Where Are All the Straight Men on the Main Line?

My heterosexual colleague Kelly Rowell last week opined about the shortage of gay men on the Main Line. In the interest of fairness, here is a different spin — from a Main Line lesbian. (That would be me.)

The Main Line is lousy with gay men, if you ask me. There’s one in every bikini-wax salon. As for lesbians, been to Narberth lately? It had to be zoned for heterosexuals.

What is truly in short supply on the Main Line is a species I like to call homo heterosexian. For non-scientists, that means “heterosexual man.” Very few of them roam here. Most, sadly, are still in the closet. [SIGNUP]

In my experience, straight men make the best buds for lesbians. Straight men mow the lawn. They pick up the check. They watch sports. They recycle their dirty laundry. They drink domestic beer. They fart and belch with childlike abandon. They appreciate a good rack.

Most importantly, they let us borrow their clothes.

Yes, straight men make a dandy fashion accessory for lesbians. And fashion, as you may have heard, is not our strong suit. To us, dressing up means tie-dying our tool belts. Most of us build our wardrobes at Today’s Man or, in a pinch, Forman Mills. Straight men on the Main Line have much better taste.

I have always had straight men friends, even in nursery school. (Who knew that “playing doctor” was a lesbian game?) The older I got, the more straight men friends I had. Sometimes I knew they were straight before they knew they were straight. It was always a shock, but I was steadfast in my support. “Maybe it’s just a phase,” I said.

My lesbian friends on the Main Line are jealous that I have so many straight men pals. In fact, at our last Home Depot convention, they (the lesbians, not the straight men) went so far as to accuse me of hogging them (the straight men, not the lesbians.) They (lesbians) said I should share the man-wealth.

Fact is, straight men are so rare out here that the federal government may designate them as an endangered species. That would be particularly ruinous for our older socialite lesbians, who pester their heterosexual daughters to pimp for them. A straight male escort is just the thing for a lesbian in a tiara at a country club formal.

So I say to all you closeted straight men on the Main Line, be out and proud! Come on over to Narberth for the annual Adopt-A-Lesbian picnic and hammer throw. You’ll never find better friends.

GAIL SHISTER, TV columnist for the Inquirer for 25 years, teaches writing at Penn and is a columnist for tvnewser.com. She writes for The Philly Post on Tuesdays.