Wait… What Do You Do Again?
Filed under: Adam, Behind The Cast
Author: Adam
Date: Jul 23, 2009
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Quick, think of five of your close friends: you know their last names, where they live, likely where they grew up and kind of guy they like ;) But tell me, what do they do for a living…? If you’re gay, there’s a pretty good chance at least one of ‘em is a server/bartender/actor (all in one, and the latter more of an aspiration than an honest description ;) but that kid aside, do you really know what the others do? Sure, I can tell you my friends “work in HR”, “manage officers at the border”, and “project manage” (whatever the hell that is), but any more details than that and I’m at a loss… why IS that?
Maybe I’m the exception, maybe everyone pays more attention than I do and can give me their best friends Social Insurance Numbers, but in my experience- and oddly enough, especially in the gay world- we homos sometimes struggle to describe to a tee what it is our friends get paid for. I know my girl friends are quite aware of each other’s 9-5 details, but my boys-who-love-boys are less au courant. Not quite willing to admit that it’s a difference in gender-specific brain chemistry, I’m thinking it’s more a case of typically gay conversation and topics of interest.
Having hung out with straight males, straight females and gay males (as separate groups), I’ve often found the conversation to be quite different. While the topic of who’s dating/seeing/marrying/sleeping with whom is a huge go-to, I do notice a decrease in career-talk with the gays. The straights love talking about the latest promotion or job change, and the girls just love to dish on who they love and who they love to hate near ye old water cooler… but the “boys”, not so much I find.
So, I’ve got to ask, if it’s true what I see- in other gay groups- why is it so? Is it a lack of wanting to share by the speaker or a lack of interest in the listener? I’ve got a few guesses…
1. At our age, having your closest friends be from high school becomes more and more rare. So, how do straight men meet other straight men- and the same for straight women? Through work! How best to find a common interest than through what you spend 8 hours of your day doing? Sure, guys meet through sports and girls through other girls, but as the 2 prefix to your age becomes a 3, your career begins to take up more of your time and your identity and becomes the easiest way to meet new people. So, naturally, your friends will know more about the fine details of your employment as you either work in the same field or began your friendship based on this common interest! Why wouldn’t this be true for gays you ask? Well, due to our lack of numbers and often less-than “declared homo status”, it’s harder to find gay friends through work… it’s a hell of a lot easier to meet ‘em at a T-Dance or through other gays or as ever popular trick-turned-friends. For that reason, work was never a hugely important issue.
2. While we all love talkin’ about the latest conquest, I DO think the gay male has a bit of an edge on that market. Not only do I believe we have the most sex, but- and you are welcome to argue with me here- I think he have the more exciting types of sexual experiences as well! For that reason, why NOT talk about that a little more than about what happened when the copier broke down earlier that day?
3. (Let’s hope it’s not this one) But, it could just be that gays are a bit more cursory in their exchanges of day-to-day info! Maybe when we ask how the day was we only expect to hear 20 seconds instead of the “straight 2 minute” version? While I certainly don’t think gay guys are deaf to all convos that don’t contain the words “double penetration” and “glory hole”, I do wonder if talk about our relationships is what primarily gets us going!
Well, what do you think? Am I completely off here and you know exactly what your boys are up to? Or is there another reason we don’t seem to know as much as we do or maybe should about those so close to us we often call them family. Maybe take a second to ask your besties what they REALLY do in that corner office of theirs… hell, if you’re lucky, you might just hear the words “glory hole” anyway ;)
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- Tags: conversation, discussion, employment, friends, friendship, jobs, office, position, promotion, salary
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Rich
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Good question Adam! For the most part, I know what my close friends do in the big picture sense… much like you. I know who most of them work for… although not all. And the reason for that is our conversations. As a group, we don’t talk about work a lot… and you what I really like it that way. I can talk/bitch/brag about work with my boyfriend or other coworkers… i don’t need or really want to do that with my friends.
Dan
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Awesome point to ponder Adam!
I think Rich makes a good point as well. I know where pretty much all of my friends work and what their overall role is within the company, but I appreciate the atmosphere my friends create for me outside of the office where I can truly forget about my work week for two full days.
