queer advice #92: close queer people

"I really want to look at a room full of people I have so much in common with and see potential new friends, but it’s really scary every time."

Hi :) Today’s queer advice is about connection and queer friendship, specifically how to meet new people and then transition that acquaintance into a friendship while gay. I’ve answered variations of this question before --it comes across my desk ALL the time and I’m bringing it back in light of the election--a reminder, I hope, that we really need each other. If you’re reading this and you just made a new friend, or you’re someone who can find rapport with a brick wall, HOW DO YOU DO IT? Let us know in the comments. Teach us your methods.

I’m currently running my annual birthday sale. Yearly subscriptions are 33% off, which breaks down to $3.07 a month. The only reason TV Dinner exists is because of paid subscribers and I lose a lot of people when their credit cards expire and they don’t update their payment info with Substack. Not calling anyone out! I just really depend on this sale to keep the lights on and hope you’ll take the plunge.

If you have a question for queer advice, send it to me here. It’s anonymous and I will make you agree not to contact me after :)

xoxo, Maddy

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I’m a trans person in my early 30s, living in the same big city for over 10 years, out and transitioning for the last 5 years. I’m in a long term, committed and healthy relationship with another trans person who is exactly right for me. My partner is disabled and chronically ill and can’t go out a lot because of the nature of his conditions. I’m naturally very indoorsy and hanging out with him is my favourite thing to do, but I think we could both benefit from other connections. I have a few close long term friends who I see regularly, people I really value and want to keep in my life, but they’re straight and cis. I have some queer friends, but not many, and I don’t hang out with them as often. I guess I should start by trying to spend time with these friends more often, but that can mean doing things like going to raves or other stuff that I’m not particularly comfortable doing, especially since I’m sober now and that kind of thing used to be a lot easier when I wasn’t.

I do feel the lack of close queer and trans friends, and particularly the lack of a sense of ‘community’. I’ve tried over the years to try to ‘find community’ - I go to events and workshops alone whenever I get a new wave of energy and courage to make the effort, or tag along with people I know already. I even set up a trans mutual aid group which lasted years and was pretty successful, but I never made friends with any of the people I was organising with, partly because the pandemic meant we were usually meeting on zoom and partly because I just couldn’t shake the idea that they didn’t like me. I always feel judged in queer spaces, I don’t know how much of that is me projecting and how much of it is queer cliqueyness or self consciousness on the part of other people. The vibe in my city sometimes feels really aloof, and I often see someone I recognise and neither of us acknowledge each other, I assume people are thinking ‘I’ve seen you at a bunch of things and talked to you a few times but I’m not going to be the first to admit I remember your name’. I really want to look at a room full of people I have so much in common with and see potential new friends, but it’s really scary every time. I was bullied as a kid, and I know these feelings aren’t based in reality, but I feel similarly to how I felt looking out a playground full of kids who knew me as an outsider and did not not want me around.

I want to move past this and have more close queer people in my life but I don’t know what my next steps should be. I’m at a point where it’s not too hard to chat to people at low-key events, zine making workshops, a protest, but I have absolutely no idea how to transition something like that into a friendship or if I’m going about this the wrong way. In some ways it feels like it’d be easier in a new city, where I could be like hey I’ve just moved here and that’s why I don’t really know anyone. My partner’s social care provisions are all tied to the city council so moving isn’t an option for us right now and this doesn’t feel like a good enough reason to move anyway.

