In our last post, the gay guy really did become straight—but that is the exception, not the rule. Sometimes, it is just a friendship with benefits…

Fag Hag. Queer Dear. Rainbow Catcher. What do we call her? She’s not his boyfriend, but are they really just friends? You’ve undoubtedly seen her. You might even be her. It’s dating minus the sex, plus honesty, plus fashion, minus cheating, plus pedicures, and if you’re lucky, plus love. But, it seems no one can quite define her, how it happens, or why it works. And while I don’t know what to call it, I know what it feels like to be her.

Imagine: You’re with your straight friends on Saturday night at Privilege: you pay to camp out on Sunset in a tent, even though you try to convince yourself it is an actual building. You can feel the breeze through the flaps. Inside someone orders you champagne. The conversation lasts three minutes. You escape. Someone else comes over but their cologne is lethal and you run for the bathroom. You come out and two undersexed over-inflated P.A.’s ask for your name. You find your friends, get a stiff one and hope the bouncer will be more choosey from now on.  By eleven o’clock, you’ve all but given up when a man walks over. No outward signs of insanity. He’s not wearing his sunglasses at night. He’s doesn’t have an iphone strapped to his forehead. There is no visible ankle bracelet. No entourage.

He asks what you’re drinking. Vodka Tonic. You ask him what he does. He’s in “the industry,” but avoids specifics. He’s got a “new project” and another “in the works.” He’s from L.A. but doesn’t say where. You wonder if he’s really from the city, or the valley and just rounding up. He refers to everyone by first names, but doesn’t actually confirm who they are. You want to ask Steven the Director or, Steven your friend? But you don’t, because that would violate the faux casualness people in L.A. crave more than Botox.  You have another drink or two and so does he. Then, drunk McGee spills the truth. He’s a key grip and lives with his parents in Sherman Oaks. By midnight you wish you had tried E-Harmony instead.

Before long the “scene” starts to look like the scene of an accident, complete with yellow caution tape and flashing lights and you’re tired of crashing into people.

It could be days later or sometimes years, but eventually you meet him. Its nothing you plan, just something you fall into. He’s usually a friend of a friend, or that one guy you always walk past at work. You begin to talk to him. You do drinks and dinner. He always lets you pick the movies, he didn’t even argue when you suggested P.S. I Love You, and that’s when it all comes to a screeching halt. He’s gay! Damn it, you think. Of course he would be. Just my luck. But, now you’re involved. And now you must decide: date a gay man or kill a straight man?

Little by little, you stop going to the bars on Sunset. You find yourself at places you don’t know. The buildings are made of more than fabric and poles and you like that. You walk inside. A dimly lit hallway bursts into a long bar. Mirrors are everywhere, but somehow, the room feels no bigger than it actually is. The narrowness of the space forces you to touch the actual boundaries of it and each other.

You watch together as people enter. It is a delicious smorgasbord: gay, metro, queen, straight, and unsure. Makeup takes away the harshness of jaw lines. Men wear shiny black stilettos and pink crop tops; their abs are the envy of all the real women in the room.

People spill onto a sunken patio. The D.J. spins techno, electronic, and pop. The only labels are on clothing. Everyone is dancing: men with men, men with women, men with men who look like women and vies-a-versa. People are kissing. Is it two of the same or one of each? The darkness makes it hard to tell.

Here, between the street and the club, a thin wooden door is all that separates gender. On one side the rules are clear, on the other they exist only as contradictions. It is where a gay man can make out with a straight girl without being labeled straight; and that same straight girl can make out with another girl, without being labeled gay. It is both real and surreal, a place where a man can dress like a woman without actually becoming one. You can fucking love someone, without loving to fuck them. And somehow, this non-relationship feels more real than any real one.  Call it what you will: Fag Hag, Queer Dear, or Rainbow Catcher. I call it happy.