The first time somebody wanted to be my fag hag, it was the year 2000, I was 16 years old, and I was sitting in the back of a high school physics class. A fun South Asian girl to whom I'd recently admitted I was a "flaming homosexual" was chatting with me about her boy problems, and, at some point, the discussion veered onto familiar territory: "Will & Grace," the hit NBC show about a gay man living with his straight female friend. I don't remember much of the conversation. I do remember the following: She told me that she was going to be the "Grace" to my "Will," and then uttered the words that would haunt me for years to come, "I want to be your fag hag."
Of the many gifts that "Will & Grace" bestowed upon my generation of gay men -- increased visibility, cultural cachet, a naive understanding of New York apartment sizes -- one of the most significant was the popularization of the fag hag (a term the show's buttoned-down characters were too demure to even utter on air). The sitcom made being a gay man with a female best friend seem pretty darn fun. Will and Grace had a fabulous Upper West Side apartment. They had dinner parties, and screwball banter, and sassy, sassy friends. Their life was a series of hilarious pratfalls.
