gay date setup | TQS Magazine

A friend made an interesting comment to me this weekend. “Why is it that when you try and set a [queer] couple up, they assume the only reason you’ve tried is because you’ve found two people who are both gay?”

This is an interesting question. It is often the assumption that a person has simply thought ‘Hello, a lesbian, I have a single lesbian friend… lesbian plus lesbian… how can I fail?’. And perhaps in some cases this is the truth, but surely it extends beyond that.

I can see why some people might be a bit edgy when proposed with a potential fix-up; I’ve had people in the past pull up a Facebook page and say ‘I think you’d really like my friend’. How many ways can you explain ‘I’m afraid that your buzz-cut 40-something friend with nine cats isn’t really suited to Domestic Sluttery fan, undergraduate, cat allergic me. Thank you.’

But, perhaps it’s worth giving these wannabe-dating agents the benefit of the doubt. Or at least to see a photo of the candidate before shooting them down. To begin with, you both have a friend in common. So, unless said friend is in fact a frienemy, you’re surely onto a winner. They have enough taste to be friends with you; surely their other pals are of a similar standard? Running in similar social circles really can bode well – it says something about your likes, your dislikes, your background, your temperament… this isn’t to say that everyone in a social circle shares the exact same

preferences, but there are certainly a higher instance of similarities to be found than with a group of strangers. Why go to a bar where the only real similarities are ‘probably gay’, ‘was free this evening’, and ‘is in the vicinity of the establishment’? Why not take a chance on a selection from a more concentrated sample?

If there could be further proof that the friend set-up is based on a little more than gay + gay, here’s a real instance lacking in set-ups but demonstrative of how like truly does attract like:

My partner has a housemate and good friend, let’s call him ‘Ted’. Ted is friends with ‘Ned’.

I have a good friend who studied on my degree. We’ll call her ‘Nancy’.

Nancy ended up working for the same business as Ned, and at the office Christmas party they officially began their romance.

Pow – my good friend and my partner’s good friend found each other. In another dimension we could have set them up. In yet another they could have set us up.

So, perhaps we queers shouldn’t be so dismissive of the friend set-up. Even if they themselves don’t know it, there probably is more to it than simply gay + gay.

This was written by Amy Ekins, writer of fiction and non-fiction alike. She is training as a Project Manager for a publishing company, a graduate of English Literature and Creative Writing, and can be found at www.twitter.com/amyeek – Go on, give her a tweet!