Work Text:
r/relationships
u/purpleunicorns4ever • 2d
I’m worried I [21F] might be homophobic towards my colleague of 1 year [27F]?
First things first, let me say that I’ve never thought of myself as discriminatory before. I had a gay friend in undergrad and she was my only friend and the only reason I survived! I’ve never felt weird about her dating women, so this is all coming out of no where.
“Linn” has been my colleague for one year now, and I pretty much knew upfront about her being gay.
At some point we became friendly enough with each other that we could even joke about it, as in, sometimes she’ll pretend to flirt with me and I’ll pretend to flirt back. I’m straight and she knows that, but I don’t feel threatened by her flirting with me and she says most straight girls do. I guess that’s nice. Sometimes I’ll initiate the joke-flirting and she finds it really funny!
The problems started because of something specific: Linn dates girls, obviously, but sometimes they’re from our shared workplace. At the start, I was okay with it, since it’s not my business who Linn sleeps with or dates. She’s usually discreet enough. Well, not really, but she’s not flaunting it, so I don’t end up seeing anything I wouldn’t want to, but I do, sometimes, hear about small details. Which is fine: we’re friends, I think. (That’s a whole other issue). But for some reason, recently, I’ve started to really feel weird if she talks to me about this or if I see it at all.
For context, Linn was dating (I think) someone from a different department at work and it was totally fine with me. I mean, I thought that Linn could do better and that the other girl sucked, but it wasn’t my place.
Anyways, since then, Linn has dated casually. Which is fine. I don’t know when it started, but one time that really sticks out to me is when I was hanging around the hub at work with our third colleague (“Len”), when Linn came up to him. (They’re roommates btw). She tells him that’s she’s having someone over that night and that he needs to not be there and then she walks away. I don’t know how to describe what it was like to hear that, except that for a moment I felt so bad I thought I was going to throw up. I remember Linn looking at me then and all I did was stare at her. It was so awkward. I remember telling her that she was being unprofessional before looking away because I didn’t know what to do.
And BTW Len is in an inappropriate, workplace sort-of, relationship and I don’t really care what he does. Well, I do. I don’t think he should date the wife of a dead patient client, but it doesn’t make me want to throw up in the same way.
I felt bad for being as disgusted as I was, since there’s NO good reason for me to have a reaction like that. I thought maybe they just caught me by surprise (Her and Garcia her ex JUST broke up?) and that’s why I reacted so strongly, but it turned out it wasn’t a one-time thing.
After that, every time she mentions a girl (not that often, but sometimes) I just start feeling like complete shit. I can’t stop wishing the girl would disappear and I can’t stop thinking about what Linn and these girls might have don’t together even though I DONT want to imagine that. It makes me really really uncomfortable and grossed out but I can’t stop thinking about it. And these are just hookups, apparently. I don’t know what would happen if she started properly dating someone.
Linn has started to notice and it’s affecting our friendship. The other day, I got to work right when some girl was dropping Trin off and the girl tried to be polite when she introduced us, but I ended up being rude to her (I don’t remember what I said, but it was obviously rude). When the girl left awkwardly, Linn asked why I was being an asshole and I didn’t know what to say. But then she asked if I had a problem with her sleeping with other girls. I said no. For some reason, she got angrier and said I’m not allowed to be mad because I flirt with Mateo and she was forced to watch that (I used to flirt with this one guy from work because I had a crush on him, but when he asked me out I got cold-feet and sort of dropped it and haven’t flirted with anyone since).
I agreed with her and told her I was just having a bad day and I don’t care who she sleeps with, but she looked more upset and told me she’s going to go work. I said okay. When she was leaving for some reason she casually said, “and you’ll be okay if I sleep with her as long as you don’t see again, right?” Or something like that. I told him it’s none of my business what she does, but when she said that I felt sick to my stomach and couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Linn wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of my shift. She’s never ignored me like that before and it made me feel like shit, but part of it was my fault since I made her feel like I was judging her for sleeping with girls. Now she’s acting like nothing happened but I’m worried I might mess things up if it happens again. I want to keep her as a friend, but she’d be hurt if she knew that whenever I think about her with other girls. It just disgusts me. I want to throw up
How do I deal with this? I’ve never been homophobic but I’ve suddenly developed some kind of homophobia where just the idea of my friend’s sex life makes me uncomfortable. And I don’t react like this to other gay people either, it’s just Linn. I don’t know if this means I’m only okay with gay people as long as I’m not seeing them or what. Does anyone else have experience with this? I want to get over myself and stop whatever this is, but if I can’t I’m going to have to leave since the last thing I want to do is hurt Linn, and if I keep automatically judging her for her lifestyle that’s what’s going to happen.
tl;dr: friend is gay, I am not but I thought I was okay with her being gay until I realised I feel crappy when I see her with other girls and it’s started to affect our friendship. How to deal with this/stop being such a dick?
Relevant Comment by u/concernedcitizen:
are you sure that weird feeling isn't jealousy...? i mean, this only seems to revolve around Linn specifically
OOP Response:
I thought about that, but I don't know what I'm meant to be jealous of. She definitely has a more active sex life than I do, but reacting like this to something like that seems really strange and irrational.
Relevant Comment by u/concernedcitizen:
But we humans aren't always rational. Are you 100% sure you're not into her at all yourself? It's also possible to have weird homophobic reactions to Linn only but I'd guess there'd be something more under the surface.
OOP Response:
If it was possible for me to be into her, wouldn't I have been into other girls before this? Linn likes to say that sexuality is fluid but she also talks about knowing she was gay when she was pretty young, so what you're saying seems kind of strange since I was only into men before.
Relevant Comment by u/concernedcitizen:
Oh well there's always the first one :) everyone is different, Linn may have been aware of herself since forever but that doesn't mean everyone's like that. Tons of people realize they're not 100% straight muuuch later in life. I was 24 when I first fully realized that.
Is your "disgust" directed at Linn or the other girls? Because from reading your post, it seems that your feelings towards Linn are the same and that's kinda why I thought maybe you're not 100% straight in this case lol.
OOP Response:
It's hard to pinpoint but I think it's mostly the idea of her being with other girls that makes me feel disgusted. I think it's just them I resent. I can't imagine being disgusted by Linn specifically.
Not really sure what to say to the rest of that, sorry. I might need to think about this.