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New to H/A: My friend jokes about suicide/homosexuality
AgentofOrange
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey I have some need for advice. Typically I'm quite self sufficient in advising myself, but this might be new territory for me and I'd rather see what people with better experience might suggest.
As with most typical people, I have a close circle of friends. We're sarcastic, and calloused, and jaded in most ways, but we're kind to eachother when we're not joking around. We keep in contact with each other, watch out for each other, etc. etc.
One of us has been left behind as we slowly transitioned our way to a new town for college. I was one of the first ones to leave, and everyone has kind of followed over here through out the past four years. He lives in a broken home, no mom with him, living with his dad that he admitedly hates because he knows he'll "end up being him".
Like the rest of us, he jokes around, but he has two trends to his jokes. The first is suicide.
I've been the most sensative to this, and have pointed it out to our other friends, and they've noticed it too. We don't like that he's far away from us, and we know it's making him depressed. We always try to visit him, but for the most part we just know he sits at home alone doing nothing but playing games and sitting on the net.
In effort to pull him out of things, I got him to move in with me and my room mate. It took a lot of encouragement, though he sincerly wanted to move, he drug his feet through most of it.
Well, the second trend to his jokes that I'm catching on to now is that he talks about having sex with me. A lot.
I think it's pretty clear that he makes these jokes about his depression and sexuality as a way to test the waters and see our reactions. Since these kind of jokes are common in the circle of friends, they are laughed at and ignored for the most part. His frequency is only now being silently noted.
So, I'm concerned.
I think he really does think about suicide often; his lonely and "meaningless" lifestyle has fostered a deep depression and it is not being expressed and delt with well.
In effort to help him move on in his life, he is now living with me. And now it's becoming apparent that he may be attracted to me, and it may be the cause to his conflict. He seems a LOT happier now that he's moved in with me, but I'm afraid it might be due to some false hopes about being with me.
A lesson I've learned well is: I am in no way capable of controlling anyone's happiness. I am well known to try and fix everyone I encounter, but this is something I keep in mind.
I'm not repulsed by his possible attractions, I don't necessarily mind them. I just don't feel the same way about him, or any dude out there. I genuinely care about him and want him to be happy, but it ain't much more than the sincere friendship feelings people have.
How can I approach this, and help him to face his depression, possible sexuality conflicts, and move onward in his life?
I don't feel like a direct approach is a good idea, but I could be wrong.
What do you suggest?
As with most typical people, I have a close circle of friends. We're sarcastic, and calloused, and jaded in most ways, but we're kind to eachother when we're not joking around. We keep in contact with each other, watch out for each other, etc. etc.
One of us has been left behind as we slowly transitioned our way to a new town for college. I was one of the first ones to leave, and everyone has kind of followed over here through out the past four years. He lives in a broken home, no mom with him, living with his dad that he admitedly hates because he knows he'll "end up being him".
Like the rest of us, he jokes around, but he has two trends to his jokes. The first is suicide.
I've been the most sensative to this, and have pointed it out to our other friends, and they've noticed it too. We don't like that he's far away from us, and we know it's making him depressed. We always try to visit him, but for the most part we just know he sits at home alone doing nothing but playing games and sitting on the net.
In effort to pull him out of things, I got him to move in with me and my room mate. It took a lot of encouragement, though he sincerly wanted to move, he drug his feet through most of it.
Well, the second trend to his jokes that I'm catching on to now is that he talks about having sex with me. A lot.
I think it's pretty clear that he makes these jokes about his depression and sexuality as a way to test the waters and see our reactions. Since these kind of jokes are common in the circle of friends, they are laughed at and ignored for the most part. His frequency is only now being silently noted.
So, I'm concerned.
I think he really does think about suicide often; his lonely and "meaningless" lifestyle has fostered a deep depression and it is not being expressed and delt with well.
In effort to help him move on in his life, he is now living with me. And now it's becoming apparent that he may be attracted to me, and it may be the cause to his conflict. He seems a LOT happier now that he's moved in with me, but I'm afraid it might be due to some false hopes about being with me.
A lesson I've learned well is: I am in no way capable of controlling anyone's happiness. I am well known to try and fix everyone I encounter, but this is something I keep in mind.
I'm not repulsed by his possible attractions, I don't necessarily mind them. I just don't feel the same way about him, or any dude out there. I genuinely care about him and want him to be happy, but it ain't much more than the sincere friendship feelings people have.
How can I approach this, and help him to face his depression, possible sexuality conflicts, and move onward in his life?