Also, the stipulation for a lot of our friends as not being full-blown-out at work has an affect on our mental status when discussing our careers. Often when I talk about my career the first go-to question for my gay friends is to ask the question, “are you out at work?” In my situation, I have been barraged more than once about why I’m not shouting my sexuality from the rafters/my cubicle from my friends who don’t understand the nature of my office environment. This reason alone has always allowed me to skirt around answering work-related questions, and sticking to the hot topic of ‘glory holes’ – I believe that’s how you put it, right? ;)
Allan
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Well – for me and my boys – I think it’s that none of us are all that stoked on our jobs…at least not enough to talk about them above the other things going on in our lives or the community. Maybe when one of us finally gets our real careers started (myself – I can’t get a teaching job to save my life right now) we’ll chat about that. Until then my friends really don’t need to know about the document control I’ve been doing and I don’t need to know about the wine they’ve been stocking…I’d much rather talk about sex. ;)
Stephen
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:39 pm
What an interesting topic you bring up Adam! I never really thought about this, but I have to agree with you. I never really get into the details of work with many of my gay friends, but there are some exceptions I can think of. But on the whole, you are right when you say that family and my straight friends ask about work a lot more than do my gay friends.
As for why that may be? I don’t know, it’s probably a combination of all three. But I do know that if I’m meeting my parents for brunch or going for a drink with one of my straight friends that I expect to broach the subject of work because I don’t necessarily like to dish about the overly-gay details of my life with them. So the topic goes from what’s new to how’s work and how’s your place, and how are you and your boyfriend doing -sparing the juicy details of course!. But if I’m ripping it up at a T-Dance or house-party with a bunch of gays, work is one of the last things on my mind.
Kyle
July 24th, 2009 at 9:04 am
well i suppose it depends if getting hammered in public counts as gainful employment
Adam
July 24th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Kyle: perfect ;)
et al: I never thought about the gays as being a break from the normal “work talk”- but that totally makes sense. Like Dan said though, it’s more “friends in general” that offer this freedom but like Stephen said, typically mom and your best straight friend from elementary school don’t really come up with “so how was that circuit party?” as much as your best gays do :)
JOELF
July 24th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Here’s what I think – Note: This is 1/100 science and 99/100 me extrapolating into the realm of ridiculousness. Okay, now that that’s out of the way, here we go:
Neurobiologists have found that on average the corpus callosum in gay men is thicker than in straight men – basically, the corpus callosum is a thick band of axons that carry information between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. In short, there is more communication between both sides of the brain in gay men than in straight men on average, and more cross-talk between the art and logic areas. Okay.
Now, this might suggest that gay men will tend to bring both sides of their brain into play when attacking a problem. This may be the reason you find your gay friends having highly interdisciplinary jobs: for instance, project manager, consultant, etc. – jobs where a variety of skills are needed: milestone tracking, technical skills, communications skills and so forth. This may be why you could find it difficult to nail down what they do – unless you say they are a project manager, consultant, etc….
Now, what about gay people in professional positions? The firemen, policemen, nurses, doctors, and lawyers. Well, they exist, of course, but I think they bring much of both sides into play too. Here’s how: they go to work, exhaust one of their interests during the day, and when they get home, or are in a social situation, can not WAIT to talk about their multitude of other interests. This is probably why our discussions at parties revolve around art, performance art, television, cinema, comedy, or anecdotes about how Joel got wasted and thought it was cool to wear a pink “Connie’s Bachelorette Party 2009″ tank top to the Odyssey last week (You can tell your room mate not to worry, Dan, it is in one piece, neatly folded, and heading your way).
In short, it may have a little to do with how we’re wired, and our need to fulfill a multitude of interests.
Adam
July 25th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
I’m glad you brought science into this “JOELF”… but no amount of einsteinium theorizing will explain the “connic’e bachelorette party 2009″ shirt… NONE.
but thanks for coming out ;) x
JOELF
July 26th, 2009 at 12:31 am
You hurt my soul.
Marcus
July 26th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
I think one of the main reasons a lot of “gays” don’t talk about their work with each other, is because in one single group of friends careers can vary from President of a Software company, to Lawyer to local Starbucks Barista, to us we don’t require our friends to be on the same “Level” financially or professionally to consider them close friends, having the “gay” ticket is more than enough.
If you take a typical gaggle of gays, at a house party, the age range can vary from 18-55, and a 38 Year Old Advertising Executive probably doesn’t want to talk to adorable 22 Year Old Undergrad Student about getting his 15 Years of Dedication award. He just wants to drink, chat, and have fun like everyone else, he can save that boring talk for brunch with the boss.
We all want to avoid the “How much do you make?” question as well. We judge each other enough as it is, no sense in adding another one to the list.