There are endless theories on what makes people gay, from genetics, to hormones, to the environment — but blaming a “temporary” spell of gayness on the mountain air? That’s a new one.
The idea comes courtesy of a confused girlfriend, who took to Reddit to explain that her boyfriend of three years cheated on her with a man during a work trip to Utah. When she asked if that meant he was gay, he gave her an unorthodox excuse.
“He insisted he was not gay at all but ‘the strangest thing happened,’” she wrote. “He said that when he was at dinner with his Utah co-workers, he ‘suddenly became gay.’ I was like…what? What the f*ck? He said he thinks it was ‘due to the altitude.’”
Yes, you read that right. He claims that visiting Utah, the state with the third-highest average elevation in the U.S., made him spontaneously fruity. According to him, it made perfect sense: “He said that higher altitudes can have an impact on how people think, and on their emotions, and he thinks that the high altitude made him gay, temporarily,” his girlfriend explained. “He said that as soon as he landed back home he was ‘back to being straight.’”
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“He said he had done a lot of thinking on the drive back from the airport and he ‘confirmed within himself that he is straight’ and that his ‘only conclusion’ could be that he was ‘temporarily turned gay due to the attitude,’” she continued.
The girlfriend explained that though he cheated on her, he thought she was being unreasonable for wanting to break up, considering he didn’t mean to “become gay” and it was beyond his control. “He said it wasn’t his fault and that ‘human actions are just a byproduct of accidental brain chemistry’ and that ‘his chemistry had been altered, through no fault of his own, due to the higher altitudes of Utah,’” she concluded.
Though the boyfriend’s excuse is undoubtedly ridiculous, the theoretical implications of high altitudes making people gayer are well worth considering. When screenshots of the post made their way to social media, the theories were flying, from considering how everyone must briefly become gay while on airplanes, and how those of us who are already gay at sea level could reach maximum power in the mountains.
If I'm gay at sea level, imagine my powers if I climb up a mountain….
— Julio Ponce (@jasonptodd) October 28, 2024
poppers are actually just hits of Utah air
— Josh Trebach, MD (@jtrebach) October 28, 2024
For the sake of gays everywhere, let’s hope the boyfriend is telling the truth. It sounds like the Utah air could do us all some good.
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