I was introduced to Lauren through my brother Jeremy. That’s the interesting thing about people I meet these days. See, I’m considered a member of the “Bear” community. Bears are gay men. A group of gay men that looked around one day and said, “Wait! I’m not a stereotypical gay guy!” and started a new stereotype. We’re often bigger, hairier or butcher than the previous stereotype. Sometimes not. If you want to know more, google it.
Anyway, the downside to “Bear” is that I’ve got a lot of great, awesome fun friends WHO ARE ALL BEARS. I go out to the bear bar and go to bear movie night and hang out with the Coachella bears at the Coachella music festival. There are bear softball leagues and book clubs. It is really easy to socialize within this bubble. I really don’t know that many girls. I don’t ever put myself in social situations where I get to meet straight guys or married couples starting families. I look around my world and see all these other social groups but I look from my world over to theirs.
The problem with this is I’m rarely exposed to ideas and opinions outside of my own. I don’t feel as challenged as I could be. New people and experiences used to bring great things into my life. While I get lots of music and movie recommendations from my friends, it is talking about a movie I loved with someone who hated it that opens up my opinions.
I feel that my predicament is universal. I’ve got homogeny amongst my friends and I think a lot of people suffer from this too. We join facebook groups to talk with others about our religions, our ethnic backgrounds or cultural heritages. It has become easy to seek out our peers. I think it is wonderful to still be close you your high school or college friends, but into your 30’s, their experiences begin to parallel yours so much that you lose exposure to others. Life doesn’t always allow you to stay close to those friends. Sometimes making new ones in a new city is an inevitable part of life.
So, what’s a bear to do? It’s not easy showing up at a social event that is outside of your typical comfort zone. Making friends with coworkers and their spouses can be good, but you don’t always want to hang out after hours with people that you already see 40 hours a week. There are some pretty cool events out there that come with built in chances to get to know people, like Burning Man, or charity events.
The easiest way, for me, out of this social predicament, is my family. My brother has great taste in friends, a lot of whom are girls, straight guys and married couples with kids. Being able to relate to adult experiences, I’m also finding my parents have some pretty cool friends too. While I still have a good network of bear friends, it is nice to meet new friends like Lauren.
Note: This is a guest post written by Geoff. He was born in Surrey, England, moved to San Francisco and is now a Denver, Colo. transplant.
