Most women dream of having a relationship that is as cool and as much fun as the one shared between Will and Grace. A guy you can lech at other guys with, fight about whether beige works better than pink, watch Oprah with (he more religiously than you), buy blackhead removers, cry at movies, cuddle and hold hands (and not worry where THAT is going) with. Gay best friends are for fun, boyfriends are for sex, and the twain shall never mind the other. That was how it was since time started and ‘Will & Grace’ became a hit. You looked at their relationship and though you wished that Will would just give up the gay act and get together with his best friend, you envied the friendship they shared.

On the outside looking in
And if Grace can have it good, why can’t you? Your boyfriend is totally cool with your gay best friend - the incredibly good looking guy with an even better sense of humour. Threat, jealousy - what are you talking about?! He is gay, he is ‘safe’!

Shruti, 27, had thought she had a good thing going till it blew up in her face. A copywriter in a leading advertising agency, she had found her best friend in Ravi, the gay art director. "We would do all the stuff that I would do with my girlfriends but this was so much more fun," she smiles. "And the guy talk is so much more insightful! And when Deepak met Ravi, I didn’t have to worry about whether he thought my best friend’s ass was more attractive than mine." However, she soon had to start worrying whether she would have to explain every time a dinner ‘date’ (after the shopping and the movie) with Ravi stretched a tad too long. "It started getting suffocating after a while," says Shruti looking back on her relationship with Deepak. "Ravi had been my best friend for ages and had been there for me at every important juncture of my life. Now suddenly, to have someone much newer in my life frowning upon my relationship with him was unnerving. I mean if you can’t trust me, if you can’t be confident of yourself, I don’t think the relationship can go anywhere."

"Well, she seemed to be having so much fun with him," counters Deepak. "I was the boyfriend and not being a priority sucked. And all the fun stories seemed to be about him. I was dispensable," he shrugs. Relationship counsellor Rashmi Das feels that the guys just can’t trust another guy with their girls. And the other guy being gay is only seen as a claim, never a certainty, unless he is steady with another guy. "There is always that question of ‘is he really...’ that creates an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion.

It took Vivek a long time before he could accept that his boyfriend, Ayush, was really gay simply because of Ayush’s gorgeous female friend, Kanika. "Kanika was physically so comfortable with him that it would get uncomfortable for me," he said. "She is attractive enough to tempt any guy to try the last dirty trick to get close to her. What if Ayush was secretly bi? I just couldn’t trust him," he adds. Terrific heartburn and many sleepless nights later, Vivek says he has finally come to appreciate the relationship that Ayush and Kanika share. "I am still jealous but in a very different sense. I am more secure in my relationship and I am getting to know Ayush better and that makes a lot of things easier." Well that story sure ended well, but look, the ‘J’ word’s come up again.

The ‘J’ word
If you think only ‘the other’ bears the brunt of this kind of relationship, you have another think coming. When Will gets himself a great guy and Grace is left out in the cold, the J-factor rears its ugly green head. "Girls are definitely more possessive when it comes to their friends and find it very hard to let go. At this point, many girls might even try to evoke heterosexual sensibilities to ‘retain’ the friendship," says Das.

Swastika would vouch for that. When Akash, her gay best friend, started going out with Prasad, she was all excited about it and supplied him with all the tips and tricks of the trade. But as Akash and Prasad started getting serious about each other and spending more time together, she just couldn’t accept the fact that a guy was ‘taking’ her friend away. "I actually started dressing provocatively and came onto him strongly," she confesses. "He could not figure out why I was behaving so weirdly. It took some time but I finally reconciled myself to being the platonic best friend." says Swastika.

Then there are the happily-ever-after stories where everything just turns out fine. Sameer and Rashi had shared the ‘Will & Grace’ equation for years before Atul
came into her life. Atul and Sameer got along famously and the trio had a blast hanging out together.

"I got freaked out for a while about Sameer being bisexual, but now that’s just an idle fantasy," says Rashi with a grin on her face and Sameer on her arm.

Jealousy is part and parcel of any relationship. When it comes to gay men and straight women, it manages to acquire dimensions that seem a tad too complicated. If you can just let trust work its way around the sexuality bit and give yourself a fair chance, ‘three’ can be the most awesome crowd you partied with.