So here's the thing: I love straight people as much as the next guy.
But being gay and trying to date straight girls is the hardest thing ever.
Now, by straight, I don't mean someone who isn't homosexual. Obviously, if you find yourself in a relationship with someone the same sex as you, you've got a little something going on that certainly wouldn't classify you as "straight."
By straight girls, I mean closeted girls. The girls that have romantic relationships with women but don't want to be seen in public on a date. The girls who can't stomach planning a future with a woman, despite any daydreams of a happily ever after with her by their side.
The girls who can't even come out to themselves.
Unfortunately, I feel like these kinds of straight girls are just so hard to stay away from. Even just considering my straight female friends brought me to the conclusion that they're all total sweethearts that just need to be rescued from their ain't-sh*t boyfriends, and I want to be their knight in shining button-ups.
But the process is always the same: I meet a girl who says she's questioning her sexuality, we hit it off and I promise to help her adjust, then the relationship ends all too quickly, and always for that very reason. My emotions get all jacked-up, then almost instantly let down.
For me, this means that I feel like I'm on a constant track towards disappointment, even though I know what I'm getting into in the beginning and that it probably won't work out.
As hard as it is for myself and my gay counterparts hopelessly chasing straight girls, so sure we can "change" them, this cycle is no easier for our quarry.
I think that, as a community, we can sympathize, and sometimes empathize, with the feeling of being torn between the painstaking awareness of who you are and devil on your shoulder telling you its wrong. But the problem is that this internal struggle is all too familiar to a lot of the community, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier, either.
Even with all of the Pride celebrations, national acknowledgment of the struggle that queer people have experienced for decades, and representation in the media, internalized homophobia still runs rampant. In fact, my most painful experiences with homophobia haven't been from homophobes, but within the very community where I found my tribe.
On countless occasions, I've dealt with anger and disgust from "straight" people who refuse to respect that part of who they are, or who resent me for my pride. So many friendships and relationships have been torn apart because one party feels too much pressure from our homophobic society that they squash it down themselves before the external pressures have the chance to.
It's no wonder that straight girls make such bad decisions when thrust unexpectedly into a relationship with a woman.
The closet is a dark, depressing place that clouds your judgment, dulls your morals and forces you to disregard what makes you happy, let alone the happiness of others.
Maybe that's why the LGBT+ flag is a rainbow, symbolic of breaking free from the darkness.
But one of the hardest things to accept as a gay person after coming out is that even if you kick your own internal homophobia out the door, you have the hardships of the rest of the community to deal with, too. It is a truly exhausting uphill battle; abandoning your pain only to have it replaced by that of millions of others.
Or even the pain of that one special girl who hates herself for loving you.
