I gotta admit, this is starting to feel homophobic!? JK but…

Q

I’m part of a small but tightknit group of queers at my office and thanks to a company mixer late last year, we recently learned that there’s ANOTHER GAY working in our company because she brought her girlfriend to it! That she lives with! It’s a big company but I’d seen her around and she just didn’t ping for any of us but we were so excited to see her there with her girlfriend.

We’ve invited her to eat lunch with us and to come to our happy hour (where 2 of us are sober, which we mentioned, in case she was sober or her gf). We invited her and her gf to a birthday party (again, sober-friendly and chill), and to a queer hangout (not a gay bar per se but it’s aesthetically queer and the clientele is nearly devoid of straight people YAY). So far they’ve declined every offer! I think we almost got her to have lunch with us one day but she was able to back out at the last minute. It was obvious at the mixer that she has other friends at work (and I need to specify here that it was called a mixer by the company, I’m not from 1950) who are all straight (or seem straight?), so it isn’t like she’s just antisocial. I gotta admit, this is starting to feel homophobic??! Kind of joking, but is it possible she just does not want queer friends? What is that? Has anyone ever had this experience? Should we just give up?

A

Summer: Weeeeell I don’t think anyone is required to join a social group if they’re not interested. If she’s making it clear she’d like to keep her distance, she’s allowed to do it. There are myriad reasons why someone wouldn’t want to mix with a new group from work. Maybe her dance card is full and she can’t handle more social engagements. Maybe her style of friendship isn’t compatible with what she’s seeing within your group. Maybe she doesn’t think she’d mix well with your group. Maybe she is queerphobic despite being in a gay relationship.

But her reasons are her own. Turning down people’s invitations doesn’t mean disliking someone. If that were the case, I’d have beef with most of the people in my life, all of my friends, and a lot of random people. Declining an invitation doesn’t mean anything on its own and I don’t see a point to making a thing out of it.

Valerie: First of all, as a corporate America survivor, I didn’t even clock “mixer” as a weird word until you joked about not being from 1950, and now I have to go rock in a corner about it. Second of all, if she isn’t new at the company, it’s very possible she just already likes her own office clique and doesn’t want to abandon them for y’all. (Also, I had a group of coworkers I called my Dire Straights and two of the women ended up marrying each other, so sexuality is not always what it seems, as was the case for the coworker in question.) Also if you are a tight-knit group, it’s very possible you are intimidating as an outside witness, and maybe that seems overwhelming to overcome. Maybe she has secret beef with one of your members because of a work incident. Maybe her girlfriend is too jealous to let her hang out with other queer people (a real problem I encountered once.) Maybe she’s out enough to bring a girlfriend to a work party but not out enough to want to be seen doing gay things in public.

There are so many reasons and almost definitely it’s not personal. Or at least, not super personal, since she doesn’t really know your group. If she’s already declined over five events and doesn’t seem to be excited to someday be able to make it to one of them, and is just kind of declining and backing out of them all, I would say it’s safe to stop inviting her. It sounds like y’all have a good thing going, no need to muddy the waters with someone who doesn’t enthusiastically want to be there. At this point, if she does want to hang out with your group, she knows who to reach out to to ask if you are getting lunch this week, etc. 

Nico: You truly cannot know what someone has going on in their life. Just because she was social with people she works with at a mixer (which probably felt more or less required right?), that does not mean that she has bandwidth for additional socialization. She may have responsibilities that aren’t clear from knowing her in a work context — plenty of people find their free time filled with caring for relatives or second jobs or who knows. You also don’t mention that you know that she hangs with these straight friends outside of work. You did mention the only event she almost made it to was a lunch, where she was already at work, so she truly may just not have time for anything else in her free time. Another possibility is that she feels pressure around her job and doesn’t want to rock the boat for some reason. That possibility sucks but there isn’t much you can do about it. My advice is to keep things friendly. Chat her up at the next work-sponsored social hour you see her at, and let her come to you about hanging out if she decides that’s what she wants.

Riese: My guess is that she has her own life and is happy with it and isn’t looking for more socializing opportunities, or doesn’t see socializing with queer coworkers as important to her life? I think it could just be different values or priorities, which is ok! I can see someone thinking this about me in some context and they might think that because I have so many friends I already rarely see that when I do have free time I want to put in more time with them rather than pursuing a new friend group.

How to choose between my husband and a would-be paramour?

Q

I first recognized my pansexuality during the pandemic (by finding myself on tiktok’s lesbian algorithm, no less). At the time, I was late 27/freshly 28, had never been with a woman and was in a monogamous relationship with a straight man. I came out to him saying that I “thought” I was bi, but that I wasn’t 100% sure. The conversation went really well, I felt super supported and accepted… but at the time since I didn’t feel “sure” of my sexuality, conversations never really progressed, and I basically went two years without thinking about this side of me (aside from the biannual gay panic moments). In 2023 I started to gather a small (but larger than before) network of other queer folks, and by 2024 I came out again – with certainty!! – and started getting more comfortable telling more people the truth of who I am.