Rowan, 34

It’s really hard to make friends as an adult, especially if your methodology is talking to people at events—like, when do you exchange numbers? What if you’re both feeling reserved and blank out on stuff to talk about out? It’s a lot easier to…okay, prepare yourself for the driest directive you’ve ever read in your life: join a group that meets in-person on a weekly basis for a structured activity. I know you live in a big city and are looking for queer friends, but it really doesn’t have to be a queer-specific group. A lot of activities are surprisingly gay and by “activities“ I mean literally anything that puts you in the same room with people you have at least one thing in common with on a recurring basis. You could take tai chi or an art class at your local community center. If you speak another language or want to learn one, you could join a conversation group. You could get into group fitness or tabletop gaming or somatic movement. You could volunteer with an organization that’s important to you or join a book club or community choir. Not only do these spaces relieve some of the pressure of looseleaf socializing, they provide a common experience to connect with other people over, and can help close the gap between talking to someone for the first time and seeing them again. And if you do join a group and don’t feel friendship energy with anyone there, you’re still shaking up your routine and getting practice meeting new people.

It’s important to remember that true connection is really rare and you’re not going to hit it off with the majority of people you meet. At the same time, you gotta work through your inner belief that other people don’t like you or want to be your friend. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and it sounds like there are many possible connections in your life already, but you’d rather let them fall to the wayside than face rejection outright. For instance, can your rave friends also hang out like normal people? Maybe you could have them over for dinner early in the evening and then they can go do drugs without you? It’s really sad to let an old friendship slide without at least trying to find sober things to do together. Is there anyone from your mutual aid group you would be interested in meeting for coffee? They might be different in-person and one-on-one. And even if you hang out and it’s not a friend connection, you still get to practice getting to know someone new.

You write that you feel okay talking to new people, but for anyone reading at home who does really struggle with that—I have a lot of social anxiety that was compounded by the pandemic, so whenever I’m entering a social situation, I remind myself that most people are really excited to talk about themselves and I can just ask open-ended questions like, Do you live nearby? Where did you grow up? Do you have any pets? Are you feeling this [astrological event] happening? How did you and your partner meet? What are your favorite restaurants around here? People LOVE compliments—tell them you love their outfit, backpack, haircut, zine, etc. and ask them where they got it or how they made it. If you don’t remember someone’s name, just be like, “Can you remind me of your name again?“ I do this all the time and 90% of the time other person has also forgotten my name and is so relieved I said something. tl;dr it helps to have scripts and put too much pressure on yourself.

You also have to remember that when you’re entering a designated queer space, most of the people in attendance were also bullied as kids, have an anxiety disorder, feel weird about their bodies, are freaking out about seeing an ex, or a million other situations that have nothing to do with you. Most of the time when people seem aloof, it’s because they feel insecure and intimidated e.g. when you’re at a party and there’s a couple or friend group who are only interacting with each other—they’re not excluding you, they’re clinging to each other because they’re too nervous to navigate the space by themselves.

Next, I wanna address your embarrassment around not having many friends. A lot of people feel a similar shame re: being single, but my guess is that you don’t judge single people or view them differently. A lot of what we fixate on as shameful is not a big deal to other people, or at least not people we want in our lives. Plus, everyone goes through lonely stretches in their life (the alternative is being in a lot of bad relationships or sacrificing yourself to keep people around at all costs). Someone you’re meeting for the first time doesn’t know how many friends you have, just that you’re open to being friends with them. You might find they don’t have many friends, either--maybe they’re new in town, in the midst of a gnarly breakup, got really depressed two years ago and stopped talking to everyone, or spend all their time working in order to survive in a individualistic capitalist system-- and they also feel shitty and self-conscious about it.

The last thing I want to do is acknowledge the trap of identity-based friend-finding: it can be hard to connect with straight people for obvious reasons, plus we all want to build relationships on a foundation of shared lived experience and solidarity… but queerness alone is not enough for a connection. So if you’re expecting instant results or that you’ll have an easier time making friends with other queer and trans people, you have to adjust your expectations! It doesn’t help that a lot of queer spaces are super awkward—I’ve been to countless parties where everyone is super aware of each other, but everyone is on their phones and exuding unspoken psychic pain. You have to remember that this isn’t your fault. Sometimes a space or event is not a good match for your energy and you might just need to try a little longer to find the right portal into community and connection.