An open letter to the fag hag

Dear girl friend,

Mind if I call you that? I mean, you’ve always referred to me as your “gay BFF” — perhaps to differentiate me your other BFFs. This makes me think whether you actually are a fag hag (a baklang babae, if you will), what with this label you’ve tagged on me, which seems to put me under a category separate from yours. Though I would like to thank you endlessly for all those impromptu movie nights, walwal sessions at Today X Future, and those declarations of undying love underneath the laser lights of some club in BGC past-midnight, at the risk of sounding like an ungrateful brat, I refuse to be your gay BFF.

I am not your sassy gay friend. I am neither the Anthony Marentino to your Charlotte York, nor the Stanford Blatch to your Carrie Bradshaw. Just look how they ended up in Sex and The City 2. It’s sad that my tokenistic status as your friend seems to be merely predicated on my being gay and sassy, along with the other stereotypes that define a modern society’s notion of a homosexual. Real friends don’t put us in a box.

I am not here for your entertainment. I may be a notch more clever than Vice Ganda, but my wit, my thought process, my creative acumen were not specially designed by God to complement yours. Thinking about it, I don’t remember expecting you to assume the same comedic role in times of my own existential crises. It’s just the way some of us gays are, and it’s all very nice and flattering until you mistake us for your latest SNL download.

Fashion-Savvy

I am not your personal shopper. As much as a handful of us have been socially conditioned to be fashion-savvy, I can’t be bothered to scrutinize every seam of that P2,000 pair of selvedge jeans. I couldn’t care less whether or not it grazes your butt. You, too, have a pair of stereoscopic eyes, so you do you. Call me when you’re ready to pay me as your stylist because my sharp eyes and blunt mouth are so goddamn tired.

Finally, I am not your fashion accessory — or your charity case, for that matter. It must make you feel progressive and modern to have a gay person in your special circle. Up until now, I didn’t realize that condescension could be a viable foundation for a platonic relationship. That said, we don’t really seek the friendship of a cisgender heterosexual person to gain the approval of the society at large. I and my sisters do not have to serve as your emotional receptacle for all your daddy issues and boy problems in exchange for acceptance.

I am nobody’s fag. I love you, but I’m tired of living in your shadow as a sidekick. Guess it’s goodbye for now.

Sincerely yours,

Every gay person who’s fed up with being a mere footnote to somebody else’s memoir

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Tweet the author @Watdahel_Marcel.