It is now almost 2025, I’ve since married that same man, am sure of my sexuality (though I’ve still not been with a woman), and am very happy. However, I have unexpectedly and accidentally fallen in love with a women.

This person is a friend of mine who over time, I developed an attraction for. Everything in our friendship was innocent, never crossing a line, until we recently disclosed our feelings for one another. Since that revelation, I’ve been spinning. These feelings for her exist entirely separate to my husband – I don’t feel a lack in my marriage nor that any gaps are present. But I feel that I’m at an impasse. I told my husband that I have feelings for this friend and that I’d like to explore my sexuality with her. The conversation went as well as can be expected; my husband was understanding, sympathetic and kind. I did not feel any judgements or fear repercussion. However, he is not interested in non-monogamy. I’ve asked that he really think about this and what it means for us, himself and me; I’ve asked that he do research, talk to a therapist, take his time to process and think things through before we come to an ultimate “decision”. While he’s agreed to do that, he simply does not think that he’ll be able to get to a point where he is comfortable with me exploring an intimate relationship outside of ours.

I completely understand his perspective. I hope he can work through some of his fears in therapy, but ultimately, even if he does, his desire for monogamy may remain too central, outweighing my desire to explore my sexuality. And with that, I’m stuck. I don’t want to leave my husband, he is my favourite person in the world and someone I don’t want to live without. But by that same token, I cannot imagine my life without my friend. Maybe things feel this level of intense and complex because this is my first queer experience? … but I simply cannot fathom not having my friend in my life, and equally, cannot fathom these feelings for her changing or going away. Luckily, my husband does not feel threatened by these feelings, simply uncomfortable with me acting upon them. He’s happy for me to remain close to her as long as things don’t cross the line, but that seems entirely unrealistic given she reciprocates my feelings; plus how can that be fair or agreeable to her?

Ultimately, this feels like Sophie’s choice. How am I meant to choose between two people I love? I worry that I’m getting swept up in my first queer experience and not seeing the forest through the trees, but even so, how am I meant to deal with this? I feel completely torn up inside, wanting both of them and wanting to be enough for them. How can I move on? Should I move on, or should I be asking different questions? Help!

A

Summer: Honestly, props to the strength of your relationship that it’s facing the situation with mutual care. Ultimately, you’re correct in that he can only be given the time and space needed to consider your position before giving you an answer. That answer may not be the one you want.

My perspective is that you’re in the position of choosing between established stability and the novel unknown. The novel unknown is very enticing because our brains love to concoct the most amazing and unrealistic what-ifs for us to drool over. Although you have feelings for your friend, are they worth the potential damage to your relationship? The framing of the question makes it seem like you have to pick between two people you love deeply. But are you sure that your feelings for your friend are sustainable love, or whirlwind infatuation pushed by the longing for something you can’t have?

Your husband seems like an excellent fit for you already. You have so many good things to say about him. If you were incredibly dissatisfied with your relationship, my answer might be different, but I don’t know if this is a situation where you can have your cake and eat her unless your husband changes his view. If you want to ignore his agency, your remaining options are infidelity or ending the marriage.

Nico: As Summer said, your options, if he decides he’s not interested in non-monogamy, are either cheating or breaking up. A lot of people find themselves in this situation, being monogamous, possibly for life, but longing to have explored their sexuality more. I think that if it doesn’t happen with your friend, that Summer is right, and it seems like you have a really loving, trusting relationship in which you’re already sure you’re going to be respected and loved and cared for. However, longer term, I don’t think the conversation has to be 100% off the table. You two can maybe discuss non-monogamy in ways that do not feel as pressure-heavy, that maybe are more mutual in terms of how you might go about exploring your sexualities. You could consider finding a counselor to go to as a couple, for example, where you can talk about things in more general terms. The unfortunate thing about this situation is that you have an attraction to a friend that feels urgent to you in the moment, so instead of being able to explore in an expansive way, it feels like your husband is being asked to respond under pressure, which is probably not very fun for him.

As a notorious crush-haver, I do think that you can have your feelings dissipate over time, if this is desired. Maybe you two need to take a short break from seeing each other, and then gradually ease back into friendship for that to happen, but this does not have to be an all or nothing situation as I think you’ve framed it. I think this feels very raw and exciting because it’s new and queer — you’re right, but this is probably not your last queer crush, either. And it’s great that your husband isn’t threatened by that because that means you can keep having conversations with each other as you learn more about yourself, your sexuality, and what you want in life and your relationship(s).

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