neither was the case, and a social kiss turns you into a pawn in someone else's courtship.

There are other considerations, too. Would he have kissed a straight male friend of his new girlfriend? I'd wager not, for that would signify that he was unnaturally tactile or a bit gay himself. Would he have kissed a female friend of his new girlfriend? Again, unlikely, as that would signify "I quite fancy her, too". So why kiss me?

While it's unfair to misinterpret what is in essence a perfectly nice gesture, like many gay men I'd rather not be treated with a special set of "gay" rules in my relationships with straight men. Modified conversation, camp affectation and an added layer of touchy-feeliness are unnecessary adjuncts - holding the door open is another one - that occur too often and conspire to feminise the gay man. This makes me feel self-conscious.

I should say at this point that some of my best friends are straight. And I don't mind what they do behind closed doors so long as they don't shove it in my face. But I wince when there is a difference between how I am treated and how a straight friend is treated. I don't want to be treated as somehow special or different.

Half of this is my problem, of course. I'd quite like to be one of the boys, but when conversation takes an overtly heterosexual turn - football, gadgets, girls - I glaze over. So should I be surprised if a straight male unconsciously feminises me?

There is a further point to this. Many gay men will find themselves attracted to straight men at one time or another. Some, even the clever ones, have serial straight-men habits. But I've worked through that one, thanks. Moreover, some straight men love the attention. Yet, while I would not suggest that there was anything more to my friend's boyfriend's behaviour than a gentle moment of social modernity, it accidentally complicates matters. For perhaps the reason I feel self-conscious when a straight man makes an untoward display of affection towards me is because I rather like it. Which is when the problems really kick in ...