Gay Friends Rejoice

Sometimes I wonder if this is a phenomenon that has always existed, or if this is the kind of thing that is an exclusively late-90s, early-aughts syndrome. I refer to the troubling condition of the gay friend. The oddness of the condition of the gay friend is in the fact that, for it to reach its complete articulation qua thing that sucks, the friend cannot be in fact a fan of dudes. To explain: let's say I am a dude (which in this case is true) and I would like to get to know a female, uh, biblically. Since I am a cultured, liberal, This American Life-listening, Obama voter, I decide that the best way to handle the situation is to subtly infiltrate this female's life by being attentive, witty, caring and–if the situation presents itself–taking care of her when she has had too much to drink. I decide that it is quite forward enough for me merely to allude to my penis obliquely and to, from time to time, hug her for a beat longer than is strictly necessary. What I must not do, though, is to show a hint of jealousy or even interest in her attention to other, more dudical dudes. I am completely confident that these dudes are destined to failure because the female in question also has several volumes of McSweeney's and only eats free-range chickens. The next thing I know, I am being introduced as her "Good Friend Dude" and receiving calls at off-hours about her problems with Paulo the Brazilian Lumberjack who has, once again, boned her, drank her last beer and disappeared into swarthy anonymity. I am now Gay Friend. Once one has become Gay Friend, nothing can be done. If you try to clarify the fact that you are actually there to get down, they will accuse you of having been deceitful, a snake in the grass. This is true–but damaging to your chances of tang attainment. Most likely, you will try to get with a whole slew of subpar chicks in her presence and hope that she notices/cares/gets jealous. She won't. Did this shit happen to Ernest Hemingway? Or Sam Cooke? Probably not. But then again, they didn't have This American Life.

But never fear, Gay Friends! Now there is a movie just for your (our) pathetic existence, offering a bit of fictional carrot for you to grope after before you fall in the hole of being 40, single and owning a whole bunch of Le Tigre CDs! Its called Made of Honor, and to tell you the truth, I only know about it because I would be the starlet's Gay Friend in a second (seriously, I have an RSS feed of her IMDB page, she can't do a voice-over without me knowing). As far as I can tell the story is about her Gay Friend (remember, not actually gay) who is just getting up the guts to expose himself to her when–OH SNAP!!!–she tells him that she is getting married to Dude McDudical. Oh shit. Then, to heap indignity upon indignity, she gets the wacky idea that he should be her MAID OF HONOR! Gender roles? Fuck that! So, then some zany shit happens, and we as viewers are perplexed as to why patrick dempsey who is like the hottest dude EVAR, got relegated to eunuch doormat status. Then, I would imagine that she realizes this and they chop of Dude McDudical's junk and adorn their marital cake with it. Or they find out that Dude McDudical was, in fact, two midgets in a costume! I don't know, the fact is that I will go see this movie because I have no self-respect. TrRAAILER!

PS. The internet just told me that Michelle Monaghan was once on Law and Order SVU. If this means that she was at any point a naked corpse, someone let me know. I HAVE NO SHAME.