I don't feel like a direct approach is a good idea, but I could be wrong.
What do you suggest?
AgentofOrange on
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Has the joking about suicide stopped since he moved in with you? Just curious to see what's going on with that part of the situation.
What's he doing in his spare time? Is he going to college? Working? Or is he just crashing at your house all day? Again, just trying to get a better picture of what's going on.
Lastly... could you give any examples of things he does/says that makes you think he might actually be attracted to you instead of just joking?
Let us know so we can evaluate the situation further! And welcome to H/A!
My girlfriend's a therapist and focuses on child and adolescent psychology. She's had cases like your friend--she always escelates pretty much immediately by getting them to a hospital with a psychiatrist who can prescribe anti-depressants. Your friend needs serious help. I'll ask her when I get home tonight for some advice on how to talk to your friend about sitting down with a therapist -- START WITH THE THERAPIST. People with Rx pads have this annoying habit of trying to solve everything with a perscription, but if your friend has a home life as seriously fucked-up as you say, then he's going to need some psychodynamic therapy to explore some of that.
Will be in touch.
He typically sits around and watches tv, sit on his computer, and so on. He doesn't have a car, and depends on me to drive for the most part.
His jokes about suicide have significantly decreased, and jokes about being in love with me have increased.
He used to talk about wanting to buy a gun (for unknown reasons), or make "ironic" suggestions about slitting his throat/wrists, or taking pills. Now he asks me to "touch his weiner", and he'll come up to me, put one hand on my shoulder and say "I love you."
It sounds very typical to the outlandish things we joke about, but I can tell there is truth behind what he is saying. On paper, it's very clear he has an agenda.
Or maybe I'm projecting, which brings up all sorts of new questions.
Either way, I don't want to potentially break his heart and start a new wave of upset emotions for him. I kind of want to see him step forward, because then I can give the appropriate and kind response. I can't decide to how to do it for him without knocking him off guard.
Yes, I do think SammyF is correct on this issue. You can bring this up without even beginning to discuss the situation between you and him specifically.
Something along the lines of telling him that you know he's still hurting from everything that happened in his youth, and that you want to see him feel better about himself and his situation in life. SammyF's wife will probably have something much better to say than that, but just as an idea.
What I'm asking in this thread is advice on approaching my friend with the problems I see in his behavior. Perhaps opinions from outed homosexuals who can appreciate the delicate nature of having a friend at that point.
He's under my roof right now and I can see if he is in danger of suicide, so I'm not resulting to anything drastic, and I don't get the feeling I'd have to. I just want to approach this as delicately as possible and work from there.
Whatever it is, you're directly involved in the behavior, which means you're too close to the problem to help him fix it.
And i'm still all man.
It strikes me as somewhat selfish that you want to talk to him about his sexuality. If he is gay, then shouldn't it be up to him to say when he wants to have that type of talk?
Even though I still say you're overreacting.
Because that's not the issue the OP is posting about;
If he was unhappy about the actions, whether they are in a joking or actual serious manner, then the advice would be simple- Have a talk with the dude and tell him to stop.
But the OP seems to want to 'out' the guy, or at least have a conversation revolving around the guy's sexuality. That's when it stops being his business.
And indeed, let's see what SammyF's significant other has to say before any actions are taken.
assuming he is gay:
if he is not out yet, he could just be testing the waters to see peoples reactions and get an idea of how people would view him
if he is out, then the jokes could be him exploring and figuring out where the limits are... if this makes sense.
I know for me, ive made a bunch of joking comments after coming out to kind of be like "hey im still ok with joking around about these things" and as sort of a way of expressing this new me sort of thing. Admittedly it can be very awkward for all parties involved at first.
As far as joking about suicide... thats tough. I never joked about it when I was in that place. I very rarely joke about it now, but I think when I do its sort of a defense mechanism to try and deal with looking back at that point in my life. Obviously the depression and suicidal stuff can be a direct result of being in/ deal with coming out of the closet. Just getting him to talk seriously about this stuff is often enough. Whether thats with a shrink of some sort or opening up to a friend. Shrinks are nice cause they are a completely neutral 3rd party, which can make it much easier to have a serious discussion. Plus they are trained to handle any craziness that may come up (and can either prescribe or refer them to places to get meds should they think it necessary.)
I doubt he actually has a thing for you tho.
Again this is all assuming he is gay. He could I suppose just sort of be... weird
and have a really odd sense of humor. But I assume you wouldnt be posting if that was actually the situation.
