NO ONE IS GETTING REPLACED

This post is mostly inconsequential and bizarre.

Two weeks ago I was driving around Jacksonville catching up with a friend from high school. He was asking me about college and my friends when he suddenly asked, "Did you meet a new gay guy? Did you replace me?"

I thought it was an absolutely ridiculous question. "No, I didn't replace you," I assured him. "What kind of question is that?" I continued thinking it was an absurd question, but the incident passed and we moved on to other topics of conversation.

Today I asked a different friend - "He was worried that I'd replaced him. Do people actually think about this kind of thing, or is he just being neurotic?" I was informed that being replaced was a genuine fear and not just one person being silly. And at first it seemed really strange, but then we (the friend I asked and I) realized that this kind of thinking is generally encouraged by the media - on television shows and in movies, the heroine will have that one token gay friend. This is the only gay friend she is allowed to have, period, and should another gay friend be written in, the other will be written off.

Hence several of my friends confiding their fears of being "replaced."

AMERICA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO YOUR YOUTH?