A Love Letter To My (Gay) Best Friend

You’re pretty much my other half. I don’t know if you bring out the worst in me or the best in me, but whatever the hell you bring out in me, I’m addicted. You’re the perfect balance of bitchy, brutally honest, and beautiful. You’re basically everything I want to be. You’re the one who taught me the importance of hair masks, the cleansing effects of belting out show tunes in the middle of the day, the benefits of juice diets and detoxes, and the healing effects of shopping and gossiping. Sure, I get annoyed when you hang out with my boyfriend to watch sports. But I actually love you endlessly more for being so damn unique and unafraid to be who you are. You inspire me.

You’re the first person I think of when I wake up in the morning, probably because you’re sleeping right next to me after a night of margaritas and gossiping. You’re the first person I want to run to with boyfriend and dating drama; you always know exactly what to say, and if you don’t, you know exactly what to do to get my mind off of it. Sure, I have other friends who can do all this for me so I don’t inundate you with my issues, but it wouldn’t be the same.

I know we have our fits and screaming matches and blowout fights. But they’re nothing that a good heart to heart over brunch (read: bottomless mimosas) can’t fix. But I always remember this: You’re the best friend I could ever have but also the worst enemy. I’d like to stay on the right side of that boundary, especially considering how many intimate secrets and details you know about me. I don’t even want to think about how you’d use that one sexual fantasy I have against me if we were ever real enemies. So let’s pray to all the spirits that that never happens.

But bestie, I have to address this issue and then I won’t speak about it ever again: The competition between us needs to stop. Let’s face it, the guys you date are way more fabulous and beautiful than the majority of the men I’m pulling in, and sometimes, I feel this strange jealousy towards you because it seems all the great guys are either already taken or are gay. Nothing drives me more insane than when I try to hit on a guy, only to find out he’s gay and then you swoop in and land him. I’m more than happy to be your wing-woman 97% of the time. But it still kills me a little on the inside.

On the other hand, I can’t help but think you have some jealousy towards me. You’ve always had this “thing” for trying to hook up with straight men. Sometimes it works when they’re super drunk, but when it doesn’t work, and I end up hooking up with him, you’re furious. We’ve even had fights over this that lasted for a few days. So please, let’s mutually agree to remember that sexuality is not something either of us can choose for ourselves nor change in another person and we should be respectful and non-resenting of instances when someone we’re both interested in chooses one of us over the other. Because still, at the end of the day, we both know that my sexuality and your sexuality are not the foundations of our friendship; rather, we cherish each other even more because of it.

I wouldn’t change a single, perfectly manicured hair on your head. I’d literally be lost without you. Nobody understands me the way you do — everyone else thinks I’m psycho when I bitch for 5 hours about some backhanded compliment my current frenemy said three days ago. But not you. You’re right there alongside me and plot a revenge plan bigger and better than I could have come up with on my own. And when there are days in which you tap into your inner manly-man, I remember why I love you so much. You are so comfortable in your own skin that you look beyond gender norms and can just be who you are.

You’re my soul mate, my other half. You’re the sibling I never had. The perfect boyfriend I’ll NEVER have. The friend that I’ll cherish until the day I die. From the nights you’ve held by hair back after one too many double vodka crans, to the endless tissues you’ve handed me during my mental breakdowns over one thing or another, to the late night heart-to-hearts we’ve had about our futures and dreams, there’s nobody I’d rather have by my side. You are the most fiercely loyal, kind-hearted, and intelligent person I have met and I’m the luckiest girl in the world to call you my friend.