Not sure if any of that was useful at all.
1. All jokes have at their heart some element of truth, so they should be taken seriously in some respect, but that doesn't mean you should take them at face value. So when he says he loves you? That's probably true. That doesn't necessarily mean he actually feels romantically about you or sexually attracted to you, but we agree he probably does feel strong affection for you (which may or may not be entirely platonic and non-threatening). On a similar vein (and this is her opinion and experience speaking) he probably does think about suicide more than the average person, but that doesn't necessarily mean he would ever make an attempt; he may just be trying to solicit a reaction, either as a plea for help or a cry for attention or just so that someone will tell him that they'd miss him if he were gone.
2. There may be many reasons that he makes these sexually-charged jokes about you. I've had gay roommates before. The two of us met through said gay roommate, so we both know him pretty well. In our personal experience, gay men do not hit on straight men. Even if he is gay, this is STILL an unusual behavior. The other immediate thought we both had thinking about your situation is that there's a savior-complex thing going on. You helped drag him out of his home environment, where he was obviously very, very depressed. He's dependent upon you for rides and things. He may very well feel like you've saved him and loves you as a consequence (again--it may simply be platonic love, don't over-react). Mrs. SammyF didn't address this further, but personally, I would suggest that if there is a serious sexual element to what your friend is feeling, you probably don't want to know why he associates dependency with sex because that means that something pretty traumatic has happened to him in the past. Has something bad happened to him? No one here knows, and that's something that ought to be explored by a professional.
3. Regardless of what's going on, you can't directly address his sexuality. If he is gay, it's going to be non-productive to confront him with his sexuality if he's not ready to address it himself, and the rejection is going to cause him to spiral into a depressed state, in which he has already expressed thoughts about suicide before. If he's NOT gay, he's going to get defensive and it will probably cause a lot of harm to your relationship, which is obviously important to him regardless of his sexual orientation. SO DON'T DO IT.
4. He definitely should talk to a therapist. My better half's suggestion as to how to approach him about this is as follows.
I'd never really been that close with another guy before. A lot of times men tend to spin up words like 'brother' or 'family', to describe their close friends, but that didn't seem appropriate. I had family issues, and I wasn't really close in friendship terms with my brother or even my family as a whole. The closest thing around was a 'gay' relationship, in which (as the assumptions went) two men care about each other a lot, talk about their feelings and really deep, personal stuff. That's not something you see a lot of in the media or pop culture- with one obvious exception.
So my guess (and I stress guess) is that the jokes are there to keep the terms and relationship defined. He's not gay, you're not gay, and its important to stress that as the relationship grows deeper and more comfortable. Ironically this could be done by making lots of references to actually being gay, because the punchline, the kernal of truth in the situation, is that you are not.
Straight male role models when it comes to men relating personally and emotionally to other men are virtually non-existant, so while wandering around in unexplored territory, sometimes it's easier to know more about what you are not rather than what you actually are. Even the words 'brotherly love' have a distinctly homo-erotic tone to them, even though loving someone has ziltch to do with being sexually attracted to them. The cultural influence against straight guys being emotional creatures, especiallywith other straight guys is so staggering, so overwhelming, that the language to objectively describe that relationship without gay overtones is impossible.
Cracking jokes lets you define the terms without the language. It allows simply rolling with the overtones that would be present but cancelling out thier meaning through use of humor. It doesn't mean everything is true, only that that there are true and untrue elements present within the same line of thinking.
He has not come out, and I only want him to come out if that would make him happier.
I've considered the fact that he just sincerly has platonic feelings towards me, and that he appreciates me as a friend for caring about him and he doesn't know a way to show it other than these estranged jokes. It makes sense, and I hope that it's true only for the sake of simplifying things, but deep down I feel like there is something more going on here.
These jokes, to me, feel likes crys for help and that is why I am looking for advice to properly respond to them. It is kind of hard to describe the situation without it sounding like I am over reacting or under reacting.
Am I selfish for having this perspective? I don't necessarily feel that way, I just want him to be happy and am seeing some serious complications here. If his new happiness is dependant on these possible false hopes of being romantically involved with me, yeah I feel like there is a problem brewing. I, nor anyone, can be that kind of crutch for long, romantic or not. I've learned that I shouldn't attempt being that crutch, as much as I'd like to.
Yes, I'd love to see him in therapy. Hell I'd love to see almost all my friends in therapy.
I like the advice you offer, Mr. and Mrs. Sammy, thank you.