For those of you who don’t know, GBF stands for Gay Best Friend. There are plenty of movies, television shows, and even books that portray the gay best friend as someone who is overly charismatic with a great sense of fashion and tips to pick up guys. What these various media outlets fail to tell their audiences is that the gay best friend does not have a life consisting solely of happiness and rainbows (no pun intended).

I am not gay, so my understanding of what it’s like to be gay is only secondhand. However, I myself have a best friend who is gay, who knows of the harsh life he is forced to live due to his sexuality. My best friend never fully came out to me because he assumed I had already known. He confided in a close friend of his, confessing his true self, and this same person had spread the secret-- information that had not yet wanted to be released. Word of my best friend’s open sexuality had reached an older group of boys with closed minds, leaving them to slander him in the harshest of ways. They spread rumors about him, treated his other friends poorly, and called him “queer” and “faggot” to his face, as if they were welcome greetings. Where was the protection he deserved, and where was the superhero that the movies had promised?

Coming out at a younger age seems significantly more difficult than coming out at an older age. In high school, people are still maturing and there isn't a very large selection of eligible bachelors. What the books don’t tell you is that sometimes the love interest of the GBF isn’t gay. Yes, my best friend fell in love with a straight boy and there wasn’t one thing I could do about it. Sometimes you can’t help who you fall in love with, and in this case it came with extra damage. The entirety of their on and off relationship totaled one year; one year of love, lust, passion, and betrayal. The other person believed just because my best friend is gay, he could do whatever he wanted because my best friend would still love him. What I can tell you firsthand is acquiring feelings for someone who is interested in a solely physical relationship is detrimental. The TV shows don’t tell you about the heartache, they only tell of the happy endings.

The mall should be a place for my best friend to shop without being dragged by girls who find his fashion sense of superior taste. Trying on clothes is something he wants to do by himself, or with me. I can’t tell you how many times my best friend has been asked by other girls to go shopping to “help them pick out clothes” and “hold their bags.” I can assure you that my best friend is not your ticket to popularity. You do not become more “cultured” by hanging out with a gay person. Conversely, it is not your right to discriminate against those in the gay community. Do not blame his sexual orientation on his mismatched clothing. He is not a symbol of status, a gold medal, or your source for dating tips.

Why doesn’t my best friend refer to me as his straight best friend? It is because my sexuality does not define who I am , and his shouldn’t either. The social construct of the GBF created by the guilty best friend counterpart emulates a lack of respect and an embrace of stereotypes. If you’ve noticed, I haven’t called my best friend my GBF once- it is a secretion of tolerance and esteem. To me, my best friend is a Sia-loving drummer, a Steven Universe enthusiast, and most importantly, a person.