If someone says these words, they just might be gay

Queer people have plenty of signals to let one another know we’re part of the alphabet mafia. That includes vocabulary: there are certain words and phrases that straight people simply don’t know like we do.

On Reddit, gay guys sounded off on which words immediately let them know that another person is gay — and which words mean someone is painfully straight.

Overall, folks agreed that the more dramatic a word, the gayer it seems. “Fabulous,” “fierce,” and “obsessed” were all given as examples of gay-guy tells. There’s also this hyper-specific case that’s somehow totally relatable: “When instead of saying ‘no’ to his misbehaving French bulldog he says ‘absolutely not.’”

Then there are the … uh, habits that are synonymous with gay partying. Anyone referring to “video head cleaner” is either old enough to remember when that was actually a cleaning product, or they’re familiar with its other uses.

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The reverse is true, too. “I had a friend once who said, ‘Hey, you do like poppers?’ And I just stared at him, amazed he was so brazen,” said one user. “Turns out he meant those deep fried jalapeno peppers stuffed with cheese, and he was suggesting we go out for a snack.”

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There are also certain medications like PrEP and DoxyPEP that — while they may be a good idea for straight people to use — are much more common among queer folks. 

Even among pharmacists, there’s a divide in fluency, as one user recalled: “Last year I got a cute new pharmacist I was curious about. When he rang up my prescription he paused to think and pronounced it ‘true-vay-da?’ and I realized he definitely didn’t play for the same team.”

Another marker of a gay person (a rainbow flag, if you will) is if they get ultra-specific about colors, some Redditors said.

“Mauve, lavender, turquoise, coral, salmon, fuschia, azure, cerulean, aquamarine, teal,” one wrote. “If he isn’t literally in the process of landscape painting, he’s gay.”

Too much self-care knowledge is also an indicator, because straight guys have unfortunately deemed it gay to maintain your hygiene. 

“I​​ remember being outed in the military ‘cause I said ‘esthetician,’” one user recalled.

Of course, it’s never a good idea to rely too heavily on stereotypes. Queer folks (and straight folks) are fabulously diverse, including with their vocabularies. But if someone refers to their “shirt” as a “top,” it’s pretty safe to assume.

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