A Straight Man Asks How to Ditch a Gay Friend When Traveling

By STEVEN PETROW

Every other Tuesday, Steven Petrow, the author of “Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners” (Workman, 2011), addresses questions about gay and straight etiquette for a boomer-age audience. Send questions for Civil Behavior to stevenpetrow@earthlink.net.

 

Q. Dear Civil Behavior: I am going on a five-city tour overseas with a longtime friend of mine who happens to be gay (I am straight). Another old friend lives in one of the cities we’ll be visiting, and she wants to meet up and show me around. But she’s not that open-minded about gays (she knows he’s gay), so I’d be spending the day with her alone. How can I tell my travel companion I’m taking a detour to see an old friend but he can’t come? It’s really a dilemma for me. Any advice is greatly appreciated. — Terrado, age 61
 

A. Let’s start with Travel Etiquette 101: When traveling with friends, especially in midlife when we all have our idiosyncrasies, you’re free to agree on any ground rules at all – as long as you set those rules before your departure. And agreeing at the outset to take some separate excursions (you hate museums; he loves them) is perfectly acceptable. After all, going on a vacation together doesn’t mean you’re joined at the hip.

But let’s move on to Advanced Travel Etiquette and the “dilemma” you posed. The principle here is simple honesty. So although you could simply say (as one poster suggested when I posed your question on my Facebook page), “I have a friend in city X and I would like to spend time with her alone,” that’s not exactly true. Not to rain on your parade (or your vacation), but that little white lie is really a self-serving justification to get you out of this pickle. By omitting the salient fact that the friend you’re going to visit is not “gay-friendly” and does not want your companion to participate, you have, at best, distorted the situation (some might say you’ve done worse).

To see what’s worse, you need only ask yourself this: What if your traveling companion were African-American and your friend in a foreign land was not “open-minded” about blacks? Would you be willing to accept that? And would you “detour” from your traveling pal? I rather doubt it.

In fact, there still seems to be a double standard when it comes to discrimination based on race versus sexual orientation. We all know what happened to Paula Deen last month when she admitted using the N-word: several of her business partners, like Target, Wal-Mart and the Food Network, dropped her like a sour-cream-laden hot potato. And rightfully so. But how did Capital One respond when its front man, the actor Alec Baldwin, tweeted what The Daily Mail in London called “an extraordinary homophobic Twitter rant”? Nothing, really. The banking company has remained silent despite an outcry that he should be fired.

Mr. Baldwin, of course, is not alone in his use of antigay slurs. Earlier this month a Roman Catholic cardinal in Santo Domingo reportedly used the word “maricón” (an antigay pejorative) to refer to the United States’ nominee to be the next ambassador to the Dominican Republic. As John Aravosis, editor-in-chief of AMERICABlog, wrote: “Paula Deen, a TV chef, lost her entire career for admitting insensitivity to minorities. But a Catholic cardinal does the same, and it’s no big deal — just another day at the altar.”

So, here’s my advice to you: When we allow others to think it’s O.K. to voice antigay sentiment or discriminatory behavior, we help perpetuate those attitudes and we become accomplices at the same time.

I see this as a perfect opportunity to work to change her mind about L.G.B.T. people. I would e-mail ahead of time, giving her an easy way to change her mind: “'George’ and I would love to spend the day with you. He’s one of my best friends and I think you’d like him, too.” At that point it’s really up to her to step up (“That’s great, I look forward to seeing you both”) or out.

If she says no to seeing you both, you might go as far as to say: “It’s troubling to me that you’re having difficulty accepting my friend who is gay. To be honest, I am disappointed in you because I had thought you were a thoughtful, big-hearted person.” The point is to make it clear that you won’t tolerate her kind of behavior and that you expect better from her.

If she skips the chance to see you based on your traveling companion, she is not much of a friend at all. And if you take your “detour” without being open with your gay friend, I would question what kind of friend you are to him. Or to make a wordplay on ACT-UP’s famous slogan, part of our generation’s coming of age, SILENCE = COMPLICITY.

Do you think it’s more acceptable (or less objectionable) to voice antigay sentiment than racial slurs? And, if so, why?