“Ask Anna” is a sex column. Because of the nature of the topic, some columns contain language some readers may find graphic.
Dear Anna,
I recently read your “Ask Anna: I’m a straight man and I’m attracted to lesbians,” and I really liked it. I’m also a straight man attracted to a couple of lesbians in my life. It’s not because I think they’re hitting on me, but rather their personalities. I love them dearly as friends and hesitate to let myself feel sexually toward them.
What am I supposed to do with these feelings? I long for the day when I meet someone who is straight with the same personality and character as my lesbian friends. Thank you for your time. — Also Attracted to Lesbians
Dear AATL,
I wish that for you, as well. And your letter brings up an interesting question. What do we do with big feelings that can’t be expressed in the way we want to express them?
And the answer is: We express them in the ways that we can!
We make or create something meaningful. We write poetry or letters that don’t get sent, or angry, expletive-filled diatribes in our journals. We paint. We ride Harleys or run marathons. We sweat. We cry. We ache. We learn how to cook or how to speak Mandarin. We meditate. We go on trips. We tell everyone we love that we love them and why. We drink or do drugs. We climb mountains and scream into the void. We break things and hold ourselves. We volunteer or throw ourselves into causes that are bigger than our loneliness. We wear ourselves out. We dance. “We laugh until we cry and cry until we laugh,” (to quote Regina Spektor). We sleep for very long periods of time. We engage in rituals. We have sex. We talk or Zoom or connect in any way we can.
And once we’ve made art and sweated and f**ked and worn ourselves out, maybe — maybe! — then we sit quietly with the big feelings and examine them.
It’s natural to develop crushes on our friends — friends are lovely. Plus, they have the benefit of proximity and trust. We tend to spend ample time with friends and appreciate their good qualities, many of which overlap with qualities we seek in romantic partners. But if such crushes reflect a broader habit of seeking or pursuing unavailable people, then that is something to explore in a deeper manner, as our habits and patterns tend to mirror beliefs (whether true or not) we have about ourselves.
Do such things apply to you, AATL? Are there ways that you, yourself, are unavailable in love? Are you afraid, perhaps, of going all in because you don’t want to get hurt? Do you profess to want something “casual” when in actuality you’d love to get married and co-parent a corgi? Do you fear losing yourself in a relationship or your freedom? Does monogamy scare you? Routine? The inevitability of disappointment? I’m just wildly conjecturing here. (But, you know, all of these things have scared me at some point! And I’m far from immune to falling for unavailable people).
Perhaps none of this applies to you. But, well, you did write to me, and we are in a pandemic and have nothing but time, so it might be interesting to consider the ways you might not be showing up for yourself, and how, if so, you might go about changing that.
Best of luck, AATL.
PS: Don’t hit on your lesbian friends, probably.